Posted on by Mark Movsesian

More on Yesterday’s Decision in Zubik

Marc has posted a rundown of yesterday’s decision in Zubik v. Burwell, the ACA case. I’d like to add just a few quick observations.

Some commentators, including the New York Times, have decried the result as the inevitable consequence of having an eight-member Court, which prevents the formation of five-person majorities in close cases. If only the Senate had confirmed Merrick Garland, we wouldn’t be in fixes like this. But it’s worth noting that the Court’s opinion yesterday was unanimous. All eight Justices joined it in full. If Merrick Garland had been on the Court, it likely would have been 9-0. In fact, an unsigned, per curiam opinion like yesterday’s traditionally signals that the Court does not see a decision as particularly significant or controversial.

Now, it’s true that Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsburg, wrote a separate concurrence. But, in Supreme Court practice, a concurrence signals that the author agrees with the Court’s reasoning and wishes only to offer further support or highlight certain aspects of the case. And that’s what Justice Sotomayor did here. She went out of her way to highlight the fact that the Court was not ruling on the merits of the case. I’m not sure that was entirely necessary; the Court itself expressly said it was not ruling on the merits. But, anyway, her writing separately doesn’t reflect disagreement with the Court’s reasoning.

So the Court does not seem to have been divided at all. Now, it’s possible, as some speculate, that the Court did a quick vote after oral argument, saw that there would be no clear majority on the merits, and reached for a compromise that would preserve the Court’s credibility while allowing further consideration down the road, when the Court is back to nine members. But that’s more than we can know right now, and, at least to me, there seems another, more likely explanation for the Court’s unanimity. The Court determined that the whole dispute may well be unnecessary.

After oral argument and supplementary briefing in March, it became clear to the Court that there might be a way out of the conflict the lower courts had missed. It might be possible for employees to receive coverage for contraceptives without requiring employers to file the so-called “opt out form” — the form to which the petitioners had objected on religious grounds. As the Court explained:

Following oral argument, the Court requested supplemental briefing from the parties addressing “whether contraceptive coverage could be provided to petitioners’ employees, through petitioners’ insurance companies, without any such notice from petitioners.” Both petitioners and the Government now confirm that such an option is feasible. Petitioners have clarified that their religious exercise is not infringed where they “need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception,” even if their employees receive cost-free contraceptive coverage from the same insurance company. The Government has confirmed that the challenged procedures “for employers with insured plans could be modified to operate in the manner posited in the Court’s order while still ensuring that the affected women receive contraceptive coverage seamlessly, together with the rest of their health coverage.”

In other words, the parties might be able to reach a settlement that would satisfy everyone. The Supreme Court is not the place to hammer out such a settlement, though, so the Court remanded the dispute to the lower courts, which, it said, were in a position to “allow the parties sufficient time to resolve any outstanding issues between them.” (Hint, hint). In that event, the dispute would be moot–and it is hornbook law that courts, including the Supreme Court, do not decide moot issues. As one commentator observed, what the Court is saying is, “We don’t need to decide this case right now. The parties should be able to work it out for themselves.”

Although the Court did not rule on the merits, it’s hard not to see this as a loss for the Obama Administration. A determination that the dispute may not have been necessary at all is, implicitly, a judgment on the Administration’s strategy in these cases. The Administration has taken a very hard line on the Contraception Mandate, harder than it needed to in order to achieve its stated goal of providing cost-free contraceptive coverage for women. Two terms ago, in Hobby Lobby, the Court ruled that the Administration could reach that goal without requiring for-profit corporations with religious objections to cover contraceptives in their health plans. Now, the Court has suggested the Administration can reach that goal without requiring religious non-profits like the Little Sisters to violate their religious convictions. So why did the Administration take such a hard line? Why didn’t it accommodate the concerns of people with religious objections to the mandate–an extremely small group, it must be conceded–especially as accommodation wouldn’t have changed the ultimate outcome? It’s almost as though the Administration had goals other than women’s health in mind.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Tushnet Participates in Colloquium

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Our guest in our law and religion colloquium this week was Harvard’s Mark Tushnet (above), who presented a provocative paper opposing religious accommodations because of the harm they do to religious believers. As Marc points out over at Mirror of Justice (Why are so many law and religion scholars named Mark, by the way? Can it be a mere coincidence?), last month we hosted Princeton’s Robert George, who has a rather different point of view on the question. A powerful, one-two punch!

