Crucifixes, Not Condoms

Religious freedom is a complex issue in a nation where it isn’t unusual to see people say grace before eating lunch in a restaurant. Increasingly, the revered principle that people have a right to their own religious beliefs — free of interference by the government — is being interpreted anew by conservative Christians. They feel threatened by an increasingly secular society and have begun using the idea of “religious freedom” as a weapon.

Liberal America likes to think of justice as neutral and benevolent; didn’t the Supreme Court hand down decisions in the 1960s outlawing racial segregation? But recently, the courts have become a sanctuary for conservatives on the issue of religious rights. The following decision was handed down on June 30: In a five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court decided that certain corporations, as well as certain individuals, could exempt themselves from certain laws.

The concept of a corporation having religious beliefs is an absolute novelty in the annals of jurisprudence. The five deciding judges are all Roman Catholic males and were all appointed by Republican presidents. In the United States, Supreme Court justices have lifetime appointments. What will be next: Baptism and confirmation for corporations with religious beliefs — or better still, confession?

This questionable legal decision is the result of a requirement in the Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare, for companies to pay for a wide range of contraceptive services and devices in their employee insurance programs. Churches are exempted, and the insurance plans cover their costs. The case will go down in the history books as “the Hobby Lobby decision.”

Hobby Lobby is a 576-store craft and gift store chain. Their current offerings include decorative crucifixes, bird houses and coat hooks made from deer antlers. The business belongs to the evangelical David and Barbara Green family in Oklahoma. The Greens are considered heroes by many conservative Christians; the largest Protestant denomination in the United States — the Southern Baptists — prayed en masse at their annual convention for the Greens to prevail in their legal suit. The Greens also met with Pope Francis recently, who is said to have asked about the legal battle.

The family declared they wanted to praise God in their lives as well as with their chain of shops. While the Greens don’t personally fund their employees’ health care insurance costs, which is paid for by the corporation, their suit claimed that contraceptive medications such as the “morning after” pill violated their religious beliefs because they caused fetuses to be aborted. That assertion is factually wrong, yet the five justices accepted it. They also ruled that certain companies had religious rights — namely companies described as “closely held,” meaning family-owned companies or small concerns with only a few shareholders. Aside from the obvious small businesses, the definition was also applied to such entities as agricultural giant Cargill—140,000 employees—and computer manufacturer Dell—110,000 employees.

It was a feel-good moment in 1993 when President Bill Clinton signed the nearly unanimously approved Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was necessary at the time because of two Oregon Native Americans who used peyote, an illegal substance, in their religious rites and had lost their jobs because of it. The people found that objectionable, and many believers agreed with them.

Non-Believers on the Increase

The law says that according to the principle of religious freedom, citizens are not compelled to abide by laws that place an “undue burden” on their religious practice unless the state can clearly demonstrate compelling reasons for its action. The New York Times praised the reform as proof that Americans were prepared to tolerate even those religious rites that were foreign to them. No one could have known at that time that the Supreme Court would someday declare health insurance and family planning undue burdens on commercial corporations.

This will not stay restricted to contraception. The four justices — three women and one man — who dissented warned that the court had ventured into a minefield with the Hobby Lobby decision. The president is already working on legislation prohibiting companies with government contracts from engaging in gender-based discrimination either in hiring or on the job. Roman Catholic bishops and prominent Protestant clerics obviously want to make certain that Obama ensures “robust exception” rules are in place for religious employers.

The notion that companies can call themselves “religious” and claim all the rights and privileges that accompany that designation is a puzzle even to many Christians. Evangelical blogger Jonathan Merritt writes that Christianity is a decision reserved for individuals. The bottom line is that the attempt to anchor religious principles in law seems to be a rearguard action being fought by a segment of conservatives that see their traditional America disappearing.

Majority values are changing in the United States, especially concerning sexual morality and gender issues. Nearly 60 percent of the population favors the legalization of same-sex marriage; in 19 of the 50 states it’s already legal. The fastest growing religious group in the United States is made up of people who express no particular religious preference.

The five conservative justices who handed down the Hobby Lobby decision are the same justices who, in 2010, decided that corporations had constitutional rights the same as individuals, and that political donations were an expression of free speech. In his campaign against Barack Obama, Republican candidate Mitt Romney declared that corporations were people — but he stopped short of claiming that they had religious beliefs.