A shield vs a sword; what will Scalia decide? updated with mosaic & porthole

Eric Nelson

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Tuesday March 25, 2014 · 12:02 PM PDT

2014/03/25 · 12:02

Just a quick question that Chirs Hayes discussed with Irin Camron

How does Scalia protect corpos without reversing himself?

In 1990 Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon vs. Smith,

494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that determined that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote, even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual.
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The majority opinion was delivered by Justice Scalia. The First Amendment forbids government from prohibiting the "free exercise" of religion.

When it comes to using peyote:

The Court held that the First Amendment's protection of the "free exercise" of religion does not allow a person to use a religious motivation as a reason not to obey such generally applicable laws. "To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."

So Scalia ruled that smoking peyote in a religious ceremony is not grounds for an exemption even where no third party has injury.

Then came Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993

which was ‘supposed to be a shield not a sword.’
- Irin Camron

Hobby Lobby is using it as a sword

(short ad – sorry)
Transcript @ link: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/...

Whereas with Hobby Lobby, every employee is a third party potentially injured by and subject to corporate “religious freedom” . How does Scalia reverse himself and rule in favor of corporations (?) as he seems wont to - imo

Note: I am not a lawyer and goof my words up, so this is just a sort of PSA, but thought that this perspective and the questions raised were good thing to share with pretty extreme consequences for the future if the right leaning Supreme Court somehow finds that corporations do indeed have a "religious conscience" and the right to use it as a sword.