Topics surrounding a person’s individual rights and freedoms fill the pages of news media these days. The concept of a right refers to the freedom from interference by other individuals or the government. Individual rights involve an individual’s ability to follow their dreams, within the confines of the law, without disruption from an individual or an over reaching government. Individual rights include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as stated in the United States Declaration of Independence. Throughout history protections and violations of individual rights have been an ongoing source of conflict between governments and individuals. Nowhere is the conflict of government and an individual’s rights as a business owner more evident than in two recent cases.
On July 7, 2017, The Justice Department filed paperwork supporting the a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious principle. The owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, refused to create a cake for a homosexual wedding, claiming it was against his religious beliefs. “When Phillips designs and creates a custom wedding cake for a specific couple and a specific wedding, he plays an active role in enabling that ritual, and he associates himself with the celebratory message conveyed,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall wrote in the brief. Wall added, “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights.” In addition to this instance, Phillips also had a history of refusing services for Halloween cakes, anti-American cakes, adult-themed cakes, cakes containing alcohol, and cakes that would disparage others. His principles had been consistent for the history of his business. In this instance, the business owners individual right to conduct his business in a way that he saw fit, was violated.
This case is connected in theme and case law to a similar attack on a business owner’s individual rights in 2014. The owners of Hobby Lobby craft stores were forced to sue Health and Human services regarding certain portions of the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. In this religious freedom case the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Hobby Lobby, stating that corporations do have the right to decline to pay for services in their healthcare plan that violate their religious beliefs.
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to privately owned businesses like Hobby Lobby. The root of this problem begins in the Affordable Care Act, which states that employers need to provide health care for their employees that cover all forms of contraception at no cost. However, some for-profit corporations have maintained they should not have to pay for all of these services — especially those that conflict with their beliefs. The owners of Hobby Lobby do not have a problem with offering a health care plan that covers most forms of birth control, but they draw the line at providing contraceptives that end human life after conception. The question both of these cases attempt to decide is whether for-profit companies have a right to exercise religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal law passed in 1993 that states the “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”
Freedom of religion is considered to be a fundamental individual right. In both of the cases that are listed above, individual rights have been under attack. Both the cake shop owner and the owners of Hobby Lobby had their individual religious freedom rights violated. In both cases, the government was at odds with their individual rights. It is important that the individual rights were upheld in the courts. Is religious freedom important? Of course it is one of our fundamental rights and it applies to both individuals and also companies and their owners. When big government and individual rights collide, the rights of the individual have prevailed, both in the recent ruling this year with the cake shop owner as it had previously with Hobby Lobby in 2014.