Most of
you probably saw my earlier post expressing my disappointment with the Supreme
Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case.
I want to take a little time here to delve deeper into my disappointment
with that ruling.
For
starters a corporation is not an individual that holds religious beliefs. Yes, I’ve read the opinions and I know how
Justice Alito is invoking the Dictionary Act to say otherwise, but I have to
disagree. Corporations don’t attend
church. Their owners might, their
employees might, but the corporation does not attend church. The corporation does not sign the attendance
pad; it is not listed on the membership rolls of the local church.
Second,
check out
Part
II of Justice Ginsberg’s dissenting opinion.
It seems that a big part of the argument here
surrounds the Free Exercise clause.
In
an earlier case, the Court held that an employer could deny unemployment
benefits to two employees who were fired after participating in a religious
ceremony that involved activities deemed illegal by the state (consuming
peyote).
In that case the court ruled
that Oregon’s law against consuming peyote was not aimed at curtailing freedom
of religion.
It did have an incidental
effect on certain aspects of a religious ceremony, but it’s purpose was not to
limit the free exercise of religion.
Ginsburg argues that the contraception mandate within the ACA fits
within this same context.
It is an
otherwise valid law whose purpose is the well-being of women.
It’s effect on the exercise of religion is
incidental.
Third, the
Court has decided that the religious views of a corporation, as expressed by
the owner(s), trumps the freedoms and beliefs of the workers employed
there. That kind of view does tremendous
harm to a large number of people. The
Court is elevating the beliefs of a small handful of people over those of the
thousands of affected employees. Again,
check Ginsburg’s dissent. She clearly
states, “Accommodations to religious beliefs or observances, the Court has
clarified, must not significantly impinge on the interests of third parties.” So the Court has, in previous rulings, made
it clear that the religious beliefs of a few people cannot be accommodated if
they seriously affect the interests of third parties. In the Hobby Lobby case, accommodating the
rights of the owner causes serious harm to all the affected third parties. Now the thousands of female employees who
need birth control will need to go through alternate means to obtain such care.
Fourth,
despite the efforts of Justices Alito and Kennedy to narrowly define their
ruling as only applying to contraception, they are opening the court up to
further challenges along this same line of reasoning. Say, a Jehovah’s Witness owns a for-profit
business. It is well-known that Jehovah’s
Witnesses object to blood transfusions.
Even though the majority opinion seeks to eliminate this possibility, it’s
not unreasonable to expect someone to try to launch a case.
Fifth,
why do religious beliefs about contraception get elevated above other religious
beliefs.
If the Court is going to grant
a corporation an exemption from complying with laws regarding contraceptive
coverage, why won’t the Court grant exemptions from covering vaccines or
blood-transfusions?
There are religious
groups whose views on those subjects are held just as strongly and sincerely as
David Green holds his views on contraception.
Check out
Kevin
Russell’s analysis on scotusblog.com.
It’s not just medical issues that might be challenged; there’s a broad
range of possibilities that could be brought before the Court.
Sixth,
why does a corporation get to inject itself into the personal life of
women. There are any number of reasons
why a woman would choose to use birth control.
There may be strong medical reasons a woman shouldn’t get pregnant and
she should be able to take necessary steps to prevent that from happening. Decisions regarding one’s personal health
should be left to that individual and his/her doctor.
Seventh,
there are fundamental differences, including legal ones, between for-profit
companies and non-profit organizations.
UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief) is a non-profit
organization sustained by the United Methodist Church. Its aim is to provide relief in disaster
situations within the context of the United Methodist Church. The people who work for and support UMCOR are
connected by their United Methodist faith.
Hobby Lobby sells arts and crafts supplies. The people who work at Hobby Lobby are not
connected by any religious affiliation.
Some may be Christian, others Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, atheist, etc. Justice Ginsburg makes are very strong
argument on this subject in Part III-C-1 of her dissent.
Lastly,
I have a problem with Justice Alito’s solution to the problem. He suggests that the government pick up the
tab for providing adequate contraceptive coverage for women employed by Hobby
Lobby. The government has already
created a program to cover birth control for women who work for religious non-profits
or other clearly defined religious organizations. Justice Alito seems to think this is an easy
solution – since this secular company is owned by a religious man with
religious beliefs, let’s just include his company in the same group as
non-profit organizations. What happens
when a company files suit to avoid having its insurance pay for vaccines or
blood transfusions? Is the Court going
to say, “no problem, just have the government pay for it.” The government, by the way, means you and me
and taxpayers everywhere. If we have to
create/expand a government program to provide increasing amounts of health
coverage to individuals (since the employers won’t cover it due to “religious
grounds”), we’re going to pay more in taxes.
