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Gorsuch's Selective View of 'Religious Freedom'
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/gorsuchs-selective-view-of-religious-freedom/520104/As the Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Neal Gorsuch begin, I retain my impression that he is in his way a splendid fellow, intelligent and hard working, and, as near as I can tell, devoid of the streak of jack-in-office meanness that mars the legacy of his predecessor, Antonin Scalia.
But I also wonder whether he has a blind spot in an area that should concern Americans—religious freedom. Consider his separate opinion in the Tenth Circuit’s opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Remember the issue in Hobby Lobby. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers are required to provide a certain level of health insurance benefits to full-time employees. One of those benefits, under Health and Human Services regulations, is coverage of all medically approved methods of contraception.
The decision of whether to use contraception, and, if so, which method to use, remains with the employee. It is a confidential medical decision. By law neither the employer or anyone else can inquire about it. Nonetheless, the owners of the Hobby Lobby corporation objected on religious reasons to certain forms of contraception, and did not wish to provide insurance that covered them. They challenged the requirement of coverage as a “substantial burden” on their “free exercise of religion.”
...I would like to see someone at Gorsuch’s hearing ask whether there is room in his vision of religious freedom for those other spiritual traditions, and how the balance should be struck between individual spiritual freedom and the desire of powerful institutions to control those who work for them. On the strength of the Hobby Lobby opinion, he seems to think there is no balance: the economically and culturally powerful prevail. If so, this is a serious blind spot: privileging specific beliefs and believers is, in fact, a pernicious spiritual gerrymander—Caesar’s sword closing liberty’s garden to all but a favored few.
But I also wonder whether he has a blind spot in an area that should concern Americans—religious freedom. Consider his separate opinion in the Tenth Circuit’s opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Remember the issue in Hobby Lobby. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers are required to provide a certain level of health insurance benefits to full-time employees. One of those benefits, under Health and Human Services regulations, is coverage of all medically approved methods of contraception.
The decision of whether to use contraception, and, if so, which method to use, remains with the employee. It is a confidential medical decision. By law neither the employer or anyone else can inquire about it. Nonetheless, the owners of the Hobby Lobby corporation objected on religious reasons to certain forms of contraception, and did not wish to provide insurance that covered them. They challenged the requirement of coverage as a “substantial burden” on their “free exercise of religion.”
...I would like to see someone at Gorsuch’s hearing ask whether there is room in his vision of religious freedom for those other spiritual traditions, and how the balance should be struck between individual spiritual freedom and the desire of powerful institutions to control those who work for them. On the strength of the Hobby Lobby opinion, he seems to think there is no balance: the economically and culturally powerful prevail. If so, this is a serious blind spot: privileging specific beliefs and believers is, in fact, a pernicious spiritual gerrymander—Caesar’s sword closing liberty’s garden to all but a favored few.
Personally, I would like to see at the beginning of every piece of media coverage about Gorsuch a note that this was Obama's seat to fill, but the Republicans refused to do their jobs.