On Tuesday the Supreme Court heard two cases, as a consolidated argument, dealing with the Affordable Care Act. The ACA mandates that most secular, for-profit corporations have to provide healthcare to their employees and requires that insurance to cover contraception for females. Hobby Lobby and cabinetmaker Wood Specialties Corp. claim that forcing employers to provide birth control is against their religious beliefs, saying some forms of birth control are tantamount to abortion. The question before the court is, according to USA Today, “Can the government require that employers provide 100 percent coverage for 20 types of contraceptives?” The court should not only uphold the mandate, but it should strike down the provision of the ACA that exempts non-profit organizations, too.
This is an extraordinarily delicate question, but the bottom line is that the freedom of religion guaranteed as a right to United States citizens in the Constitution applies to the people. Recently a debate has been struck as to whether or not corporations count as people. In the 2009 Citizens United case, the court ruled that corporations should be able to donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns on the grounds that corporations have freedom of speech rights. This dangerous precedent threatens to be strengthened further if the court sides with the two corporations involved with the current cases before it.
Letting Hobby Lobby and other corporations opt out of policy because of religious beliefs would no doubt lead to many of the same detrimental side effects as Citizens United. Rulings against the government would essentially free up corporations to claim religious liberty in numerous situations, including everything from hiring and firing practices, to who employees can marry. The scope of the First Amendment religious freedom guarantee is incredibly broad. The Westboro Baptist Church frequently protests at military funerals of gay veterans claiming free speech and religious protections. The Supreme Court should not extend this kind of constitutional protection to corporations. No one should be forced to endure a religious testimony every time he or she visits a Target, Kohl’s or Exxon gas station. Even if the majority of patrons wouldn’t mind, such a corporate freedom could and probably would be expanded to the point of seriously threatening the constitutional rights of atheists or practitioners of other religions.
Conservatives assert that corporations are made up of people and that forcing them to provide contraceptives violates their individual rights. This is a red herring. Corporate funds belong to the company, not the company’s individual owners. By definition, stockholders own corporations, and no one has to cut his or her own paycheck in order to pay for the contraceptives. The source of insurance funding could come from any particular group of funds. Some conservatives have pointed out that employers can already turn away patrons or potential employees who are gay without recourse. This is true—and it’s also a moral and social tragedy. The really meaty claim conservatives have against the mandate is that non-profits are exempted by the ACA. Conservatives are right that this discrimination is arbitrary, but that just means non-profits that aren’t explicitly religious in nature should have to provide the birth control, too. Instead of striking down the law, equal protection encourages striking the exemption.
Religious freedom is a hallmark of U.S. political tradition, and so is the capitalist system the country has built up since the Industrial Revolution. At times the rights of individual people and corporations have come into conflict, with varying outcomes and results. To be clear, no one on either side of the debate about contraceptives wants to denigrate the religious freedoms of individual business owners. This argument isn’t about the religious beliefs of individual people, though; it’s about the religious beliefs of corporations, who, contrary to Mitt Romney’s opinion, are not people. If corporations are people, then they should be allowed to vote and get married and divorced. Corporations as people should be able to determine their own official religions and in the practice of that religion discriminate against potential employees from a different theology. It’s fairly clear that that view is not in line with the Constitution—and that’s why the Supreme Court should draw the line when deciding these cases.
Send your thoughts to Wes at [email protected].