Posted on by Robert J. Delahunty

Justice Scalia and Conservatism

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This posting was originally a short speech given to students at the University of St. Thomas Law School on February 29.

We will all miss the unique and iconic personality of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Few if any Supreme Court Justices have been gifted with such charm, humor, charisma and pizzazz. He was a man of great faith; a brilliant and memorable writer; a witty raconteur; a powerful and bracing intellect. He argued law, as he lived life, with passion and gusto. In his impact on the American public, he was in a class of his own: among the Justices of the past, perhaps only Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Robert Jackson, and Thurgood Marshall can be compared to him. One might even say, with all due deference to Senator Cruz, that Justice Scalia was the living epitome of New York values.

But we are here to discuss his influence on the law, especially on constitutional law. And for all his great and varied gifts, his long tenure on the supreme bench, and the vigor and clarity of his opinions, his influence on constitutional law, at least judged from our current perspective, was very limited.

The two doctrines one associates most closely with Scalia’s jurisprudence are, of course, originalism and textualism. Others on this panel will no doubt discuss them, and I will say something about them a bit later. But what I want to consider briefly here is another important but neglected strand in his jurisprudence: his use of custom or tradition in constitutional adjudication. This aspect of his jurisprudence is, in my view, the most distinctively conservative element of it. There is no inherent connection between textualism or originalism and conservatism, but there is such a connection between custom and conservatism.

Nineteenth century legal conservatives such as James Coolidge Carter went so far as to identify law with custom. Or more accurately, they identified the common law with custom. One could say, in that spirit, that the common law identifies, articulates, stabilizes, and occasionally revises and improves, custom. And much of American Read more

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“Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy” (Cohen & Laborde, eds.)

In January, Columbia University Press will release “Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy” edited by Jean L. Cohen (Columbia University) and Cécile Laborde (University College London). The publisher’s description follows:

Polarization between political religionists and militant secularists on both sides of the Atlantic is on the rise. Critically engaging with traditional secularism and religious accommodationism, this collection introduces a constitutional secularism that robustly meets contemporary challenges. It identifies which connections between religion and the state are compatible with the liberal, republican, and democratic principles of constitutional democracy and assesses the success of their implementation in the birthplace of political secularism: the United States and Western Europe.

Approaching this issue from philosophical, legal, historical, political, and sociological perspectives, the contributors wage a thorough defense of their project’s theoretical and institutional legitimacy. Their work brings fresh insight to debates over the balance of human rights and religious freedom, the proper definition of a nonestablishment norm, and the relationship between sovereignty and legal pluralism. They discuss the genealogy of and tensions involving international legal rights to religious freedom, religious symbols in public spaces, religious arguments in public debates, the jurisdiction of religious authorities in personal law, and the dilemmas of religious accommodation in national constitutions and public policy when it violates international human rights agreements or liberal-democratic principles. If we profoundly rethink the concepts of religion and secularism, these thinkers argue, a principled adjudication of competing claims becomes possible.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Religious Belief and Executive Power: A Thought on Zivotofsky v. Kerry

One prominent theme in Barack Obama’s presidency is that of the escalation of conflict between traditional religious belief and executive power–in particular the executive/administrative powers brought to bear against religious believers and institutions in a variety of contexts. One can agree with this description, of course, while seeing that escalation of conflict as either a favorable or regrettable development. A recent essay by Adam White in The Weekly Standard takes the latter view; more than a few other commenters and scholars take the former.

