While the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United extended First Amendment protections to corporations’ freedom of speech, it doesn’t extend the right to freely practice religion to private companies, a federal judge ruled in a case of first impression challenging parts of Obamacare.
U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied a motion for preliminary injunction filed by a Mennonite family in East Earl, Pa., that runs a cabinetry company, holding that the right to freely practice religion is a wholly personal one that can’t be conferred to a privately held company, regardless of the religious practices of its owners.
