Meet the Right-Wing Christian Companies Trying to Impose Their Values on Their Workers

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/meet-right-wing-christian-companies-trying-impose-their-values-their-workers




Freshway Foods is a secular, for-profit corporation that distributes produce, but when a Freshway delivery truck shows up, it may carry a bonus: an anti-abortion message from its Catholic founders and owners. Not surprisingly, those same owners strongly oppose the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, so much so that they enlisted Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice and filed suit, claiming that the mandate violates Freshway’s freedom of religion. Freshway’s attorneys argued, essentially, that businesses have conscience rights which trump the religious freedom of individual employees—a claim the courts have long rejected—so it was dismaying to some religious freedom advocates that on November 1, the DC Circuit Court ruled in their favor.

By contrast with the DC Circuit decision in the Freshway case, the Third Circuit Court ruled the opposite direction, against cabinet manufacturer Conestoga Woods, saying that a corporation doesn’t have a religious conscience. The arguments in the lawsuits were substantially similar, which means that the differences in judgments are due primarily to the makeup of the courts themselves. On November 26, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood and decide the question. The result of the Supreme Court decision will have wide ranging effects for American corporations and families, and the outcome is far from certain.

To date, over 50 lawsuits have been filed against the Affordable Care Act by conservative religious business owners. Some of the better known are Freshway, Conestoga Woods, Eden Foods, and Hobby Lobby. Each claims that a corporation should be exempt from offering preventive care insurance that covers family planning, arguing that a mandate to provide comprehensive coverage violates religious freedom.

These cases bring together two big debates that are going on in our country. One is the battle over corporate personhood. How much should businesses be able to claim the same rights that have been secured over the last 200 years for natural persons? The second is a battle that some have called “conscience creep.” How much should religious organizations and individuals get to be exempt from civil rights and human rights laws and civic duties that otherwise apply to everyone?

[PeteSelman]

1. I have a bad feeling about this.

You just know the asshole side of the court is going to vote in favor of the corps. This is all going to be on one guy yet again. One very disappointing and unpredictable guy.

[madrchsod]

2. the supremes will rule in favor of these corporations.

they`ll use the personhood argument,

[Freddie]

3. Eden Foods

Specialty is all-natural organic stuff that many of us liberals like. Boycott please.

Personally I don't care about the organic thing unless the food actually tastes better. My local Giant store now has a whole aisle of all-natural/organic pruducts. Interesting that the organic packaged snacks and cereals often end up in the clearance rack close to their expiration dates.