Hobby Lobby and the SCOTUS decision

[Lou]

So far no one here on the BL boards has waded into the recent Supreme Court decision re. Hobby Lobby and one of the provisions of the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka 'Obamacare'). In the interest of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread, here I go...

In the midst of all the melodramatic hyperbole and doomsday hand-wringing from the political left over the Court's decision in favor of Hobby Lobby, it seems to me that something is being (conveniently) ignored: In their majority opinion, the Court cited as a precedent the 2006 SCOTUS decision to uphold the provisions of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as that Act applies to federal statutes. In other words, in the Hobby Lobby case the SCOTUS issued a ruling that was consistent with how they had previously ruled on another law (the RFRA).

And incidentally...that 1993 RFRA received nearly unanimous bi-partisan support in both houses of Congress (unanimous in the House of Representatives, and 97-3 in the Senate), and was signed into law by a Democrat president (Clinton); and its applicability in limiting federal laws that impact the free exercise of religion was upheld by UNANIMOUS vote of the Supreme Court in 2006. In deciding the Hobby Lobby case, the majority of justices simply agreed with what every single one of them (including the judicial liberals) had said back in 2006.

[Neil Heath]

Lou, I need to point out that I have seen both moderates and conservatives who posted their disagreement with the HL decision, so I don't think it's the political left alone that has a problem with it.

[Lou]

[KeithE]

[Lou]

[Stephen Fox]

The Hobby Lobby case is interesting indeed, and the horribles; well no one knows. There was an interesting chat, Lou, yesterday on NPR Fresh Air program about how Roberts is setting things up that could make the church state landscape anti-BJC in 25 years for sure.

Will be interesting to see how this plays at the American Truth conference at FBC Spartanburg S.C. in September, home of Trey Gowdy and billy Graham.

Lou, I trust you've read the Stansell piece on mendacity and the politics of abortion at New Republic.

[KeithE]

[Stephen Fox]

http://abpnews.com/opinion/commentaries ... -blundered

[KeithE]

[Lou]

Stephen, thanx for the heads up on the ABP article, which I'd not seen until now. I briefly scanned it, and plan to read it more thoroughly a bit later. At first glance, the writer makes (IMO) a much stronger case with her 2nd and 3rd points than she does with the 1st.

A phrase that is being given a lot of ink (or a lot of rearranged electrons) in this conversation is some variation or another on the theme of women being "denied the opportunity to make choices about reproductive healthcare"--a statement which is patently untrue. No one is being denied the opportunity to make choices; this Court decision was about who gets to foot the bill for those choices. Hobby Lobby's position is that they ought not be forced to pay for insurance which provides medicines which are abortifacient, but their employees are still completely free to take their prescription for those drugs to the local Walgreens and pay for them themselves. (That is where the ABP article's second, and much stronger, point comes in--whether a for-profit corporation should be accorded the same status as a church or other non-profit entity when it comes to making decisions about providing health insurance.) I read an interesting article this morning which stated that at least one of the drugs on the Hobby Lobby 'no' list can be had for less than 40 bucks at the local pharmacy, which is less than what I spent on my last Albuterol inhaler, even with my Blue Cross discount thrown in.

In any case, the business of permitting some medications and denying others for coverage by insurance companies is nothing new. It's certainly not a practice that begins only now that the SCOTUS ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby. There is not a health insurance policy now in force in this country that does not have exclusions and limitations written into it; and patients happily (OK, maybe not happily) adjust by seeking out the medicines or other treatments that their policies cover.

[Neil Heath]

An equally important question in my mind centers around the idea that we should allow the Greens to act on what they believe to be true, even if it isn't true at all. The medical info I have read uniformly agrees that the 4 methods in question do not cause abortions.

I have read that the court let stand some lower court rulings that allowed others to refuse paying for all contraceptives, not just those 4, and also instructed that some other cases be reviewed in light of the high court's ruling. This could get quite interesting...

