On June 30, the Supreme Court gave religious freedom rights to for-profit companies through its ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The Hobby Lobby case, which exempts companies from offering contraception in their employee health plans for religious reasons, dominated news and headlines for more than a year, both before and after the ruling.
Religious freedom is once again on the Supreme Court’s docket with the Hobbs v. Holt case. In this case, Gregory Holt is seeking permission to grow his beard — which is tied to his Islamic faith — while in prison.
Religious liberty cases may be commonplace these days, but so is the law firm involved in many of these discussions — the Becket Fund, which represented Hobby Lobby and will represent Holt. This will be the second time in the last six months that the Becket Fund will be involved in a Supreme Court case, according to Politico’s Amelia Thomson-Deveaux.
“It’s happenstance, of course, that a case is coming right on the heels of Hobby Lobby that will remind everyone that religious freedom is important and not — in most contexts — a culture war issue,” said Michael McConnell, religious freedom expert from Stanford Law School, to Politico. “But that’s been the Becket Fund’s position all along.”
According to Mr. Thomson-Deveaux’s profile, the firm got its start back in 1994 as a “rare breed of religious liberty advocate — one with no allegiance to a political party or religious tradition, dedicated to defending the rights of all faiths.”
The firm went on to take a slew of cases, including one in 1999 about two Muslim police officers who fought against their department’s no-beard policy, which is not unlike the current Holt case, Mr. Thomson-Deveaux wrote.
Much like Mr. Thomson-Deveauz, Mark Kellner profiled the law firm, which is made up of 11 attorneys, back in July for Deseret News National. Mr. Kellner looked specifically at how the Becket Fund is helping members of all faiths secure religious rights in America.
“The Becket Fund engages in cases that affect Jews and Christians and Muslims and many other people of many other faiths,” said Nathan J. Diament, policy director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, to Deseret News National. “They help portray, very vividly, that religious liberty is something that everyone has a stake in, even if it’s not a person of their particular religion.”
The ruling of the Holt case is yet to be determined, but one thing is not. According to Politico, the Becket Fund is “a small, relatively unknown but highly influential law firm that has already prompted seismic changes in the country’s cultural and legal landscape.”
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