During Tuesday’s oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby
Stores, Inc., Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be
highly critical of the Obama administration’s argument that
for-profit corporations should never be permitted to challenge
federal laws on religious grounds. That apparent hostility,
argues Sahil Kapur at the liberal outlet Talking Points
Memo, does not bode well for supporters of the health care
law’s contraceptive mandate. What’s worse, Kapur writes, “a ruling
against it could declare open season on virtually any law that a
person or business can mount a religious-based objection to.”
But Kapur also sees a silver lining in Roberts’ questioning.
Roberts “contended that ‘closely held’ businesses, like Hobby Lobby
and Conestoga Wood, who brought the case, could be given that
option [of challenging federal laws on religious grounds] without
opening the same door for publicly owned companies.”
That scenario is definitely possible. But I was surprised to
find Kapur characterizing it as a “way out” from a broader
pro-corporate ruling. In point of fact, if Roberts does rule in
favor of Hobby Lobby on those grounds it would still be a
resounding defeat for the federal government, which has refused all
along to grant a contraceptive mandate exemption to “closely held”
for-profit corporations. Indeed, from the outset, these lawsuits
have centered on the fact that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood are
each corporate entities that are entirely owned and operated by
Christian families. Those are the facts of the case heard by the
Supreme Court this week. The legal dispute was never about whether
a large, publicly traded corporation should also get to enjoy the
free exercise of religion. That, as the chief justice remarked
during Tuesday’s oral argument, “is a question that we’ll have to
await another case when a large publicly-traded corporation comes
in and says, we have religious principles—the sort of situation I
don’t think is going to happen.”
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