Court rejects Hobby Lobby's challenge to contraceptive mandate

[rug]

November 19, 2012|By Steve Olafson | Reuters

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday denied a legal challenge to President Barack Obama's signature health reforms, ruling that the owners of a $3 billion arts and crafts chain must provide emergency contraceptives in their group health care plan.

The owners of Hobby Lobby asked to be exempted from providing the "morning after" and "week after" pills on religious grounds, arguing this would violate their Christian belief that abortion is wrong.

Judge Joe Heaton of the U.S. District for the Western District of Oklahoma denied the request for a preliminary injunction.
Heaton ruled that while individual members of the family that owns and operates Hobby Lobby have religious rights, the companies the family owns are secular, for-profit enterprises that do not possess the same rights.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-19/news/sns-rt-us-usa-healthcare-oklahoma-courtbre8aj054-20121119_1_contraceptive-mandate-emergency-contraceptives-hobby-lobby

This looks like the trend. The courts are determining that corporations do not have First Amendment religious rights. Now all they have to do is apply that principle to First Amendment free speech rights and we're done with Citizens United.

[powergirl]

1. Aaaaaand, like some of the Catholic Diocese, they already provide some of the complained of drugs

"The Oklahoma City-based companies already had been unwittingly providing the emergency contraceptives until they realized they were [told to] do so during the debate over provisions of what conservatives have dubbed "Obamacare," according to court testimony. They discontinued that coverage only recently, testimony showed."


Some Catholic Diocese got their cases dismissed for already providing the offending coverage. Don't these folks, uh, talk to their insurance people before they crank out these lawsuits?