Scalia says religious groups have to follow the law

Amazing. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia agrees with President Obama and other progressives about something: that religious organizations which enter into commercial activity have to follow the same laws everybody else does.

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.

When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.

Just like I said. When you get to nominate another Supreme Court justice in your second term, President Obama, keep me in mind.

I'm clearly qualified, along with an evident majority of people of people in this country who believe that contraception should be available under their health insurance plan to employees of organizations run by religions which provide services to the general public. 

Comments

[DJ]

I like Scalia, but disagree with him here.

Take this hypothetical…Scalia's statement is the equivalent of applying anti-discrimination hiring practices to a mosque and requiring it to interview Jews and Christians to replace their “Food Bank Director“ who just resigned. Does anyone seriously see that happening? But if they do hire a Christian “Food Bank Director” – would the mosque legally be able to stop him/her from distribution of pork food donations as a condition of employment? Of course they would…even though at the secular food bank across town that would be grounds for an illegal termination lawsuit.

Or take the example of Providence Health. Founded in 1843, the Sisters of Providence first came to the Pacific Northwest to establish hospitals, etc. in 1856. Today it is the sixth-largest faith-based health system in the United States. Read that again: faith-based. Were it not for that deep and abiding faith, Providence Health wouldn’t have come to exist in the first place. No faithful Sisters of Providence 150 years ago, no Providence Health today.

If Providence Health chooses not to comply with the new health care mandate – what should happen to it? Should it be shut down?

Nobody working for Providence Health came in ignorant of Providence history…in fact they trumpet that history proudly right there on their career website and just about everywhere else. http://www.providenceiscalling.jobs/about-us/index.html

And nobody working for Providence Health does so at the point of a gun. One can choose to respect the values of their employer and fund that segment of their health care on their own, or they can choose to find another employer.

[Blogger Brian]

DJ, basically you're saying that any corporation or person (since we know that corporations are people, thanks to the Supreme Court and Mitt Romney) can ignore laws they have a moral objection to.

So if a religious organization, or any other business owner, thinks that blacks, women, gays, or whoever are inferior worthless beings, they don't have to hire them? Or if hired, can discriminate against them?

Or if a religious organization, or any other business owner, doesn't believe in modern medicine, but favors faith healing, then their entire "health insurance benefit" could consist of Take Two Prayers and You'll Feel Better in the Morning (Maybe, Unless God Wills That You Won't)?

What kind of country would this become if laws that applied to everyone failed to exist? I could not pay all the taxes I owe because I have a moral objection to funding the Defense Department. I could challenge a speeding ticket because I belong to the Church of Unlimited Motion.

Religious freedom includes the right to be free of religious coercion. You're suggesting that before someone takes a job, he or she needs to find out what the owner/CEO/board believes about all sorts of moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual subjects.

After all, in your worldview the boss has a right to impose his or her personal views on every employee, even if these go against the laws of the land. Like Scalia said, that notion seems ridiculous. And horribly anti-American.