By Tom Watts
Today, the Supreme Court decided Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. In this post, I examine an issue that the Court passed over: whether Hobby Lobby’s belief is actually religious. The Court presumed so, but their presumption was incorrect, and the issue is dispositive. This makes the Court’s decision wrong.
The First Amendment protects religious freedom, but it does not provide protection to non-religious beliefs. As the Supreme Court observed in Wisconsin v. Yoder (a case that RFRA explicitly approves), “[I]f the Amish [the religious plaintiffs in the case] asserted their claims because of their subjective evaluation and rejection of the contemporary secular values accepted by the majority, much as Thoreau rejected the social values of his time and isolated himself at Walden Pond, their claims would not rest on a religious basis.” [Read more…] about Free Exercise Clause Protection for Junk Science