Hobby Lobby: Corporations Have Religious Rights
The Supreme Court on this day issued a major opinion, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which declared one section of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) in violation of the religious liberty of privately held corporations, and created a potentially serious civil liberties problem with respect to the free exercise of religion. The Court ruled that Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., was exempt from the ACA because its owner objected on religious grounds to the law’s requirements regarding some birth control devices.
The decision marked the first time that the Court had ruled that private corporations had religious rights. The ruling was limited to “privately held” corporations, excluding publicly held ones that are owned by stockholders. Hobby Lobby is owned entirely by the founder and his family. The Court did not base its ruling on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, but rather on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). See April 17, 1990; November 16, 1993; and June 25, 1997, for the law and its history.
The majority opinion specifically held that its ruling did not mean that race discrimination in employment could be “cloaked as a religious practice.” Many questions about related issues remained, however. A privately held corporation owned by people whose religious views regard homosexuality as a sin, for example, might claim the right not to employ or serve homosexuals. A similar corporation might claim that the religious views of its owners regard women as subservient to men and thereby claim exemption from equal employment opportunity laws.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by three other Justices, strongly attacked the Court’s ruling, arguing that the “exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities [meaning corporations].”
Learn more about the Hobby Lobby decision from the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/burwell-v-hobby-lobby-stores-conestoga-wood-specialties-corp-v
And more from Americans United: https://www.au.org/tags/hobby-lobby