Update: I found the story I had read on the expanding effects of the decision.

[Lou]

[Sandy]

I think the problem here is how to define the religious beliefs of a corporation. How is it that a corporation collectively holds a religious belief? And how is it a violation of individual religious freedom if the business they own, or partially own, can't be defined as a religious institution? Nor is the owner forced to pay insurance premiums for medications that they believe to be abortifacient, since it is not their money, but that of the corporation that pays the insurance premium.

This particular Supreme Court is the first one to apply constitutional rights to corporations and business entities that, in a strict constructionist view of the constitution, were intended to apply only to individual citizens. In the past, Supreme Court rulings have gone the other way, in preventing corporations from infringing on individual rights of employees and customers. If you can convince me that a corporation can experience conversion to Christian faith, then I'll concede that this Supreme Court decision was consistent with over 230 years of constitutional interpretation. If you think that they can be, then I guess you believe that pickles have souls.

[Neil Heath]

Two very good posts, Sandy! Thanks for thinking on this and sharing what you've come up with so far.

[Lou]

[Sandy]

No "shot" intended. I'm simply putting two things into the same category. Clearly, pickles do not have souls, neither can corporations experience a conversion to Christ, or to any religion. The Supreme Court has always, until now, defended individual rights against corporations, trusts, cartels, or other for-profit conglomorates. All of a sudden, it is creating a situation which allows individual rights to be trampled, and which is setting up a scenario that will allow corporate entities and business interests to buy the favor of the government by campaign contributions, and to use religious exemptions to increase their personal profit.

[William Thornton]

Sandy is as of now wrong. Corporations have certain first amendment rights. It is a thorny issue.

But I would ask my mod/lib friends to set aside the corporate hating and Democratic talking points, and for the piece linked above by Campbell-Reed, the buzzword rich women's rights stuff and consider the matter from this viewpoint.

Hobby Lobby is a closely held corporation, not a person, just a person for legal purposes. That's what corporations are. It's big but there are gazillions of small corporations. I'd bet many BLers are part of some either by ownership or employment. I'm part of a very small family corporation. What we do is as personal as if there were no corporate structure and the family all paid portions of every bill as a personal expense. Is there any real difference between my acts and the acts of the family corporation? Not really. If the corporation had a female employee (we have none) who, in the interest of controlling their bodies and reproductive health, decided to have a full term baby ripped from her womb and dismembered, should I and a few other family members be forced to pay for that? Is there some reason that gummit could not impose such a requirement that companies pay for partial term abortions of their employees if gummit so deemed it in the public interest?

You might argue that Hobby Lobby is far beyond what should be considered a closely held yet public corporation, perhaps that will be litigated, but the court made some provision for such entities and their religious beliefs. No one knows where it might go. Bruce speculates that Muslim corporations might require burqas of their female employees, and praying five times a day. That's a bit of nifty speculation. Others speculate that corporations might refuse to serve certain races. All that is shrill nonsense at this stage. Protecting religious freedom is a complicated thing. I see no lessening of the complexity.

I'd be more worried about gummit driving certain unfavored groups out of the commercial life of our nation under the guise of public welfare.

Since gummit has created a business environment that makes certain corporate structures advantageous, indispensible actually, to modern commerce, could gummit so act as to punish those individuals who wanted to engage in commerce in our society and maintain their moral principles? And could gummit act in response to certain constituencies so as to drive those of certain religious convictions from the economic life of our nation through both corporate law and health care or other mandates. You bet gummit could, would, and given the freedom to act, some legislative bodies would do so in a heartbeat. Although Campbell-Reed had a caveat about gummit requiring health care to be paid for by businesses, one might reasonably assume that she or those of similar mind would readily push gummit to so act.