Today’s Supreme Court decision in Zivotofsky v. Kerry does not obviously concern this issue. It instead involved a separation of powers question: whether a congressional statute permitting a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem to request a designation of his place of birth as “Israel” on his passport unconstitutionally interfered with the Executive’s power to recognize sovereign nations (while Israel has been recognized, the national status of Jerusalem remains unresolved). Ultimately the Court held, inter alia, that the Executive’s power to receive ambassadors gives him the exclusive power of recognition, and that this statute interfered with that power. So in a tussle between Congress and the President, the President won.

And yet this was not simply an inter-branch heavyweight fight. Consider the question of Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s status is not only a matter of geopolitical disagreement, but of deep geo-religious contention. That contention stretches back through the past millennia to innumerable wars and religious controversies. The function of this particular statute is plain: to allow those U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem and who, for religious reasons (that is, reasons that may implicate religious convictions), believe that Jerusalem is properly described as an Israeli city, the right to note that association on their passports. As Justice Scalia notes in his dissent: Zivotofsky’s parents believed “as a matter of conscience” that it was important to note “their son’s birthplace as part of Israel” and that his “Israeli nativity ‘not be erased’ from his identity documents.” In defending Congress’s power to enact the statute (under the Naturalization Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause), Scalia continued: “[Congress may conclude] that regardless of international politics, a passport or birth report should respect its bearer’s conscientious belief that Jerusalem belongs to Israel.”

Whoever has the better of the argument as a matter of constitutional interpretation, one can see in this case another example of the conflict between Executive power and religious conscience: the Obama Administration refused to permit an individual citizen with a religious belief in the importance of listing Israel as the place of birth of his son to do so. It took an aggressive view of Executive power (both as to whether sovereign recognition powers are exclusive to the Executive and as to whether this particular designation of an individual citizen counts as sovereign recognition) in a context in which it was, once again, opposed to traditional religious conscientious belief. A notation by a private U.S. citizen on his passport, motivated by religious belief in the importance of the designation, is thus transformed into a usurpation of Executive power.

Justice Scalia cited Bowen v. Roy (1986), a religious liberty case where parents objected to government use of the Social Security number of their daughter, “Little Bird of Snow,” and to having to supply that number when they applied for benefits. According to the parents’ Native American beliefs, a person needs control over his life for spiritual reasons and use of the number would have “rob[bed] the spirit” of their daughter.” Ultimately the Court had no occasion to balance the government’s interest against a possible religious burden, because it held that the government can use the number for its own internal purposes without impairing anyone’s religious conscience. But a majority of five justices held that the parents should not be required to supply the number, because the government’s asserted interest in combating welfare fraud would not be much compromised if those with religious objections did not have to supply Social Security numbers.

Obviously Justice Scalia is not suggesting that the Zivotofsky parents have a religious freedom claim here. So why the citation to Bowen?

Perhaps for this reason. The argument is not about constitutional compulsion, but about religious (and other sorts of) accommodation. The government is not forced by the Constitution to make an exception for the Zivotofskys. But Congress did–here, and in other contexts (allowing those who wish to specify “Belfast,” rather than “United Kingdom,” to do so on their passports, for example). It grants these exceptions not because it is thereby recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem (as it is not thereby de-recognizing the United Kingdom’s sovereignty over Belfast), and not because the Constitution commands it, but because it understands that for some American citizens, religious and identity-based convictions about Jerusalem’s status are deeply important, and because people care about what the federal government says about them on official documents. The Obama Administration’s position, instead, was that this sort of conscience-based designation trenches on Executive authority. And in staking out that position (and now in vindicating it before the Supreme Court, in a ruling about which I have no comment) the Administration repeated the pattern of conflict with traditional religious belief that it has established in several other controversies and that have characterized its years in power.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Greve on “The Bob Jones Rule”

I was going to post on one particular exchange between Solicitor General Verrilli and Justice Alito in yesterday’s oral argument in the same-sex marriage case, but Professor Michael Greve’s post is a better read than what I can come up with. A bit:

Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?

Solicitor General Verrilli: You know, I don’t think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics, but it’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that.

