Various courts considering lawsuits filed by religious organizations against the federal government to stop the application of the HHS contraceptives mandate have ruled that the lawsuits are not ready to be heard. The religious organizations are being shielded from the mandate for the time being by a “temporary enforcement safe harbor” and by the time that expires, there will be a suitable “accommodation” for these organizations’ conscience concerns-so says the federal government.

Of course, it isn’t clear to everyone that there can be a suitable accommodation-which, according to the government’s plans, will be something different than the exemption from the mandate that churches have been given. Whatever the accommodation will be, it will not fully exempt the religious organizations from having to offer insurance that somehow covers all FDA-approved contraceptive services, including emergency contraceptives that many believe act as abortifacients. And whatever it is, it will simply confirm the federal government’s pernicious two-class system: churches receive full religious freedom protections via an exemption; non-church religious organizations receive a lesser degree of protection. Worshipping God gets full First Amendment protection; serving neighbors because of love of God-not so much.

So the ruling of a federal judge last week in the lawsuit brought by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York is very significant. According to the judge, as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty reports, “There is no ‘Trust us[,] changes are coming’ clause in the Constitution.” Just because the federal government says it will fix the conscience problem with some not yet-specified change does not mean that an adequate change will actually be offered. And the one-year safe harbor is not a sufficient shield either: it takes time for an organization to negotiate changes to its health insurance contract and prepare new documentation for its employees.

More than that: it takes time for an organization with a deep religious objection to the mandate to decide what it will have to do if there is no satisfactory change in government policy. And it takes time for the organization to figure out how it will pay the extreme penalties it will be assessed if it decides not to comply with the contraceptives mandate.

Neither the time nor the penalties are trivial, as the several Catholic organizations involved in the New York suit pointed out to the government. As the judge noted in hisdecision to reject the government’s argument to dismiss the lawsuit, the Diocese of Rockville Centre needs nine months to make major plan adjustments and it faces penalties of up to $67 million per year. The Catholic Charities agency involved in the suit says it faces penalties of more than $9 million per year. Catholic Health Services of Long Island, another party to the lawsuit, claims it needs a year lead time to make major insurance changes-and that it could face up to $400 million per year in penalties for not complying with the contraceptives mandate!