The Christian owners/operators of craft store chain retain right NOT to provide abortion drugs under ObamaCare
Hobby Lobby has won in the US Supreme Court. In a closely hewed decision by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that an organization run by devoutly religious people can extend their beliefs into their organization or corporation.
Alito also said the decision is limited to contraceptives under the health care law. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs,” Alito said.
The owners of Hobby Lobby sued after the passage of ObamaCare because the government health care diktats required corporations to cover drugs that cause abortions. Hobby Lobby was already covering contraceptives in their health insurance and objected to the drugs which abort babies in contravention of their religious beliefs. The Obama Administration lawyers argued otherwise, of course. Alito tried to allay their fears that poor women would not get free contraceptives and abortion pills.
Alito also said the decision is limited to contraceptives under the health care law. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs,” Alito said.
He suggested two ways the administration could ensure women get the contraception they want. It could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said.
But this case is shaping up to be another leftist lightening rod in the manner of Citizens United which recognized business owners had the right to give to political campaigns–just as non business owners and, more importantly, labor unions–could. Sadly, four of the five justices ruled religious beliefs end the moment religious individuals open a business and run it in, in this case, a Biblical way.
In a dissent she read aloud from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision “potentially sweeping” because it minimizes the government’s interest in uniform compliance with laws affecting the workplace. “And it discounts the disadvantages religion-based opt outs impose on others, in particular, employees who do not share their employer’s religious beliefs,” Ginsburg said.
The case was joined by 50 other companies, including Conestoga Woods, a Mennonite cabinet maker.
FROM REES LLOYD ON THE CASE:Freedom of Religion — USSC Hobby Lobby Decision: The U.S. Supreme Court today (June 30, 2014) issued its long-awaited decision in the Hobby Lobby Case. The Supreme Court ruled (5-to-4) that the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment freedom of religion clause in its contraceptive mandates which contravene the sincerely held religious beliefs of business owners, including privately held corporations, otherwise required to provide health insurance to employees under Obamacare.
It is a victory for religious freedom over ever-expanding, increasingly intrusive “Big Brother Rule” by Barack Hussein Obama, aided and abetted by Harry Reid in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi in the House, and Democrat Party liberals in both
Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, ramrodded Obamacare through Congress without reading it and by lying about its actual content — “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” Chicago con-man Obama infamously lied. They ignored the fundamental constitutional rights of Americans who are “citizens” of a constitutional republic, after all, not “subjects” of a king.
It is an important decision that will prompt downstream lawsuits and further controversy. The cost of allowing religious opt-outs of contraception coverage by closely held corporations that allege religious objections means that women employees now will exist in a two-tier society. One where all women workers in commercial, for-profit, companies are allegedly equal under the law–except those who work for a closely held firm owned by individuals who who wish to withhold the same contraceptive coverage that other workers possess as a matter of federal health care law.