That answer is about as straightforward and committal as you’ll see from an experienced lawyer. It’s curious because the Solicitor General had excellent reasons to deny the point and to deflect the question. His task was to assuage worries about what the Court is being asked to do here and to script the justices’ forthcoming press release (formally known as “the opinion for the Court”): that’s not what this means. And he had a million ways of making reassuring noises. It’s not some complicated legal case, for Pete’s sake: all Mr. Verrilli needed was to argle-bargle for the remaining five minutes of friendly colloquy about First Amendment values, competing dignities, the arc of history, and the meaning of life. In short, Verrilli made the concession not because he had to; he volunteered it. Why?

Because if the tax exemption jazz becomes “an issue,” it’s decided the minute gay marriage becomes the constitutional baseline. Because everyone knows that. Because the LBGT folks already have those complaints and briefs in their drawers, to be filed (almost “certainly”) on July 1.  And because DoJ and the IRS and OCR, in their last remaining eighteen months in office, are in a hurry to roll over to their constituencies and to hammer the hold-outs, in meticulous observance of the law. A hallmark of this administration. Or maybe they’ll hand out waivers.

“I don’t deny that” says “dare me. It’s not going to hurt me in this case, and I’ll plant a flag for the next cases.” Mr. Verrilli could have coasted; instead, he waited for his opening to push further. A heck of a lawyer, at his considerable best.

Posted on by Nathan Oman

The Empirical Irony of the Conflict Between Antidiscrimination and Religious Freedom

I like markets. I think that on the whole commerce tends to make us better people, that trade is one of the best mechanisms of cooperation in a pluralistic society, and that participation in the market will generally increase our material well-being. Hence, insuring that everyone has the ability to participate in the market is important. Generally, the best way to insure such participation is to create institutions that keep markets competitive and remove barriers to entry. Contract and the search for new customers will do the rest.

I am not, however, a principled libertarian or anarcho-capitalist or the like. At times history, habits, and other institutions will result in a market from which some people are systematically excluded. I don’t think that this is an inevitable result of markets, and I think that contract and competition do a better job of insuring access than most folks (perhaps especially law professors) recognize. Still, no human institution or set of practices is perfect, and this is definitely true of commerce. When such systematic exclusion occurs, I think that antidiscrimination laws are justified to insure access. In a pluralistic society, however, I don’t think that the case for such laws is particularly strong if we justify them on grounds other than access. Living in a world in which others engage in acts that are an affront to one’s dignity or manifest unsavory thoughts strikes me as part and parcel of the liberal ideal, and I don’t think that such things should be made into legal wrongs, except in extreme cases like IIED torts.

Given my framework, I think that there is a deep irony in the current debates over religious exemptions and antidiscrimination laws covering homosexuality. First, I think that such antidiscrimination laws are justified where there are threats to the ability of gay citizens to participate fully and meaningfully in the market. The strength of that justification, however, is empirically contingent in my book. In places where there is widespread animosity towards homosexuality, the case for such laws is fairly strong. In places where animosity towards homosexuality is confined to a small subset of the population, the case for antidiscrimination laws is weaker.

I also think that antidiscrimination laws can burden religious exercise substantially. I actually don’t think that the wedding cake baker or the wedding photography facts are particularly hard cases. There are lots of people who believe that the celebration of gay marriage is wrong, sinful, and blasphemous. It is pretty understandable that they would regard participating in such a wedding as sinful. One may disagree with their moral or theological position (I do), but I don’t think that it is insincere, pretextual, or that the burden placed upon them is trivial. Hence, regardless of the doctrinal rout by which one gets there – RFRA, state constitutions, statutory carve outs, what have you – I think that exemptions in such cases make sense. Where granting such exemptions doesn’t meaningfully threaten access to the market, fining the baker or the photographer strikes me as needlessly punitive and vindictive.

