No, they are a privately held corporation. They are taxed on the companies total net income just like they were a partnership. As such, if paying for the IUDs and morning after pill costs the company, it costs them directly. It was specifically because of this direct pass through of income and its treatment by the IRS that the courts found in favor of Hobby Lobby. If Hobby Lobby were a publicly traded corporation, they would have lost the case, because only dividends are passed through so it is just an investment and they could chose to invest in other companies. But that is not the case.

I understand exactly how employer health care works as I am responsible for it of our organization. However, the Hobby Lobby case is not about employer health care, it is about the HHS mandate of the affordable care act. Now, it is possible that the Greens don't subsidize any of their employee's health care and the employee pays 100% of the cost. It is possible, but very unlikely.

I do agree that employee health care is not charity, it is part of the benefits provided to workers, since WWII. This isn't about health care. It is about the government saying that the Greens must pay for something that is contrary to their religious belief. The belief in question is that they believe that life begins at conception and making them pay for IUDs means they are being forced to pay for abortions. We may not agree with their belief, but that doesn't matter. The government cannot force somebody to violate their religious beliefs, even if it is for the common good, if the government can achieve the goal through other means that don't violate the persons religious belief.

I should have been more specific and said sole proprietorship and partnership, but got tired of typing that out. There are limited liability partnerships (LLPs) that are not corporations so your exemption to liability arguments still isn't correct. But even if it was, are you saying that if you want to start a business and protect your family assets, you must give up your religious freedom? It would seem that would violate the establishment clause of the constitution, but maybe you have a different spin on it.

Incorporation, itself, is not the issue and doesn't really mean anything. There are numerous types of corporations, many of which don't even use the term corporation or incorporated. Corporations are defined by tax law. Does the US really want the IRS to determine what rights people have or not?

The reason most shareholders lose their "rights" is because they are just one of many that have an interest in a public endeavour (corporation). That is not the case with a privately held family corporation. The opinion on the Hobby Lobby case specifically addressed this when it acknowledge the difference between investing in a corporation and actually owning and operating the corporation. If Corporation A does things a shareholder disagrees with, they can divest their shares and invest in something in line with their views. The actual ownership is on paper and the value is the investment. However, with Hobby Lobby and other privately held corporations, the owner value is the company itself and divesting in it is basically forcing them to sell the family business. The courts said you should not have to choose between your faith and selling the family business because of a government requirement that could be met through other means.

Again, corporations are defined by tax law.

As a private corporation, all profit from Hobby Lobby flows directly to the owners and is taxed just like they were a partnership. As such, forcing Hobby Lobby to pay for IUDs for its employees reduces the profit and effectively has the Greens paying for it. If they were a public corporation, then the court would have ruled differently.

As for starting your own corporation, you are free to do that. You don't even have to object for religious grounds to keep from paying taxes, just form a not-for-profit. Of course, you will be taxed, like everyone else on your personal earnings. Just like the Greens are.

When I talk about "they" I am not talking about a corporation, but Mr. and Mrs. Green who own Hobby Lobby.

Look at it this way. The Green's never provided IUDs and the morning after pill to their employees. The Greens already paid for birth control for their employees, just not 4 specific products. The ACA said that your employer must pay for your birth control. People are acting like Hobby Lobby employees are somehow harmed by not having their employer pay for something they never paid for in the first place.

The government has determined that it is in the best interest of the country for every woman to have access to birth control. HHS' own data shows that 90% of woman were on birth control prior to the ACA. Is making employers pay 100% of the cost going to change that? Even so, is it the only way the government could achieve its goal?

Yes, Hobby Lobby is a private corporation. As such, all profits and loss flows through to the Greens, just like it was a sole proprietorship. Forcing Hobby Lobby, the corporation to pay is equivalent to forcing the Green's to pay. .The SCOTUS determined that the government had other options available to providing woman access to the 4 types of birth control in question and therefore could not force the Green's to pay for something they were opposed to on religious grounds.

No, they could not, because religious freedom is a protected right under the constitution. Also, the government is not going to pick up the bill for the 2 IUDs and the morning after pill and the week after pill that was all this case was about. Assuming they use the same accommodation that they made available to religious non-profits, the private insurance company will pay for it.

Now, the religious non-profits argue that the accommodation doesn't work because those same insurance companies will simply pass the cost back to them in higher premiums, so effectively they are still paying for it. However, the court was not asked to rule on the accommodation, itself.

All privately held companies are incorporated. Sole proprietorships and partnerships are not. The owners of privately held companies are only partially insulated in that their personal assets cannot be attached by creditors. They are not the same as regular corporations. The ruling only applies to privately held companies that have 5 or fewer owners. It basically treats them like sole proprietorships and partnerships, which is how the IRS treats them.

