A Critique of <em>Hobby Lobby</em> and the Supreme Court's Hands-Off Approach to Religion

Part I of this Essay provides a brief overview for analyzing the Supreme Court’s hands-off approach to religious doctrine. Specifically, this Part presents a summary of problems posed by the hands-off approach, followed by a brief taxonomy of different forms of judicial inquiry into religion. This Part aims to clarify which forms of inquiry are permissible—and typically necessary—for adjudication of a case involving a religious claim, and which forms of inquiry are precluded under the hands-off doctrine. Part II of this Essay applies the hands-off framework to the Hobby Lobby decision, considering the taxonomy of forms of judicial inquiry into religion in the context of both Justice Alito’s majority opinion and Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion.

This Part finds that while Justice Alito closely followed Supreme Court precedent regarding the hands-off doctrine, Justice Ginsburg seems to have departed significantly from central aspects of the Court’s previous decisions. Accordingly, Part III of this Essay takes a closer look at Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion, finding that her analysis may suggest a reformulated hands-off approach that, in some ways, extends the degree of deference afforded to the claims of religious adherents. Specifically, Justice Ginsburg seems to revive the view of Justice Robert Jackson, who argued, in a 1944 dissenting opinion, that judges should not question the sincerity of a religious claim. At the same time, however, Justice Ginsburg’s approach likewise departs from Supreme Court precedent in allowing judges to question a claimant’s characterization of a law or regulation as placing a substantial burden on the claimant’s religious exercise.

As a result, Justice Ginsburg’s approach would appear to place additional limitations on the exercise of religious freedoms, beyond those presented by the Court’s current hands-off approach. Thus, building on my previous work critiquing the Court’s hands-off approach, this Essay calls upon the Court to reassess and rethink the scope and contours of the hands-off approach, both to remedy the problems inherent in the current approach and to prevent the additional concerns raised by the opinions in Hobby Lobby.