Companies or coverage
If “corporations are people,” can they also be religious people? The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear two challenges to the Affordable Care Act involving for-profit companies that object on religious grounds to providing contraceptive coverage to their employees. Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. involves a family that operates an Oklahoma-based company of more than 500 arts and crafts shops in 41 states with 13,000 workers who would be eligible for health insurance coverage under the act, as well as an affiliated string of 35 Christian-themed bookstores. The suit argues that the company should not be forced to offer birth control services because that would violate their exercise of religious freedoms under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, a Pennsylvania-based Mennonite cabinet-making company appeals a Third Circuit Court ruling that said a for-profit, secular business could not claim a free exercise...