Adventists and the Hobby Lobby Case

[CGMedley]

Why did the Adventist Church get involved with the Hobby Lobby case? Todd McFarland, an associate general counsel from the General Conference, shares his perspective. Learn more.

http://www.adventistreview.org/the-adventist-church-and-the-hobby-lobby-decision

[Gregory Matthews]

As a former U.S. Army Chaplain, I have been involved in a number of cases where individual soldiers claimed a violation of their religious rights. One criteria that I used in evaluating those claims was consistency. IOW, if a soldier claimed a requirement to be off duty to attend church, I look at their actual attendance at church.

It is reported that the Hobby Lobby retirement fund held millions of dollars in investments in eight companies that produced prescription medications. Some of those companies are known to produce drugs that induce what Hobby Lobby calls abortions. On this basis, I believe that Hobby Lobby fails the consistency test.

NOTE, see: http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/01/investing/hobby-lobby-401k-contraception/

While it was the intent of the founders of the United States to give people Constitutional rights to believe and practice according to their religious understanding, it is not likely that those founders intended to extend those rights to a business that operated in the public sector. To do so could give that business an unfair advantage. Such could occur in a situation where that business was exempt from the payment of certain expenses. There could also be other unfair advantages.

The Affordable Care Patient Act (ACPA) established certain legal rights for the employees of Hobby Lobby to obtain certain contraceptive services. This resulted in a situation where the legal rights of the employees were in conflict with the religious rights of the owners of that business. Each group of which is entitled to specific legal rights. The question now is: How can that conflict be resolved?

One answer might be for the owners of Hobby Lobby to sell their stores and to get out of the business. It is such an answer that results in an individual who has a religious belief against selling alcoholic beverages from operating a bar that sells them.

A compromise solution might be that a business that substantially employed people who subscribed to the affected religious belief could obtain an exemption. E.G. A Roman Catholic business that solely employed Nuns could be exempted from the contraceptive requirement.

However, Hobby Lobby is reported to have some 13,000 employees and there is no reason to believe that the majority agreed with the beliefs of the owners. The rights of those employees under the ACPA were restricted. A compromise situation might have been for the Supreme Court to have restricted their decision to a business in which 95%, or more, of the employees agreed with the beliefs of the owners. This would have covered my example of the Catholic Nuns as well as other situations where the majority of the people agreed.

Yes, it could be said that my proposed solution potentially restricted the rights of 5% of the employees, which is not right. I do not argue that point. I only say that in this world there are often no perfect solutions.