Basically, you can't have the government pick and chose how it wants to view a business, at least not if what the government is trying to cause people to do something that violates their religious beliefs (or any other constitutionally protected right). Put differently, the government can't say when its convenient for them, you are an individual and when its not, you aren't.

The actual law in question is the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) passed by congress during the Clinton Administration. It basically says that the government cannot force a person to violate their religious beliefs unless it is for the common good AND there is no other reasonable way for the government to accomplish the goal.

The Hobby Lobby case did not question the common good part of RFRA. However, the courts ruled that since the government made an accommodation for private religious corporations, it could also make the same accommodation for other private corporations so as not to infringe on the religious rights of the owners. There were also some restrictions imposed in that it only apply to private corporations with five or fewer owners. These are not your big Walmart type of corporations, but family controlled businesses.

As for LGBT, this case has nothing to do with it. LGBT rights are already protected and regardless of what an individual's religion says about it, doesn't matter. It would be like saying the Hobby Lobby case will allow corporations to not hire blacks. It is simply false.

There is no oppression occurring with the Hobby Lobby case. Employees of Hobby Lobby will still have access to all of the contraceptives that everybody else will. If they are prescribed one of the four in the case, Hobby Lobby's insurance company will pay for it, not Hobby Lobby -- that is assuming the government uses the same accommodation that the religious corporations got.

The two owners of Hobby Lobby don't have their religious belief infringed by forcing them to pay for something they believe to be immoral and the workers still have full access like everyone else. Where is the oppression?

So, Hobby Lobby should remain a sole proprietorship and somebody slips and falls and sues the Greens and they potentially lose their personal assets, too? What you are saying is that if you want to exercise your religious rights you are not permitted to form an LLC or S Corp? If Hobby Lobby were a public corporation, then what you say would be true. But, if you are proposing that people who want to exercise their constitutional rights, to religion or anything else, must give up other rights and privileges, well the SCOTUS disagrees with you.

These are family corporations, mainly LLCs and S Corps. They are not public corporations. They are basically partnerships that provide limited liability to the partners. The court ruling is specific to corporations that are not publicly traded and have five or fewer owners. Walmart can't benefit from this ruling, only family run businesses.

The courts would agree with you, however, Hobby Lobby is not a public corporation and the ruling specifically talks about this. The law allows a family to incorporate a family business for liability and tax purposes. The position you are taking, and what the courts disagreed with, is that you are making somebody chose between their religious freedoms and full participation in business. Effectively, you are saying that if you want to practice your religious beliefs and run a business, you can only do so if you are willing to put your personal assets at risk and pay higher taxes.The SCOTUS said that was a violation of their freedom because, and this is important, the government had other means available to provide the service in question that would not infringe. If there had not been other alternatives, the court might have ruled differently.

It's not their faith telling them they are abortifacients, It is the US Government Department of Health and Human Services. HHS says the 2 IUDs in question and the morning/week after pills in question keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Their faith says that life begins at conception, so being force to pay for something that keeps that life from implanting in the uterus is a violation of their religious belief.

The courts found that since this is a valid religious belief AND the government could provide the 4 questioned contraceptives through other means, that they could not force the owners of Hobby Lobby to violate their religious belief.

They were okay with the 1,196 that are on the market. It was just the 4, including two types of IUDs that were problematic.

The Hobby Lobby case is/was about individual owners of a company not losing their rights just because they formed a corporation for tax or liability purposes. It treats these individuals just like they were still a sole proprietorship or partnership. Simply put, the decision says that if you form a business, you do not give up any rights regardless of the form of that business.

That is really surprising. Do you have a citation to support that? I ask, because individuals before the Hobby Lobby case did not have a right to not hire LGBT, so the Hobby Lobby case has zero impact on the LGBT community. If something was discriminatory prior to Hobby Lobby for an individual to do, then it is still discriminatory post Hobby Lobby. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Again, the Hobby Lobby case had nothing to do with what you post. It was about not losing one's individual rights because of the way a business is organized. Of the 1,200 approved contraceptives on the market in the US, Hobby Lobby provides for 1,196 of them. How is that discrimination? To win it's case, over those four contraceptives, the government had to show there was no other reasonable way to provide them short of violating the owner's religious rights. That was not the case and the court said so. The Hobby Lobby case did not bestow religious freedoms on corporations. It did, however, keep the owners of those corporations, if fewer than five individuals from losing their religious freedoms.

In preceding passages in Deuteronomy where rape is definitely the subject, the author uses the Hebrew word "chazaq" which is missing from 22:28-29. As such, most scholars hold that the passage is not about rape but fornication. Basically, the passage you quote could be stated in today's terms that if you are caught sleeping with a woman, you must marry her.