I expanded my earlier posting, for those who might be interested, but let me correct a few mistakes about the decision I've been seing on social media from other philosophers:
1. The decision does not hold that corporations are people with free exercise rights. It holds that closely held corporations, e.g., the family-owned businesses who brought the legal challenge, have free exercise rights. General Motors has no cause of action against anything after today's decision.
2. The decision does not deprive employees of access to contraception. The Court accepts that the government has a compelling interest in insuring such access, and notes that the government had already found a way to insure that such access was met while allowing religious not-for-profit organizations (e.g., the University of Notre Dame) to opt out of paying for it: namely, requiring that the insurers cover the entire cost of such contraceptive coverage for employers with religious objections. The Court points out the same alternative is available for closely held corporations whose owners have religious objections to contraception.
3. The decision was not a constitutional decision; it was based on a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA is a bad law, and as readers of my book know, I oppose such carve-outs for religion; but given RFRA, the Court's decision is not wholly surprising.
4. It's contentious, but not ridiculous, to argue that closely held corporations can be "persons" for purposes of RFRA. The Court gives some fairly sensible reasons for thinking they can be in the opinion.
5. The major error in the Court's reasoning occurs at p. 36 of the majority opinion (Justice Ginsburg notes this problem at pp. 21-22 of her dissent). The Court has long held that it will not adjudicate whether religious beliefs are sensible, only whether they are religious and sincerely held. But that does not mean that the Court must defer to the religious person's beliefs about whether the law substantially burdens their religion: that is a question for the Court. In this case, it strains credulity to suggest that Smith's sincere religious belief that life begins at conception and that therefore the "morning after" pill is akin to murder is somehow "burdened" because Smith must pay for health insurance which an employee might use to seek medical services of which Smith disapproves. The Court should have found there was no "substantial burden" on Hobby Lobby in my view.
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