Can we now ask that "closely-held family corporations" clearly identify themselves on all want ads and web pages, with a warning that "The Supreme Court has ruled that we can do pretty much whatever we want in employment law as long as we claim it's based on our religious beliefs"?
Reshared post from +Andreas Schou
Two things about this decision:
(1) Its theory of corporate personhood is backward.
A corporation is not its shareholders. It is not its management. It is not its board of directors. Nor is it its workers, its creditors, or its customers. A corporation is a distinct legal entity which only has the properties which the law gives it — this being why managers and shareholders are not vicariously liable for the acts of the corporation, and the why corporations can be held liable for acting in its owners' interest.
This is less clear for closely-held corporations than those that are public. But if a minority shareholder in a closely-held corporation sued to prevent it from implementing an onerous and costly religious duty, the corporation would be liable — it's wasting corporate resources for purposes unrelated to the pursuit of profit. The majority apparently realizes this, and as a result tries to narrow the ruling to apply only to this case.
(2) The Court creates a category of religious beliefs that are immune to factual inquiry.
The core of Hobby Lobby's belief is the following: that a list of birth control drugs are, in fact, abortifacients. Unlike beliefs about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, where and when particular people lived in the 0th century, and whether are zero gods, one, or many, this question can be disaggregated into a factual and a moral question.
"Is abortion immoral?", is a moral question which, in conjunction with a religious answer, is protected First Amendment subject matter.
"Does blood contain some sort of numinous essence which transmits ritual impurity?", is a factual question to which the answer is "no," but the source of the answer is found in the same place as the question, and it is immune from further inquiry.
"Is birth control abortion?", however, is a factual question with a particular answer. (That answer is "no.") In order to avoid ruling on the factual issue, the Court allows Hobby Lobby to embed it inside its hypothetical religious beliefs.
We can, and should, respect freedom of conscience without immunizing particular wrong answers to further inquiry.
Justices Rule in Favor of Hobby Lobby
The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that family-owned corporations cannot be required under the Affordable Care Act to pay for insurance coverage for contraception.
I don't think it's exactly a secret that Hobby Lobby's owners have a particular set of religious beliefs. Try visiting one on Sunday after a Chick-fil-A lunch. 🙂
I guess it's possible to argue that the market will take care of this. Certain people will avoid applying for jobs at Hobby Lobby, and certain companies will advertise the breadth of their health care plans in order to attractive qualified applicants.
The part that I'm watching with most interest, however, is how this will work out with other closely held corporations whose owners may espouse a different set of beliefs. (I believe this topic was mentioned in the dissenting opinion.)
Note that the five Supremes voting this way have never had to worry about taking care of a uterus or its contents. I don’t know why the RWNJs in this country are not more honest, and come out insisting that all women be put in black bags and be without any civil rights. After all, it is now the law of the land that corporations are blessed in their stance that females are sperm receptacles and incubators and have no right to complain about that or ask that health care be left to them and their physicians.
It’s OK, though. Now I know that if I don’t make it to church next week, I can pop into Hobby Lobby and it will be the same thing.
+John E. Bredehoft If the job market was completely flexible — if I want a job, I can go to the employer I prefer — that might make sense. In real life, not so much.
This, along with this article begs a scenario.
“Well, congratulations, I am offering you the job. Do you make regular donations to your church?”
“Yes, $50 a month.”
“Well, I have no desire to support your religion, so I am reducing your wages by $50 a month.”
@LH – Using the logic of SCOTUS in this case, there’s nothing particularly illegitimate about that scenario. I’d actually thought of something more blatant in the way of simply not hiring any of Those Types (whatever the hiring authority considers Those Types) because, well, religion, but this works just as well.
The justices _might_ argue that the government has a compelling interest to forbid religious discrimination of this sort (just as they offered the narrow rejection of how the decision could not be used to justify racism in employment) — but that becomes a matter for argument in future cases, not established principle (and every other possible exception not otherwise mentioned can similarly be raised in court).
One problem with the discussion over this is that the employer’s costs for health care coverage are not as explicitly one thing or the other as either the justices or the article writer you reference have it. For example, I do not make use of any of the medical coverage my company provides (as my wife’s company is much more generous, being in the field). This does not, in fact, result in a return of any money to me, or a boost in my income. The company treats such things as an average cost across all employees; it’s seen as a competitive need (though that might culturally start to change at some point, if the exchanges and the rest of the ACA stay intact), but in aggregate, not for any particular employee.
On the other hand, there has been discussion about taxation of medical plan benefits, which would imply that they are applied to the individual.
The basic principle of your referenced story, though, is solid. Employer-provided (or routed) medical insurance should be a fringe case, like company phones or company cars, not the main way that insurance is driven in this country.