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Supreme Court to Review Health Law's Contraception Mandate - WSJ.com
Another interesting case, especially given the 'corporations are people too, my friend!' aspect.
Another interesting case, especially given the 'corporations are people too, my friend!' aspect.
The cases hold implications beyond even the politically charged health law. They carry the potential of expanding First Amendment rights for corporations, a concept the Supreme Court embraced in the 2010 opinion known as Citizens United, which found that corporations held political speech rights akin to those of individuals.
This time, the question involves whether corporations have similar rights to religious expression.
In July, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia, found that "secular, for-profit corporations cannot engage in religious exercise." While Conestoga's Mennonite owners, the Hahn family, may have a sincere religious objection to contraceptives that may act upon the fertilized egg, such as the so-called morning after pill, the corporation they operated had no beliefs of its own, the court found.
"As the Hahns have decided to utilize the corporate form, they cannot 'move freely between corporate and individual status to gain the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of the respective forms,' " the Third Circuit ruled, citing an earlier case. It specifically rejected the argument that the Citizens United ruling extended religious, as well as political, rights to corporations.
A month earlier, however, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, reached the opposite conclusion, viewing a corporation as a form of association that, regardless of its profit-seeking status, can espouse religious beliefs.