Metro Detroit — Catholic business owners in southeast Michigan are cheering the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision as a win for religious freedom, but say the fact that the issue escalated as far as it did points to a concerning trend.

“It’s a big judgment as far as preserving religious liberty,” said Dan Weingartz on the June 30 Supreme Court decision that forcing business owners of faith to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs violates free exercise of religion as protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.



But, “I think ultimately the celebration is muted (since) we’re having these discussions at all,” added Weingartz, a Catholic and president of family-owned and operated Weingartz Supply Co., an outdoor power equipment business based in Ann Arbor.

“Because all it’s doing is preserving what we had,” he said of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. “But ultimately in terms of where our government and culture are moving, it’s a good day.”

Weingartz Supply Co. was part of a 2012 lawsuit filed with Legatus against the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) mandate, arguing that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act violated conscience rights by mandating coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.

Weingartz said especially as the decision relates to business owners of faith, “it allows us to continue to run our business according to our principles.”

He said it was “a little disconcerting” that the verdict came to 5-4, but is relieved regardless.

“We said before that this was the fight that found us,” said Weingartz, a member of St. Lawrence Parish in Utica. “We were at a loss with how we’d continue to operate our business in terms of our Catholic principles.”

“In some ways we’ve been called courageous; we don’t feel that way. We never felt we’d have to be involved in a lawsuit against the federal government,” he added.



Erin Mersino, trial counsel at the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, which represented Weingartz’s case, told The Michigan Catholic that many reports have “misconstrued or eroded the legal precedence” of the June 30 decision.

The decision essentially made it “illegal to impose the HHS mandate on business owners who have a religious objection,” she said. “What we’re going to see is a restoration of our religious freedom the same as it was before the mandate was enacted. This isn’t anything radical; the court decision has preserved what we had.”

Mersino attended the oral argument and witnessed the families of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods’ owners there, as well as the president of Planned Parenthood.

“I can tell you that the (individuals) that had their families and livelihood at stake were more distraught,” Mersino said. “For the individuals who have brought these cases, this really was a means of sustaining their livelihood and a true testament of their faith to bring these cases.”



For Bruce Barron, president of Oxford-based Barron Industries, Inc., whose own lawsuit challenging the mandate was also represented by the Thomas More Law Center, “we’ve always provided our employees with a very good health insurance plan and hope to continue it.”

Barron is a Catholic and frequently provides a conference room for a priest to celebrate Mass for employees, and doesn’t shy away from religious art in the building.

“You used to be able to exclude things like contraception, but then primary insurance providers wouldn’t write a standard policy with those types of exclusions,” said Barron, explaining that their case, like Weingartz’s, “would be stayed on the outcome of the Hobby Lobby decisions.”

Barron did not want to create a financial burden for his employees, but he did not want to be forced to provide contraception.

He agreed that the close decision of 5-4 was “a little bit concerning,” but he thought, “OK, there is some hope on the Supreme Court level as mandated in our Constitution.”

“There are plenty opportunities for people to make their own choices, but they don’t need to force us in the Catholic and Christian community to offer the same things against our moral consciences,” he said. “We can provide great health care plans to our employees but not be forced to include a plan for contraceptives.”