However, I think that the case for religious exemptions from antidiscrimination laws is also empirically contingent. It is contingent in two ways. First, given the religious beliefs that command a following in society, are there a lot of belief systems that are going to label providing services to gay customers or employing gay workers as impermissibly sinful? Second, are there a lot of believers in these creeds? I think that there is a lot of mindless animosity towards homosexuality and some of that mindless animosity drives religious beliefs. There is less of this, however, than many secular liberals assume. I don’t think, for example, that most conservative religious believers think that serving gay customers or having gay employees is sinful, even if they believe that homosexuality is sinful. Rather, I think that the desire for exemptions is largely about marriages, weddings, and perhaps family formation (IVF or adoption). And even there, I don’t think that there are very many people – including conservative religious believers – that would actually use such exemptions.

I may be wrong about both of those conclusions, and in some places I am pretty confident that I am wrong. And this leads to the irony. In places where anti-discrimination laws are most justified we are the least likely to get them through the political process. Those are also the places where granting broad religious exemptions is most likely going to undermine antidiscrimination laws if they are enacted. On the other hand, those places where there is the strongest support for antidiscrimination laws are also the places where there is the least need for such laws and where the case against granting religious exemptions is the weakest. Yet these are also the places where we are least likely to see religious exemptions from those laws.

All of this makes me pretty depressed. The incentives, it seems to me, is for the politics to become the most toxic and destructive for both sides depending on the region. In crude terms, I think that in blue states conservative religious objectors will likely be dealt with harshly and punitively. In red states, I think that there is a real danger that in some places homosexuals will lack the ability to fully and meaningfully participate in the market.

There are, however, two things that give me hope. The first and greatest source of hope is commerce itself. I think that interactions and incentives in the market are likely to cool animosity and open opportunities. The fact that most people don’t care a great deal about these debates and would rather get on with making a living is deeply heartening. The other source of optimism for me is Utah, where the state recently expanded antidiscrimination protection for LGBT folks, while carving out surprisingly narrow exemptions for religion. Utah is not as encouraging as the market itself, however, because the law punted on most of the hardest issues. Still it suggests that the rhetorical and legal tailspin that seems most likely to me in ideologically homogenous spaces isn’t inevitable.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The (Anticipated) Depth of Progressive Skepticism Toward Religious Freedom

Nate writes: “I think, however, it is also possible that once it becomes clear that priorities on gay marriage and antidiscrimination laws are not threatened that progressive hostility to religious freedom will wane. I don’t know if this is the case, but it seems possible that really there is nothing deeper going on here than gay marriage and antidiscrimination laws.”

I see things a bit differently. But at least part of the difference may be the result of definitional uncertainties. I’m not sure what Nate means to include within the compass of antidiscrimination laws. I’m more certain of the sorts of harms to personal dignity that antidiscrimination scholars do see at the heart of those laws. And I’m even more certain of what Nate rightly describes as the ambitions of Justice Kennedy, especially in the jurisprudence of dignity that has animated his opinions over the last 25 years or so (from substantive due process all the way to state sovereign immunity). As I put it in this essay (footnotes omitted):

The issue of symbolic or “dignitarian” harm is particularly problematic. If perceived affronts or injuries to one’s personal dignity constitute a “significant” or “material” harm to a third party, then it is difficult to see how many permissive religious accommodations could survive. Laws reflect morally and politically charged messages. Whether the subject is education, public health, drugs, sexuality, commerce, prisons, insurance, the environment, or the military, laws embody particular moral convictions and impose, even if tacitly, particular moral views on those subject to them. Religious accommodations are decisions by the government to permit limited dissent from these moral messages. In accommodating religious objectors, the state might be perceived not merely to authorize limited disagreement with the law, but to countenance disrespect for the moral views underlying it or even for the moral dignity of those who are its intended beneficiaries. But if the state comes to have powerful legal interests in remedying symbolic or dignitarian offenses, then that may well render many permissive religious accommodations illegal….

