\n\tTwo views of the role of religion in American public life clashed this spring in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. On one side attorneys for
\n\tthe government argued that religious conviction is really a private, personal matter that should be kept at home, or within the confines of the church and
\n\tits closely connected ministries. On the other side attorneys for Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties, family-owned, corporate businesses,
\n\targued that businesspersons cannot be expected to leave their private moral and religious convictions at home when they enter the business world.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt issue in this case were provisions of the \u201cPatient Protection and Affordable Care Act\u201d (PPACA, popularly known as Obamacare) that require private
\n\temployers who provide medical insurance to make available a wide range of contraceptive options to their employees. On the government\u2019s required list are
\n\tfour contraceptives that operate after conceptions and implantation of the fertilized egg. Some medical experts use the term abortifacients for these drugs
\n\tthat induce abortions.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe owners of Hobby Lobby, the Green family, who run their large chain of hobby stores, have strong religious convictions against abortion. The PPACA has
\n\texemptions from these provisions for churches and their closely affiliated ministries. But there is no exemption for businesses and private companies, no
\n\tmatter how large or small, or how strong their owner\u2019s religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
\n\tHobby Lobby is, by any measure, a large company. It has more than 500 stores and thousands of employees. But the depth and sincerity of the Green family\u2019s
\n\treligious convictions is also unquestioned. David Green, who founded the company in his garage, is the son of a preacher and says that he built the
\n\tbusiness on biblical principles. The company plays Christian music in their stores, pays their employees at least double the minimum wage, and closes on
\n\tSundays, a busy retail day.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut the family\u2019s commitment to religious values goes even beyond these apparent business sacrifices. David Green, according to Forbes<\/em>, donates one \n\tDespite this impressive evidence of deep religious conviction and commitment, David Green and his family are faced with a skepticism that their religion \n\tThe oral arguments revolved around three subquestions, the answers to which will shape the future of religious freedom in the business world, and hence in From the arguments it would seem that a clear majority of the justices believed that corporations, at least privately held ones, with a small ownership \n\tShould the majority decide that indeed businesses do have basic religious freedoms, this will help provide clarity to a range of disputes in society, \n\tBut beyond the wedding industry, the principle that business owners can, and even should, consult moral and religious teachings in operating their Again, a majority of the Court suggested that the right to religious freedom itself only made sense in the context of some amount of inconvenience to the \n\tMinority rights of any kind only become an issue when they annoy, intrude, or otherwise inconvenience some other party. Still, as a country we think rights \n\tThe government attorney made a great deal of the fact that no business or company had prevailed on a First Amendment religious-freedom exercise claim in \n\tThe Court\u2019s answer to this question may seem to be less clear than the first one. But a majority of the justices do seem to be leaning toward giving The most difficult question the Court faces is this final one: Should the religious convictions of business owners be allowed to significantly infringe the \n\tA case in point is that of the employees of Hobby Lobby. Probably many of them have no moral objection to abortifacients and would like to use this form of \n\tBut other cases may not be so easy. The liberal justices asked, \u201cWhat about the company that does not believe in contraceptives at all? Or business owners \n\tThe Court seemed to be searching for some guidance to these questions. One principle that a majority proposed was that religious convictions will probably \n\tThe Court also acknowledged that religious freedom is not an absolute right; it must be balanced against the compelling interest of the state in protecting \n\tToo often these days rights groups want to make their right absolute, whether it be race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. But the reality is that \n\tThere is some danger of this result, as the Court has shown a willingness to extend freedoms to corporations at the expense of the individual. We saw this \n\tUltimately, we can hope for, and the justices seemed open to, a decision that would grant business owners meaningful religious freedom, but in a manner Two views of the role of religion in American public life clashed this spring in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. On one side attorneys for the government argued that religious conviction is really a private, personal matter that should be kept at home, or within the confines of the church and its closely<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-6268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-august-2014","tag-july-august-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\thalf of the company\u2019s pretax earnings to Christian causes. Over the years he has funded Christian colleges and universities, Christian missions, and the
\n\tdistribution of nearly 1.5 billion pieces of gospel literature. Over the years these gifts have totaled nearly $500 million.*<\/p>\n
\n\tshould be taken seriously by the government and the business world. The fundamental question faced by the Supreme Court: Is religion a hobby that the
\n\towners of Hobby Lobby and similar businesses must leave at home?<\/p>\n
\n\tmany of our lives, for years to come. These questions, and possible answers, are:<\/p>\nCan corporate owners bring their moral and religious convictions into the commercial marketplace and use them to shape their business decisions and
\n\tactions?<\/h2>\n
\n\tgroup, should at least have the right to raise claims of religious freedom and conscience on behalf of their companies. From left-leaning justices such as
\n\tStephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, to those on the right, such as Antonin Scalia and Chief John Roberts, the message was sent that it would be going too far
\n\tto say that incorporating as a business prevented the raising of a religious-freedom claim.an for-profit businesses, as opposed to churches or not-for-profit religious institutions, assert religious rights at all? In short, can a corporation have
\n\ta conscience? This is not such a strange idea, as the Court has previously ruled that corporations are persons under the Constitution, and that as such
\n\tthey have free- speech rights that protect them in their expression of political advocacy.<\/p>\n
