The Supreme Court ruling on Hobby Lobby is being hailed by the political right as a victory for religious freedom, and by the political left as a slippery slope down on the way to religious tyranny. Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed an amicus brief supporting the Obama administration against Hobby Lobby, as well as the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). While they both agreed in their conclusions, they differed in their argument. The FFRF argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 is unconstitutional, therefore provisions from it should not be used to justify religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act's provisions. Americans United focused on the fact that we live in a pluralistic society where secular corporations are not entitled to the rights of individuals under the RFRA. Additional information about the RFRA can be found here. The American Humanist Association signed on to an amicus brief supporting the government's position requiring compliance by Hobby Lobby; this brief was also signed by the Center for Inquiry, American Atheists, the Military Association for Atheists and Freethinkers, and the Insititute for Science and Human Values.
EHST has long supported the principle of separation of church and state, as has its national organization, the American Ethical Union. We invite readers to weigh in on this issue. I think all sides in this case agree that this issue is resolved for Hobby Lobby, but the future of "religious freedom" in America is far from over.
Jeff Brubaker says
I just read WaPo’s background on the case, written in March, before the oral arguments, which includes the below great quote from Rev. Barry Lynn about the RFRA. This is the excerpt from the article:
——-‘The vaunted left-right alliance on RFRA has fallen apart over such claims [i.e. by corporations]. “If anyone had ever come up with a scenario like what’s been proposed by Hobby Lobby, that coalition would have exploded like someone hitting a watermelon with a shotgun,” said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “There would have never been a Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”’——-
The link to the article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/24/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-hobby-lobby-case/
Helen Wolfson says
So, I’m no legal expert, but don’t people incorporate to protect themselves from legal responsibility as individuals? So does this decision let them have their cake and eat it too? They can be a corporation if I want to sue them for a product that causes me harm, but they can be an individual when it suits them? It can’t be that simple, I suppose, but I’d like to know the fallacy of my thinking.
Jack van Dijk says
The fallacy is in the sentence “I am no legal expert”. Laws need not to only understandable by attorneys, laws are the results of norms accepted by society, codification of an agreed upon rule so to say. The law therefore has to be understandable for all involved. Yes, a law regarding intellectual property may very well be less clear to the average person on the street, but that person does not deal with intellectual property.
There used to be non-lawyers in the Supreme Court, businessmen, that would greatly contribute to the clarity of their opinions. It would avoid endless hairsplitting over each word and comma of a text. I did read article 1 of the groundlaw of my home country and it says what it means: all people are equal. Look at the article about guns, it says: “within a regulated militia” and the NRA left that second part off the article when they wrote it in the wall of their HQ. How misguided can a population be?
Chris Kaman says
Helen, I think that corporations want it both ways. In that way alone they are like people. The US Constitution begins with “we the people of the United States” rather than “we the corporations of the United States”. I think we stray very far from our founding when we give corporations the same rights as we do people.
Jack van Dijk says
There is an old saying that America is the country with large freedoms and small tyrannies. It occurs to me that more and more the freedoms are getting smaller and the tyrannies larger.
Jason says
The outcome of the ruling is spot-on. The reasoning, however, is highly suspect. The SCOTUS appears to have implicitly endorsed opposition to abortion-inducing contraception as a “valid” religious view while rejecting opposition to contraception in general as an “invalid” religious view. I wonder why I cannot object on religious grounds to paying taxes for war, torture, and extraordinary rendition.
There is an inherent inconsistency between the idea of national sovereignty and that of religious freedom. If the state has legitimate authority to compel certain behaviors and ban other behaviors, sooner or later, that authority *will* come into conflict with *someone’s* religion.
Chris Kaman says
Jason, I agree that this issue is about the power of the state to enforce laws across all religions, or at least religiously held corporations. Exceptions have already been made, and it’s time to draw the line with corporations. Of course, the real problem I think is that the ACA did not drop employer provided healthcare. If the government had been the insurer as it is with Medicare and Medicaid, this would not be an issue. I think it is time for single-payer healthcare.