Written by Don Byrd
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in 2 cases regarding the contraception coverage mandate for employers providing health insurance. The plaintiff companies argue the requirement forces their owners to violate their religious beliefs. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, they claim, prohibits the government from placing such a burden, even on for-profit companies.
As this Associated Press preview demonstrates, expressing the owners’ faith through company policy is not new for Hobby Lobby.
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.’s 600 U.S. craft shops close each Sunday, posting a notice that employees are spending the day with their families and at worship. It’s a visible sign that the company is as focused on honoring God as it is on making money.
That dual mission is at the core of an ideological showdown… set for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court next week. Hobby Lobby, a family-owned business that says it looks to the Bible for guidance, is seeking a religious exemption from the requirement that employers cover birth control as part of worker-insurance plans.
Hobby Lobby is asking the court to give for-profit corporations the same religious freedoms as individuals, with potentially sweeping rights to opt out of laws they say are immoral.
Well, I’m not sure that last sentence is necessarily true. The cases at issue here aren’t just any for-profit corporations but are closely-held, family-owned businesses, where the distinction between the corporate entity and its owners, they argue, is especially thin. More importantly, at issue is not the sweeping right to opt out of “immoral” laws, but the right to be covered by RFRA, which offers accommodation only for substantial burdens on religious exercise, and only then if the government cannot demonstrate a compelling interest for the burden.
Regardless of whether the court decides RFRA does or does not protect the plaintiffs in this case, it will not signal – or at least it should not signal – open season on laws companies find bothersome or disturbing. The Court can and hopefully will provide clarity on RFRA’s scope without undermining its fundamentally sound protection of religious freedom.
For more from the Baptist Joint Committee, read Brent Walker’s “RFRA’s constitutionality called into question” and Holly Hollman’s “BJC supports strong legal standard in contraceptive mandate cases.”