If I were a big bidness hater like Sandy, or feel that the gummit should force, with guns and blood if necessary, citizens to act against their beliefs in order to make them pay for the health care of others, a position Timothy takes and others here, I'd might be worried about where this can go. I fear the power of gummit more than some fundy business owner. The former has guns, armies, and bullets. The latter has very little power.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Despite a bit of deliberate incendiary language this was one of your best post William.

As you say " I'd bet many BLers are part of some either by ownership or employment. " That is a good bet Most denominations and many churches are Incorperated.

[Dave Roberts]

For me, as for many I'm reading here, this SCOTUS decision is neither a victory for Christians or corporations or liberty. I'm no legal scholar, but the application of religious rights to corporations can cause all sorts of havoc as individual rights are trumped by corporate rights. For example, a friend believes that the debt provisions of the Sabbath Year in the OT should be applied. Does that mean that someone believing this from a literal scriptural interpretation should be freed from all remaining debts after 7 years? Corporations, claiming to be Christian, certainly are selective literalists in their application of scripture.

I see nothing but endless litigation ahead with the flood gates opened by this decision. Companies with deep pockets will be looking for religious exceptions. I believe individuals will be the losers in the freedom as corporations get religion for their own gain.

Also, there was nothing in the Hobby Lobby decision that questioned the convictions of the Greens in the realm of science. In fact, the scientific evidence of how a couple of the named drugs work did not support their allegations about them. Have we opened a door where claims that are not supported by evidence now can become the law of the land? If so, we are in deeper waters legally than we dare to go.

[Lou]

I knew something was wrong with Sandy's logic, but it took reading William's post to realize what it was (for which I thank you William).

While it's true that corporations, in their definition as legal entities, are incapable of making moral choices, it is nonetheless true that corporations are capable of acting in ways that are either virtuous or evil. How is that possible? It's possible because corporate decisions aren't made by some nebulous business entity; they are made by people in positions of ownership and/or leadership within those corporations. If a corporation uses its resources to engage in business that is found to be illegal, the prosecutor doesn't gather up the corporate documents and have those documents arrested, or take the equipment that was used in the perpetration of the crime and throw it in jail. No, he finds the person responsible, and holds that person accountable. And if it's true that the owners of a business can be held legally liable (by the government) for the actions they take in that ownership role, it's also true that those owners ought not be forced (by the government) to act in ways that they believe to be morally wrong.

[Lou]

[Bruce Gourley]

The Hobby Lobby decision is a disaster for freedom of conscience, religious liberty and church state separation. Baptists in the 17th and 18th centuries gave their all to win freedom of conscience and religious liberty equally for all, and now the U.S. Supreme Court has legalized religious discrimination in the workplace. In short, .

This us unconscionable and diametrically opposed to our Baptist heritage, the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels as a whole.

[Sandy]

William completely sidestepped the issue. The fact of the matter is that there is no precedent, nor any constitutional support, for this ruling. The constitution allows the legislative branch of government to pass laws which regulate corporate and business entities, including regulations which protect their employees in matters of salary, benefits, hours and working conditions, and a whole host of other protections. It is the government (of the people) responsibility to be the line of defense for its citizens when it comes to employment standards. That's why there's an age requirement, why employers must meet certain safety standards and regulations, why they must pay social security, why there's a minimum wage. All of those laws, and accompanying Supreme Court rulings, are based on the constitution's guarantees of individual rights. This ruling allows the religious convictions of a majority shareholder, through their business operation, to impose their religious beliefs on their employees through their business practices.

William conveniently left out any references to precedent, because he's flat wrong, and there aren't any. First amendment rights are individual protections, including protection from the exploitation of corporate entities and business interests.

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Keith I agree. However when you write "And BTW, religious organizations (not for-profits organizations like Hobby Lobby) can choose to hire only those of their brand of religion currently.
I think it would convey your thought more clearly if you had started the parenthetical statement after "not". As it is on first read, it looks as if your are calling Hobby Lobby a "not for profit".

I hope our friend Bruce faces no real disaster.