A leading antidiscrimination scholar has likewise noted that the prevention of harms to “dignity” and the stigmatization of discrimination are two of the three “canonical” functions of antidiscrimination laws generally. Religious accommodations, it is said, have the power to “stigmatize and demean” those who disagree with the religious claimant’s dissenting position on these matters, even when such objections are “not stated explicitly.” The feeling of being “judged” by those who raise religious objections to certain conduct, and the indignity of knowing that the state has countenanced that judgment by permitting a religious accommodation, may themselves be independent harms….

The government’s vindication of third-party dignitary harms has the potential to destroy religious accommodation. The core function of religious accommodations, again, is to authorize limited, but sometimes socially powerful and politically controversial, dissent from the law’s moral messages. There is an important difference between dissent from a law’s moral message and the denigration or vilification of the law’s intended beneficiaries. “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” is the Christian aphorism sometimes used to express this distinction, but it has proved elusive and generally unpersuasive (or worse) to those whose dignity is felt to be injured by claims for religious accommodations. A government that assumes the power to confer dignity on individuals may also subject itself to legal claims by individuals whose dignity has been harmed as the deprivation of an entitlement. And there is reason to worry that the legal conferral of dignity is expanding, as the Supreme Court increasingly justifies its constitutional jurisprudence based on ever-thickening concepts of human dignity. Lurking just beneath these dignitarian clashes are bottomless mysteries concerning the foundations of human identity—religion or sex? higher duty or worldly satisfaction?—that, one may anxiously hope, neither the Supreme Court nor any other government institution will ever assume the power to resolve.

Perhaps in the end the issue is not so much “progressive skepticism” toward religious freedom as “progressive aspirations” for antidiscrimination law–not the winning back of progressives to the cause of religious liberty (or even to its toleration), but the damage to religious liberty that the ever-expanding scope of antidiscrimination law portends.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Thomas More, Villain

Anton Lesser Thomas More
Anton Lesser as Thomas More in Wolf Hall (BBC)

When it comes to up-market historical fiction, nobody delivers like the Tudors. There’s so much entertainment value in that Renaissance dynasty: royalty; costumes; cool accents; lust and murder; political and religious intrigue; the works—plus enough history to make you feel virtuous for watching. In the 1930s, studios turned out films like The Private Life of Henry VIII and Fire over England, which, for my money, still has the best portrayal of Elizabeth on film, by the great British actress Flora Robson. In the 1960s, there was Anne of the Thousand Days. Forty years ago, PBS broadcast Elizabeth R and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. More recently, there was Showtime’s The Tudors. And now on PBS’s Masterpiece there is Wolf Hall, a BBC dramatization of Hilary Mantel’s 2009 novel.

All historical fiction involves anachronism, of course, and depictions of the Tudors often reveal more about contemporary issues than they do about the past. Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons portrayed Thomas More as a liberal dissenter from state ideology, a man committed to individual conscience and the rule of law. (In the 1960s, liberals identified with such people). Glenda Jackson’s 1971 portrayal made Elizabeth an icon for the rising feminist movement.

I was able to catch an episode of Wolf Hall on Sunday, and it seems to me the new series likewise reflects our current cultural moment. Maybe I spend too much time thinking about these things, but to me it is impossible to miss the allusions to current debates about rational government and religious belief. The message, for religious liberty, is not a congenial one.

Wolf Hall—which, incidentally, has great production values and wonderful performances, especially by Damian Lewis as Henry VIII—inverts the conventional portrayal of the Henrician Reformation. Most past film and television versions, even those sympathetic to Henry, show More as a kind of hero, a noble, if misguided, martyr for freedom of conscience. In Mantel’s version, by contrast, it’s Cromwell, the supporter of state orthodoxy and More’s tormentor, who is the hero. And More, the man who resisted the state from religious conviction, is the unalloyed villain.

Now, More was a more complicated figure than widely understood. Even saints have failings. He may have been, as Swift famously wrote, “a person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced,” but, as chancellor, he persecuted Protestants and approved burning heretics at the stake. Mantel’s portrayal goes beyond offering a helpful corrective to the conventional wisdom, though. Her More is not deeper or truer to the historical record. He is simply evil, a nasty piece of work—cold, fanatical, and sadistic.

