What the Hobby Lobby Ruling Means for America The New York Times

When first enacted, RFRA defined the “exercise of religion” to mean “the exercise of religion under the First Amendment”—not the exercise of religion as recognized only by then-existing Supreme Court precedents. §2000bb–2 (1994 ed.). When Congress wants to link the meaning of a statutory provision to a body of this Court’s case law, it knows how to do so.

Each family member has signed a pledge to run the businesses in accordance with the family’s religious beliefs and to use the family assets to support Christian ministries. 3d, at 1122. In accordance with those commitments, Hobby Lobby and Mardel stores close on Sundays, even though the Greens calculate that they lose millions in sales annually by doing so. Id., at 1122; App. In No. 13–354, at 136–137.

Religious Liberty Wins in Court

The contraceptive mandate, as applied to closely held corporations, violates RFRA. Our decision on that statutory question makes it unnecessary to reach the First Amendment claim raised by Conestoga and the Hahns. Because RFRA applies in these cases, we must next ask whether the HHS contraceptive mandate “substantially burden” the exercise of religion. We have little trouble concluding that it does.

See also 42 U. §§2000bb–1, 2000bb–2, 2000cc–5.21 But those beliefs, however deeply held, do not suffice to sustain a RFRA claim.

Opposition to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

And because some but not all of the companies’ employees may qualify for subsidies on an exchange, it would be nearly impossible to calculate a salary increase that would accurately restore the status quo ante for all employees. As explained in Conestoga’s board-adopted “Statement on the Sanctity of Human Life,” the Hahns believe that “human life begins at conception.” 724 F. 3d 377, Hobby Lobby 382, and n. It is therefore “against moral conviction to be involved in the termination of human life” after conception, which they believe is a “sin against God to which they are held accountable.” Ibid. The Hahns have accordingly excluded from the group-health-insurance plan they offer to their employees certain contraceptive methods that they consider to be abortifacients.

There is an overriding interest, I believe, in keeping the courts “out of the business of evaluating the relative merits of differing religious claims,” Lee, 455 U. S., at 263, n.

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It is doubtful that Congress, when it specified that burdens must be “substantia,” had in mind a linkage thus interrupted by independent decisionmakers standing between the challenged government action and the religious exercise claimed to be infringed. Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestoga’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the wo- man’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults. Undertaking the inquiry that the Court forgoes, I would conclude that the connection between the families’ religious objections and the contraceptive coverage requirement is too attenuated to rank as substantial. The re quirement carries no command that Hobby Lobby or Conestoga purchase or provide the contraceptives they find objectionable. Instead, it calls on the companies covered by the requirement to direct money into undifferentiated funds that finance a wide variety of benefits under comprehensive health plans. Those plans, in order to comply with the ACA, see supra, at 3–6, must offer contraceptive coverage without cost sharing, just as they must cover an array of other preventive services. The means the Government chose is the imposition of a direct mandate on the employers in these cases.

479, 485–486 , and HHS tells us that “tudies have demonstrated that even moderate copayments for preventive services can deter patients from receiving those services.” Brief for HHS in No. 13–354, at 50 . David and Barbara Green and their three children are Christians who own and operate two family businesses. Forty-five years ago, David Green started an arts-and-crafts store that has grown into a nationwide chain called https://accounting-services.net/.

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Hobby Lobby is included in Forbes’ annual list of America’s largest private companies. While Hobby Lobby continues to grow steadily, the company carries no long-term debt. In 1970, entrepreneurs David and Barbara Green, along with their young family, began making miniature picture frames in their garage. A few years later, on August 3, 1972, the Green family opened the first Hobby Lobby store with a mere 300 square feet of retail space. Hobby Lobby has not stopped growing since.

Kaemmerling v. Lappin, 553 F. 3d 669, 679 . 27 The principal dissent points out that “the exemption codified in §238n was not enacted until three years after RFRA’s passage.” Post, at 16, n. The dissent takes this to mean that RFRA did not, in fact, “ope all statutory schemes to religion-based challenges by for-profit corporations” because if it had “there would be no need for a statute-specific, post-RFRA exemption of this sort.” Ibid.

About Hobby Lobby

First, nothing in RFRA as originally enacted suggested that its definition of “exercise of religion” was meant to be tied to pre-Smith interpretations of the First Amendment. Second, if RFRA’s original text were not clear enough, the RLUIPA amendment surely dispels any doubt that Congress intended to separate the definition of the phrase from that in First Amendment case law. Third, the pre-Smith case of Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., Inc., 366 U.

• Putting aside the religious dimension of the decision to provide insurance, moreover, it is far from clear that the net cost to the companies of providing insurance is more than the cost of dropping their insurance plans and paying the ACA penalty.
• University of Manchester papyrologist, Roberta Mazza, stated that the Green family “poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities, and problems of the objects”.
• The Commonwealth argued that the corporation lacked “standing” to assert a free-exercise claim,26 but not one member of the Court expressed agreement with that argument.
• 371, 378 (“To give th same words a different meaning for each category would be to invent a statute rather than interpret one”).
• S., at 261.
• By requiring the Hahns and Greens and their companies to arrange for such coverage, the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs.
• Supreme Court, ruled 5–4, that Hobby Lobby and other “closely held” stock corporations can choose to be exempt from the law based on religious preferences, based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act but not on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.