Next week, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc is set to fight for a religious exemption to a provision in the health-care law of US President Barack Obama, which requires employers to include birth control in their employees' insurance plan coverage. Bloomberg said the arts and craft store chain is expected to argue its case before the US Supreme Court, which will be on March 25.
President Steve Green of the Oklahoma City-based company and son of its founder said, "Why as a family, because we've incorporated, do I have to give up religious freedoms, which are core to what our nation was founded on?"
Hobby Lobby, said the news agency, is insisting its right for them as a for-profit corporation to have the same legal freedoms like opting out of laws that are deemed immoral just like individuals. Bloomberg said the argument was spurred from a court decision on a Citizens United campaign-finance case four years ago that expanded corporate speech rights under the First Amendment. It is said that the case of the arts and crafts store chain focuses on the separate guarantee of "free exercise" of religion on the First Amendment and a 1993 federal law on religious rights.
Hobby Lobby, whose corporate practice is to shut operations on Sundays for its employees to be with their families and attend church. Green's father, David, is the son of a Christian minister. The Green family members reportedly all signed statements that declare their faith and commitment to run their business under their religious beliefs.
Bloomberg said that aside from the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court justices will also be hearing a dispute that involves a woodworking business owned by a Mennonite family called Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. According to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby in the case, its client and Conestoga are among the 47 entities who have filed religious exemption from the contraceptive requirement in Obamacare.
