US Supreme Court justices were to hear oral arguments yesterday in a high-stakes religious freedom case brought by Hobby Lobby’s 556 arts and crafts stores, the true owner of which the chain’s billionaire CEO David Green says is God.
Green, whose shops are closed on Sundays across the US, holds religious beliefs that put him at odds with national healthcare laws demanding that the company provide specific emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices to its 28,000 workers in its employee health plans.
The chief executive says his firm, which follows “biblical principles” and thanks “God’s grace and provision” for its success, cannot comply with the US’ Affordable Care Act rules brought about by US President Barack Obama’s sweeping healthcare overhaul.
“These abortion-causing drugs go against our faith and our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Green has said. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”
The so-called “Obamacare law” has been the subject of fierce criticism since its shaky introduction in October last year and dozens of companies have filed lawsuits in federal courts challenging the law’s birth control coverage.
Green’s religious freedom case is the second time the Supreme Court is examining a challenge to the health law and could have broad implications for other businesses claiming that they are entitled to the same religious protections as churches or people.
Although Hobby Lobby does cover most types of contraception in its employee health plan, it equates certain emergency contraceptives — required under Obama’s healthcare law, such as the morning-after pill — with abortion.
Hobby Lobby’s Christian education business, Mardel, is also part of the suit, which is being heard alongside another from Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp, a Pennsylvania cabinetmaker whose owners say they run the company based on their Mennonite Christian values.
The Obama administration, which has exempted religious congregations from the contraceptive rule, says that a for-profit company such as Hobby Lobby does not enjoy the same religious protections afforded to individuals under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
“Throughout our nation’s history, corporations have been treated differently than individuals when it comes to fundamental, personal rights of conscience and human dignity,” said lawyers for the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal group.
“The First Amendment’s free-exercise guarantee has always been viewed as a purely personal liberty,” they added.
However, lawyers challenging the Obama administration on behalf of Conestoga said the requirement was government intrusion into private decisions.
“Law doesn’t exclude religion from family businesses,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Matt Bowman said in a National Review op-ed piece.
“Religion is excluded by secular hostility devoid of legal authority, and by a federal government willing to bulldoze any obstacle — even constitutionally protected freedoms — if it stands between the government and intimate control over our everyday activities,” Bowman wrote.
Lori Windham of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is defending Hobby Lobby, said that “what is at stake here is whether you’re able to keep your religious freedom when you open your family business.”
Green scored a victory in June last year when the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, ruled that “associations” and not just individuals were entitled to religious freedoms.
If Hobby Lobby wins its Supreme Court challenge, “that would mark a defeat for the government and for access to contraception, to be sure,” said Steven Schwinn of John Marshall Law School. “Without the contraception requirements, the act itself necessarily stands on somewhat less solid ground.”
To decide the case, the justices will examine claims that the contraception provision violates the First Amendment and the US’ Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal statute that prevents laws from hampering the free exercise of religion.
The court, which often sides with businesses, will also have to look back at its 2010 Citizens United decision — in which it found that corporations had free speech rights that shield them from political-spending limits — before it reaches a decision, which is expected in late June.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing