5 things to know about Joe Biden

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Thursday, March 12, 2020

3. Served as vice president when the Obama administration enacted policies opposed by Christian conservatives 

After Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008, Biden was chosen as his running mate. 

After victory in the 2008 general election, Biden became the vice president in January 2009. He was part of an administration that worked hard to implement progressive policies often opposed by Christian conservatives who felt their religious freedoms were under attack.

Among policies that faced scrutiny from social conservatives included a mandate under the Affordable Care Act requiring some faith-based employers to provide birth control coverage and abortion-inducing drugs to employees through their healthcare plans. 

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The mandate has been challenged by different organizations over the last several years. Most notably, the Little Sisters of the Poor — an order of Catholic nuns — had their case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. 

Although the case was remanded back to lower courts in 2016, the order of Catholic nuns will head back to the Supreme Court this year as the Trump administration’s provision of religious exemptions to the Obamacare mandate was struck down by a lower court. 

Under Obamacare, the administration also tried to force faith-based insurers, doctors and medical providers to cover gender transition surgeries for trans-identified individuals even if such procedures went against their religious convictions. 

Obama also signed an executive order in 2014 barring faith-based federal contractors (such as Christian colleges) from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. President Donald Trump later provided exemptions to faith-based contractors with religious objections to homosexuality or trans identification. 

During the Obama administration, the Department of Education advised school districts nationwide to allow trans-identified students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers consistent with their gender identity instead of their sex, which caused concern for many students who feared their privacy rights would be violated. The Obama administration’s guidance to school districts was rescinded by the Trump administration in 2017.

The Obama administration sued the state of North Carolina after the state passed a law requiring that bathroom use in state-owned buildings be regulated by birth sex. The North Carolina law also allowed businesses to decide for themselves what their bathroom policies would be.

During the Obama years, the administration was accused of using the Internal Revenue Service to target social conservative political groups applying for tax-exempt status. When pressed on the issue during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing in 2013, a top IRS official refused to answer hard questions related to the matter. 

Shortly before leaving office in January 2017, Obama awarded Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Obama said at the time that he awarded Biden the medal for “your faith in your fellow Americans, for your love of country and for your lifetime of service that will endure through the generations.”