[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 22, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H1506]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR

  (Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Supreme Court will 
hear arguments in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, and today, I 
stand in support of the Little Sisters.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an order of Catholic nuns who serve the elderly 
poor in 31 countries. We talk a lot about public service up here. Well, 
these are the people who live it. They are the definition of public 
service. In fact, I had the honor of hosting two of the Sisters at the 
State of the Union address this January, and I was amazed to hear all 
the good work that they do.
  So the last thing the Federal Government should do is make their jobs 
harder, but that, unfortunately, is exactly what this administration is 
doing. Under the healthcare law, the Department of Health and Human 
Services is insisting on a regulation that requires the Sisters to 
offer benefits that violate their religious beliefs.
  The administration claims to have offered them an ``accommodation,'' 
but it is just a fig leaf. So this is the choice that they are facing: 
either violate your faith, or pay up to $70 million a year in fines.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no good reason for any of this. A full one-
third of the American people are exempt from this regulation, so why 
insist that the Sisters, of all people, follow it? There are other ways 
to protect people's health that do not violate people's faith.
  Mr. Speaker, it is clear to anyone with eyes to see that this 
regulation is a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. A 
broad bipartisan majority in Congress voted for that law, and what 
Congress said was this: the burden is not on your faith to obey 
government mandates; the burden is on the government to respect your 
faith.
  Mr. Speaker, that is the very meaning of religious liberty. That is 
one of our founding principles, and that is why we should do everything 
we can to let people live out their faith. That is why many colleagues 
of mine and I have joined in an amicus brief asking the Court to grant 
the Sisters the relief that they deserve; and that is why I am here 
today: to stand in defense of the Sisters, to stand in defense of the 
law, and to stand in defense of religious liberty.

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