Editorial

A Decision for Religious Liberty

Posted

Those who regard the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision affirming the religious liberty of two family-owned businesses as an answer to prayer are not in short supply.

It seems a fitting and appropriate response to the Court’s docket-clearing 5-4 decision scaling back another part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—namely the insistence that all corporations must be treated exactly the same, that is, without regard to the legitimate conscience-based objections held by many employers.

In the case before them, the Court heard from a pair of Christian employers who brought the challenge—Hobby Lobby, a nationwide chain of craft stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinet company. They successfully demonstrated that the ACA violated their rights under a federal law instituted to protect religious freedom. Specifically, they confronted a government mandate that requires companies to cover employees for a range of contraceptives, including drugs considered to be abortifacients.

The law in question, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. The justices correctly ruled that the government failed to satisfy RFRA’s requirement that the least restrictive means of accomplishing a government goal be followed to avoid imposing a restriction on religious grounds.

In the 49-page majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito noted that the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the ACA, has already provided exemptions from some of the coverage requirements for employers in a variety of situations.

He also said the standard for the government meeting what it perceives as a general good by the least restrictive means is “exceptionally demanding” and that the contraceptives’ provision failed to meet it.

Reactions to the decision predictably came quickly.

In an Op-Ed piece published by the New York Post, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote, “Religious believers may not win every RFRA case…But holding the government to this higher standard serves the common good in many ways.”

He was speaking specifically, of course, about the Church’s contributions that enrich civil society. “In the Catholic community, we count it as a great blessing and privilege to have made many contributions to civil society, particularly through our great ministries of service to the poor and the hungry, the sick and the dying,” the archbishop said.

“We also recognize that when religious freedom comes under threat, so do these ministries,” he explained, adding that without RFRA’s legal protections, the faithful may be fearful of starting or continuing such ministries.

Not all the reactions were positive, of course, or even civil. Cardinal Dolan’s column in this issue details the predictable, knee-jerk negativity of the Freedom From Religion Foundation in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times.

Here, though, we’ll focus on the case’s outcome, and champion two companies that stood tall against a powerful adversary. And with good reason, for the Court’s own ruling showed that had Hobby Lobby lost, it would have faced staggering fines of up to $475 million, or $36,500 per affected employee per year. That’s a lot of crafting supplies.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties fought the good fight, proving that Christian principles and the law are not necessarily in opposition. In fact, that is a message the Bishops of the United States have proclaimed forcefully these past three years with Fortnight for Freedom religious liberty celebrations across the United States. Fittingly, the Court’s decision came in time to add to this year’s celebration and to offer hope to other Church groups and organizations still battling unfair provisions of the Affordable Care Act.