Mantel’s Cromwell, by contrast, is warm, self-effacing, and pragmatic, even wistful—a family man, though with a ruthless edge. As between him and More, he is easily the more reasonable. Religious enthusiasm is not for him; he is far too insightful and levelheaded. He is also more compassionate. When More tells him that torture is for the victim’s own good—the real More forcefully denied that he ever tortured anyone—Cromwell is aghast. Cromwell is far too tender-hearted to believe something like that. He cannot bear to see someone burned at the stake for heresy. More, we gather, would be delighted.

I know nothing about Mantel’s politics. Perhaps her choices in Wolf Hall are purely aesthetic. Maybe she set herself the artistic challenge of portraying Cromwell, one of British history’s great villains, in a favorable light. But I’m guessing she has an agenda. Increasingly, secular liberals are losing patience with claims for religious liberty, particularly from traditionalists who dissent from progressive orthodoxy. Only fanatics could object to progressive goals like the Contraception Mandate and same-sex marriage, they believe, and it’s wrong to accommodate such people. Accommodation encourages backward and malevolent attitudes that cause innocent people grave harm.

In its biased portrayal of More, British history’s great example of religious resistance to state orthodoxy, Wolf Hall is sending its audience a message: Don’t think this man was at all admirable. He was a dangerous head case. And, by extension, be careful of his analogues today, who continue to oppose religious fanaticism to tolerance, reason, and progress. Cromwell, and pragmatic people like him who protect us from the forces of reaction, are the real heroes.

It’s a powerful message, and one with increasing influence. Perhaps this explains why PBS is advertising Wolf Hall as “a historical drama for a modern audience.” The fact that this hatchet job on Thomas More appears in an impeccably well-done BBC production—surely the gold standard in upper middle class entertainment—shows how fast our culture is changing, and how much work defenders of religious liberty have before them.

Posted on by Nathan Oman

Religion and For-Profit Corporations: A Real Issue Hidden by Flimsy Arguments

I was recently talking with a well-regarded scholar about the argument advanced in Hobby Lobby by the Administration that for-profit corporations should not be able to claim protections for religious freedom. His response was that the argument was always a makeweight and didn’t really raise serious questions one way or the other. Since my interlocutor is a smarter and more learned man that I, I have thought quite about his claim. Here is why I think he’s wrong.

He’s right that the arguments advanced in the Hobby Lobby debates about corporations were pretty shallow. There was the claim that a corporation – as opposed to an individual – cannot practice religion. This, of course, cannot be right as it would lead to the absurd position that churches (which are corporate persons) cannot exercise religion. One might respond that it is not the corporateness per se that is at issue but the exercise of religon by for-profit corporations. The problem here is that this would suggest that individuals that pursue profits also cannot be exercising religion. This is less absurd, but still pretty flimsy. One might imagine trying to say this with a straight face about businesses organized as sole proprietorships, but what of employees or other individuals pursuing economic gain, i.e. essentially all adults? Does their “for profit” status preclude them exercising religion? Certainly not. Then there is the claim that in exchange for the “subsidy” of limited liability, for-profit corporations give up the right to pursue religious ends. This claim flies in the face state corporate law, which generally provides that a corporation may be formed for “any lawful purpose.” It’s also worth noting that state exempt property statutes provide “limited liability” for individuals, performing precisely the same economic function – asset partitioning – as limited corporate liability. In return for the “subsidy” provided by homestead exemptions does anyone think that individuals give up the right to practice religion?

Despite the flimsiness of these arguments, however, I think that the debates about corporations in Hobby Lobby get at a deeper issue, one that at the very least justifies a blog post on the topic even after the case has been decided.

Far from being a makeweight, I think that the intuition that many folks have that corporations should not exercise religion actually has pretty deep roots in our law, albeit one’s that I don’t find terribly attractive. One could object to the exercise of religion by for-profit corporations for the same reason that one might generally be suspicious of for- Read more