Letters: Contraceptive case and the law
Re “Hobby Lobby’s cause,” Opinion, Dec. 5
How refreshing to read that the protections of the Bill of Rights may be extended to corporations and other organizations — and that these organizations take on the attitudes, religious beliefs and constitutional rights of their principal owners.
At last, America is poised to recognize the constitutional rights of everything — perhaps even my dog. After all, if organizations that exist only in our minds have the same rights as their owners, shouldn’t living organisms have even more protection?
Since the Supreme Court has already granted corporations free-speech rights for the purpose of political expenditures, why shouldn’t my dog have the right to run for office and bring some of those millions home?
Shouldn’t she have the same rights as any corporation to life, liberty and the pursuit of squirrels?
Eleanor M. Egan
Costa Mesa
Richard W. Garnett supports the position of retailer Hobby Lobby that providing certain birth-control benefits to employees by way of employer-sponsored insurance violates the religious freedom of the corporation and its owners.
This overlooks the fact that employer-sponsored health insurance, like wages and other fringe benefits, is compensation given to an employee in exchange for labor. Once given, it may be used at the employee’s discretion.
If the Supreme Court upholds the position of Hobby Lobby, employees would then have to pay for these services out of their own pockets. Hobby Lobby could argue then that the employees cannot use their wages for these services since that money had passed through the corporate bank account.
Hobby Lobby believes it is entitled to the same religious freedom as individuals. In seeking to restrict access to legal forms of birth control, though, it is seeking to impose its owners’ religious beliefs on others.
The 1st Amendment does not give it that right.
Mark Reed
Los Angeles
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