The Deacon's Bench
From USA TODAY:
The Supreme Court added a new legal challenge Tuesday to the legislative and political battles raging over President Obama’s embattled health care law.
The justices agreed to consider whether for-profit corporations whose owners oppose abortion on religious grounds must abide by the law’s mandate that health insurance policies include free coverage of government-approved forms of contraception.
It’s the first legal challenge to reach the high court since it upheld the law 17 months ago in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts. While a loss for the government wouldn’t strike down the law itself, conservatives still seething over Roberts’ rescue of Obamacare say the case offers Roberts an initial chance to rule against it.
Beyond its attachment to the health care law, however, the legal challenge is significant in its own right because it will answer a fundamental question with far-reaching consequences: Can corporations pray? Until now, no court has granted religious rights under the First Amendment’s “free exercise clause” to for-profit businesses.
The corporations whose lawsuits were chosen over some 40 others says, in essence, that they do pray. The cases were filed by Hobby Lobby, a chain of more than 500 arts-and-crafts stores with some 13,000 full-time employees, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a woodworking business run by a Mennonite family.
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