My Own Words

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Can an employer in business for profit opt out of coverage for blood transfusions, vaccinations, antidepressants, or medications derived from pigs, based on the employer’s sincerely held religious beliefs opposing those medical practices?

What of the employer whose religious faith teaches that it is sinful to employ a single woman without her father’s consent, or a married woman, without her husband’s consent?

“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other [person’s] nose begins.”

RFRA to be interpreted in line with that principle.

“The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation,” the Court appreciated over two decades ago, “has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.”

The reason why is not obscure. Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations.

Indeed, by law, no religion-based criterion can restrict the workforce of for-profit corporations.

And where is the stopping point to the “let the government pay” solution?

Does it rank as a less restrictive alternative to require the government to provide the pay to which the employer has a religion-based objection?

!!!!!

businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, whose workforces, by law, are open to persons of all faiths, and on the other, nonprofit organizations designed to further the mission of a particular community of believers.

sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice,” the Lee Court observed, “the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on statutory schemes . . . binding on others in that activity.”

“operat[e] to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.”