ST. LOUIS (CNS) — Arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking protection from a federal mandate that requires coverage of contraceptives in workers’ health insurance plans.
The brief, filed Feb. 10, called the mandate “one of the most straightforward violations … this court is likely to see” of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
Under the Affordable Health Care law, most employers’ health plans must include free coverage of contraceptives, sterilizations and other types of birth control opponents say can induce an abortion.
Hobby Lobby, which is being represented by the Becket Fund, a religious liberty law firm, is one of two for-profit employers who object to the requirement. On March 25, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in its case and the case filed by Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Pennsylvania family-run company that makes cabinets.
The owners of the for-profit companies object to the contraceptive mandate on religious grounds.
Just a week before Hobby Lobby filed its brief with the court, the Oklahoma-based retailer, operated by the Green family, announced that it would open 70 new stores across the United States in 2014, dispelling rumors circulating through social media that the company would be forced to close its stores in light of the lawsuit against the government. The company has about 16,000 full-time and 12,000 part-time employees.
At issue in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases, will be First Amendment arguments that the contraceptive mandate violates the owners’ Free Exercise rights as well as their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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