Supreme Court Will Take Up New Health Law Dispute

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama’s health-care law: whether businesses may use religious objections to escape a requirement to provide medical treatments for employees that run contrary to their religious tenets.

The justices said they will take up an issue that has divided the lower courts in the face of roughly 40 lawsuits from for-profit companies asking to be spared from having to cover certain medical procedures.

The court will consider two cases. One involves Hobby Lobby Inc., an Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain with 13,000 full-time employees. Hobby Lobby won in the lower courts.

The other case is an appeal from Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a Pennsylvania company that employs 950 people in making wood cabinets. Lower courts rejected the company’s claims.

The court said the cases will be combined for arguments, probably in late March. A decision should come by late June.

In both instances, the Christian families that own the companies say that insuring some forms of certain medical treatments violates their religious beliefs.

The key issue is whether profit-making corporations may assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose.

Nearly four years ago, the justices expanded the concept of corporate “personhood,” saying in the Citizens United case that corporations have the right to participate in the political process the same way that individuals do. Some lower court judges have applied the same logic in the context of religious beliefs.

“The government has no business forcing citizens to choose between making a living and living free,” said David Cortman of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian public interest law firm that is representing Conestoga Wood at the Supreme Court. The issue is largely confined to religious institutions and family-controlled businesses with a small number of shareholders.

This article appeared in print on page 10 of the November 27th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.