Free exercise of religion is a *personal* right. It also ends where the next persons nose begins. By accepting the religious free-exercise claims, these three federal courts have turned first principles of religious freedom, as well as fundamental tenets of corporate law, on their head. From the nations founding until today, the Constitutions protection of religious liberty has been seen as a personal right, inextricably linked to the human capacity to express devotion to a God and act on the basis of reason and conscience. Business corporations, quite properly, have never shared in this fundamental constitutional tradition for the obvious reason that a business corporation lacks the basic human capacities -- reason, dignity and conscience -- at the core of the right to free exercise of religion. Obviously not persons in the usual sense of the word, these corporations are also not religious organizations, which have historically received some constitutional protection and are, in fact, given exemptions from the contraception mandate.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 23:31:47 +0000
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