Hobby Lobby Case Summary

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Hobby Lobby violated the rights of their employees by denying them a health coverage plan that covered contraception. Hobby Lobby challenged Kathleen Sebelius, a politician who was Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Green family, founders and controlling shareholders of Hobby Lobby, discovered the insure plan that was being offered to their employees had covered different forms of contraceptives. The Green’s lawyer had uncovered this “error” 2012, multiple years after Hobby Lobby went into business. The Green family has built their company on the Christian faith and believe that contraception is immoral and considered abortion. Despite the Green family being anti-abortion, they have only recently looked into the issue. If they refuse to give their employees the contraceptives covered in their plan, Hobby Lobby will pay fines of $1.3 million a …show more content…
By applying the Sherbert Test to this case, Hobby Lobby will need to show that they are sincere and that this is a substantial burden on their company and beliefs.
Looking into the first prong of the Sherbert test, unquestionably, Hobby Lobby is not sincere. The Green family is not looking out for their employees and only taking their religion into consideration. The Green family previously had stated their employees do not have to be Christians for them to be employed at Hobby Lobby; however, many of their employees may not have the same beliefs and disagree that contraception is abortion. Moreover, if Hobby Lobby is a Christian company, it still does not give them any right to force their religion on their employees, nor can an employee force a religion upon a company. In the case Thomas v Review Board, a man of