\n\tincluding the balance between religious freedom and gay rights. Shortly after the Hobby Lobby argument the Court declined to hear a case from New Mexico in
\n\twhich a photographer was successfully sued for refusing, on religious grounds, to take pictures at a lesbian commitment ceremony. Should the Supreme Court
\n\tin Hobby Lobby make clear that businesses have religious freedom rights, it will provide greater protections for a variety of Christian businesses,
\n\tincluding florists, bakers, photographers, and wedding caterers, to service clients consistently with their religious convictions.<\/p>\n
\n\tbusinesses should be good for business, and the country, generally. The financial meltdown of 2007 happened in good part because business leaders consulted
\n\tonly their short-term financial interests, and not larger moral or religious principles. To paraphrase Thomas More: \u201cWhen executives forsake their own
\n\tprivate consciences for the sake of their business duties, they lead their business, and their country, by a short route to chaos.\u201d Hopefully the Catholic
\n\tmajority on the Court can make room for principles of morality and conscience in America\u2019s marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\tCan the religious convictions of corporate leaders be allowed to inconvenience others or the government?<\/h2>\n
\n\tgovernment and others. Exempting conscientious objectors from the army, allowing employees their holy days off, providing kosher foods in jail, all these
\n\trequire some extra effort or expense on the part of the government, or even private citizens.question related to the first is: Even if businesses can invoke religious freedom, should they be able to do so if it inconveniences other citizens or the
\n\tgovernment? The discussion of this point before the Court revolved around the question of whether the government could find some alternate way of meeting
\n\tits interest of providing family-planning health care to employees. Could the government, asked some justices, be required to directly supply the disputed
\n\tcontraceptive services to employees should their employers have conscientious objections to it?<\/p>\n
\n\tare sufficiently important to accept at least some level of inconvenience in their vindication. Why should this calculus be any different for
\n\tbusinesspeople than for employees or other persons in society? Do we sign away our religious rights when we obtain a business license?<\/p>\n
\n\tthe history of the Supreme Court. The plaintiff\u2019s attorney pointed out, however, that the Court had considered a number of free-exercise cases involving
\n\tbusinesses, and although the businesses had lost, the Court had never ruled that they did not actually have the rights to religious freedom because they
\n\twere businesses.<\/p>\n
\n\tbusinesses, at least closely held ones, the benefit of meaningful religious freedom protection, even if it causes some inconvenience to others. Again, this
\n\tseems the right result for a country that is committed to the religious freedom of all, and was based on the belief that a republic and its marketplaces
\n\tcould only flourish as morality and virtue was seen in its citizens, including its merchants.<\/p>\n\n\tCan corporate morality or religious belief be used to trump the individual morality and freedom of employees?<\/h2>\n
\n\tmoral views, rights, and freedoms of its employees? At one level, it is fine to say that the state must endure some inconvenience to accommodate the
\n\treligious convictions of business executives. But when should those convictions be allowed to impact the hundreds, and even thousands, of employees of
\n\tcompanies, when those employees do not share those values and convictions?<\/p>\n
\n\tbirth control. If Hobby Lobby refuses to provide it, does this become an infringement of their right to make private moral choices about family planning?
\n\tIn this case the infringement will probably not be great, as it was pointed out that the employees would have alternate sources of these services, either
\n\tthrough the government or by purchasing the relatively low-cost products directly themselves.<\/p>\n
\n\tthat have religious objections to vaccines, antibiotics, or blood transfusions?\u201d Such convictions could keep very important, even life-sustaining, medical
\n\tcare from employees who would otherwise be unable to purchase or obtain these services. And what about business owners that might have religious
\n\tconvictions against the mixing of the races, or women in the workplace? How far are we willing to bend or break our other discrimination laws to
\n\taccommodate these more extreme convictions?<\/p>\n
\n\tbe limited to privately, versus publicly, held corporations. Companies owned by a large number of shareholders will have a great deal of difficulty in
\n\tshowing a shared, common religious conviction. So the protection will likely be limited to closely held companies run by individuals or families with a
\n\tshared sense of religious identity. This will often limit the size of the company, though as Hobby Lobby itself shows, there can be very large privately
\n\theld companies.<\/p>\n
\n\tthe life, liberty, health, and property of all its citizens. Religious convictions that could threaten the basic health and life of others will not, as
\n\tcase law has already shown, be given legal protection. As far as other socially offensive views relating to race or gender or, increasingly these days,
\n\tsexual orientation, the Court will probably have to take these on a case-by-case basis. The result in any given case will depend on the size and nature of
\n\tthe business, the magnitude of the impact on the protected class, and the nature of the burden on the religious practice.<\/p>\n
\n\tall rights exist in a balance and tension with other rights. Religious freedom could actually be injured if the Court extends too absolute a right of
\n\tfreedom to businesses, as corporate employees could see a corresponding loss of their own rights and freedoms in the workplace. While the Court should not
\n\ttreat religious liberty as a hobby, neither should it give business owners so much freedom that its employees are required to leave their own moral and
\n\treligious freedoms at home.<\/p>\n
\n\tin the case of Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC<\/em>, where the Court ruled that an elementary school teacher of a parochial school had no civil rights
\n\tprotections in the workplace because her church had designated her as a minister, despite the fact that she spent most of her time teaching secular
\n\tsubjects. We do not want religion sidelined as a hobby; but neither do we want it elevated as a right primarily for the powerful, whether measured by
\n\tmajoritarian support or financial resource and power.<\/p>\n
\n\tthat preserves and safeguards the civil and religious freedoms of their own employees. Anything less would be to replace state infringement of religious
\n\tfreedom with private business intrusions into personal freedoms. Hobby Lobby and its coplaintiffs should certainly understand the problem of forcing
\n\temployees to leave their basic freedoms at home when they come to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"