Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties cases wherein those corporations claim that the contraception coverage mandate of the Affordable Health Care Act infringe on the "religious freedom" of the corporations, a claim that is ridiculous in my view because corporations are not people and thus, cannot hold religious beliefs. As SCOTUS Blog reports, based on the questions asked by the justices, it is unclear how the case may be decided and perhaps Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote. Even conservative columnist Ruth Marcus notes in an op-ed in the Washington Post the oddity of the posture of the case and how missing in the debate is the rights of employees of these Christofascist controlled corporations. My position on such claims is clear: religion and "conscience clauses" have no place in the secular law. Nothing in the contraception mandate deprives the owners of these companies of their right to freely practice their religion. All it does is not allow them to force their beliefs on others, which, of course, is what the Christofascists always seek to do. Here are editorial excerpts:
In the context of talking about limits on free speech, it’s common to say that your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. That seems like a sensible way to think about the freedom of religion case just argued before the Supreme Court: whether employers can be required to pay for contraceptive methods that would violate their religious convictions.
Most disputes about religious freedom are bilateral — with the government on one side and the individual claiming infringement of religious liberty on the other.
But Tuesday’s cases, involving Oklahoma-based crafts store Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania cabinetmaker Conestoga Wood Specialties, implicate a third party — the companies’ employees, and their rights under the Affordable Care Act to no-added-cost contraception. Respecting the religious claims of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood threatens to diminish the rights of their workers.
[T]o even get to that point requires addressing the central oddity of the case: the notion that corporations possess religious beliefs. The Citizens United campaign finance ruling was a disgrace, but for all the uproar over the corporations-are-people-too aspect of the case, the notion of a corporate interest in political speech is well-grounded in First Amendment jurisprudence.
The for-profit corporation as religious adherent is another matter entirely. This is not what Congress had in mind in writing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the law at the heart of Tuesday’s arguments.
But where to draw the line on corporate personhood is just one of the slippery slopes these cases pose. The other involves what religious claims to respect and how to balance competing needs.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed this issue a mere 42 words into Clement’s argument: What about employers religiously opposed to vaccines? Or blood transfusions?
Justice Elena Kagan predicted that under Clement’s approach, giving extreme deference to employers’ free exercise claims, “You would see religious objectors come out of the woodwork with respect to all of these laws.”
This is where the issue of employees’ rights comes in — and it’s why Solicitor General Donald Verrilli put so much emphasis on “the problems of inviting the kinds of claims that are predictably going to impose harms on third parties.”
Siding with the companies, suggested Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is apt to hold the deciding vote, “is allowing the employer to put the employee in a disadvantageous position. The employee may not agree with these religious beliefs of the employer. [Do] the religious beliefs just trump?”
Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties complain only about particular forms of contraception. What happens when company after company balks at providing any contraceptive coverage? What happens when they decline to provide spousal benefits in jurisdictions that recognize same-sex marriage?
The Court needs to rule against these corporations. I for one am sick and tired of Christofascists demanding special rights and the right to inflict their beliefs on others. If a corporation is going to sell products to the general public and hire employees from the general public, then their religious beliefs have no place in the mix. No more deference to claimed religious belief and no more special rights for far right Christians.
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