Written by Don Byrd
In a decision echoing the Hobby Lobby ruling last month, a federal judge in Illinois on Friday rejected a construction business’ first Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. The judge found (pdf) that, first, the free exercise of religion is guaranteed for individuals and not corporations.
[T]he undersigned district judge views the exercise of religion as a “purely personal” guarantee that cannot be extended to corporations. . . . In Wallace v. Jaffree, the Supreme Court explained: “As is plain from its text, the First Amendment was adopted to curtail the power of Congress to interfere with the individual’s freedom to believe, to worship, and to express himself in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.” James Madison eloquently stated, “[t]he Religion . . . of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”
Thus, a corporation may be able to advance a belief system, but it cannot exercise religion. In any event, Plaintiffs’ Free Exercise Clause claim has little or no chance of success on its merits, regardless of whether a corporation can exercise religion.
While RFRA does apply to a closely held corporation like K & L (the plaintiffs), the judge found the burden on religious exercise to be too small to warrant intervention:
Any inference of support for contraception stemming from complying with the neutral and generally applicable mandate is a de minimus burden. It appears that Plaintiffs’ objection presupposes that an insured will actually use the contraception coverage. Even assuming that there is a substantial likelihood that a K&L employee will do so, at that point the connection between the government regulation and the burden upon the Kortes’ religious beliefs is too distant to constitute a substantial burden.
