Religious Sovereignty and Group Exemptions

TLDR: In this paper, the US Supreme Court had to determine whether a business association run by a religious family had the right to exclude contraceptive coverage from its workers as part of their employee-based health plan, contrary to the 2010 Affordable Care Act which greatly extended health insurance to US citizens.

Abstract: In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), the US Supreme Court had to determine whether a business association run by a religious family had the right to exclude contraceptive coverage from its workers as part of their employee-based health plan, contrary to the 2010 Affordable Care Act which greatly extended health insurance to US citizens.1 The Court determined that this coverage did indeed burden Hobby Lobby’s free exercise of religion. Similar, in Hosanna-Tabor Church School v. EEOC (2012), the Court’s Justices unanimously found that a school was exempt from federal anti-discrimination legislation after it had dismissed a teacher for ‘insubordination and disruptive behaviour’, which, according to the school board, had damaged her ‘working relationship’ with the school.2 A school, of course, is not a church, even though it may be a church school. By contrast, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010) the Court took a contrary view, ruling against a religious group.3 It held that a public law school could permissibly refuse to register a Christian students’ association whose ‘Statement of Faith’ expressly forbade homosexual relations.