In his ruling halting the application of the Affordable Care Act's contraception coverage requirement with respect to one Denver-area company whose owners objected on religious grounds,  Judge John Kane said the claim raises a number of questions deserving more scrutiny, including "can corporations exercise religion?" 

Obviously, organizations that are fundamentally religious in nature, or are extensions of religious institutions, are generally afforded broad religious liberty protections. But what about secular companies whose owners happen to be religious? Should they be granted the same exemptions as religious institutions? 

In a letter to the Obama Administration, 170 law professors argue no (pdf):

Today, the egalitarian notion that every American deserves to enjoy religious freedom is under attack from those who would cede employees’ religious-liberty rights to corporate executives and nonprofit directors. In this cramped and one-sided view of religious freedom, supervisors are entitled to decide, based on their religious sentiments, whether their employees will be permitted to enjoy essential health benefits without the slightest concern for their religious beliefs. In particular, advocates claim that the Constitution gives all employers the right to veto their employees’ health-insurance coverage of contraception.

This view, which is espoused by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others, is both wrong as a matter of law and profoundly undemocratic. Nothing in our nation’s history or laws permits a boss to impose his or her religious views on non-consenting employees. Indeed, this nation was founded upon the basic principle that every individual – whether company president or assistant janitor – has an equal claim to religious freedom.

The issue is a bit more complicated than that, when it comes to religious institutions and those non-profit enterprises under their control. That's why defining the exemptions and accommodations for such organizations has been so prickly and contentious, and is not yet finalized.

For secular businesses, however, I find it difficult to argue with the professors' position. An employee in a secular, for-profit business should not have to subject her legal protections to the particular religious views of her employer. The First Amendment surely protects such a business owner (like Chick-Fil-A's Dan Cathy) from government discrimination for his religious beliefs. But it should not require employees to live under the religious regime of their boss, just to have a job in a commercial enterprise. 

An employer may own his business, but he does not own his employees. Once the balance tips in such a way to allow the religious views of a boss to restrict the legal rights of his employees in a commercial workplace, it will have tipped too far.