we'll hear argument this morning in consolidated cases number 13354, sebelius, secretary of health and human services, v. hobby lobby stores, and 13356, conestoga wood specialties corporation v. sebelius. mr. clement? >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, when a federal government agency compelled employers to provide something as religiously sensitive as contraception, it knew that free exercise in rfra claims would soon follow. in particular, the agency itself provided exemptions and accommodations for the religious exercise of a subset -- >> is your claim limited to

other relevant story this new supreme court case sebelius v hobby lobby corporations are essentially citing religion as a reason to not provide birth control to employees under obamacare do you think birth control is a right and what is it about corporate personhood kind of dictating these decisions . well corporate personhood of course is a big problem in the united states it leads to corruption in politics so it's something that i don't agree with but you know when you take a look at the affordable care act the whole reason why obama wanted to ensure that women had access to contraceptives is because we spend eleven billion dollars a year on unwanted pregnancies so it's part of cost controls and it makes sense now hobby lobby comes in and i think that everything that they're saying is totally disingenuous oh we're religious we don't believe in it there was a federal judge who made a ruling prior to this case going to the supreme court and the judge ruled that hey you know what the birth control portion of the affordable care act is constitutional because as an employer you pay your

we'll hear argument this morning in consolidated cases number 13354, sebelius, secretary of health and human services, v. hobby lobby stores, and 13356, conestoga wood specialties corporation v. sebelius. mr. clement? >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, when a federal government agency compelled employers to provide something as religiously sensitive as contraception, it knew that free exercise in rfra claims would soon follow. in particular, the agency itself provided exemptions and accommodations for the religious exercise of a subset -- >> is your claim limited to sensitive materials like contraceptives, or does it include items like blood transfusion, vaccines? for some religions, products made of pork? is any claim under your theory that has a religious basis, could an employer preclude the use of those items as well? >> well, justice sotomayor, the first step in the analysis would be to ask whether or not there's a substantial burden on religious exercise. i do think this case is, in a sense, easier than most of the examples that you've brought up because here's one where it's so religiously sen