A new attempt by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to placate religious organizations who are suing the government for forcing them to violate their beliefs in order to provide free contraception coverage to employees has once again fallen short of the mark with the revisions being described as just another “fig leaf” over an otherwise discriminatory mandate.

Fox News is reporting that conservative and religious groups are calling the new “accommodation” which was unveiled on Friday as “radically inadequate.”

Under the revision, nonprofit religious organizations like hospitals and schools will be permitted to offer coverage that does not include contraception. For those with insured plans, an insurer would be required to provide the insured with “no cost contraceptive coverage” through a separate policy. For those who are self-insured, a third party administrator would work with an insurer to set up the contraceptive coverage.

The new revisions were announced just weeks after a D.C. Court of Appeals ordered the administration to verify that it was revising the contested policy which it had been promising to do. However, religious groups were expecting much, much more than what was announced on Friday.

While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are still studying the revision, Christian legal organizations say it’s just another accounting gimmick.

“Today’s phony compromise from Health and Human Services only serves to illustrate the problem with Obamacare,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

“The Obama Administration is trying to gerrymander the regulations but continues to leave most Americans without their Constitutional freedoms. The regulation is clear that the Obama Administration’s intent is to limit religious liberty to houses of worship. Meanwhile Christian universities, for-profit businesses – like the Bible publisher Tyndale and Hobby Lobby — or individuals are still forced to subsidize Big Abortion. The Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the First Amendment Conscience rights of Americans, and that must be stopped.”

Helen Alvare, associate professor of law at George Mason University analyzed the new revision and said the Administration made the more expanded exemption “as narrow as possible” and left the conscience rights of non-religious employers completely unprotected.

“Their desperation to get contraception, early abortifacients and sterilization into the hands of every woman and girl would be comical if they weren’t in such deadly earnest,” Alvare said. “These new regulations are very long and very convoluted and very intent on exempting the fewest folks possible. I doubt most other provisions of the health care law have received this kind of attention.”

Her sentiments were echoed by Kyle Duncan, General Counsel of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm that is representing several clients who are suing the government over the mandate.

“Today’s proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious liberty of millions of Americans,” Duncan said. “The rights of family businesses like Hobby Lobby are still being violated. The Becket Fund continues to study what effect, if any, the Administration’s proposed rule has on the many lawsuits on behalf of non-profit religious organizations like Ave Maria University, Belmont Abbey College, Colorado Christian University, East Texas Baptist University, EWTN, Houston Baptist University, and Wheaton College.”

EWTN CEO Michael P. Warsaw was also disappointed by the revisions. The Network’s suit is still pending in the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama. After analysis of the proposed changes, he determined that while the rule might expand the religious exemption for some organizations directly affiliated with the Church, organizations such as EWTN will not qualify for an exemption.

“Today’s notice from the government simply kicks this can further down the road,” he said. “We will continue to study this notice with our attorneys, but are highly doubtful it will provide EWTN with any relief from this immoral mandate.  EWTN remains firmly committed to pressing forward with our case in the Federal Courts and will take all steps necessary to challenge this unjust mandate.”

Anna Higgins, J.D., director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Center, was also unimpressed by the revisions.

“The accounting gimmicks HHS is now proposing under the latest regulation fail to satisfy the religious freedom protections that exist in other current laws and in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “The proposal does not expand religious freedom to all organizations and does nothing to change the current policy that forces religious entities to pay for insurance plans that include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraception.”

She also points out that the mandate does nothing to protect women’s health.

“Rather, it threatens it by forcing religious employers into the untenable choice of violating their consciences or dropping health coverage for families and the women they employ. Since HHS and the Obama administration appear to be unwilling to protect religious liberty despite numerous court decisions against their violations, Congress must act again to preserve the constitutional right of religious freedom. Until Congress or the courts solve this problem, institutions must decide between civil disobedience coupled with large fines or violating their faith.”

Even though a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said that the rule is “not yet final”, it is obvious to all that the Administration has no intention of honoring the conscience rights of Americans.

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