Do Businesses Need to Be Secular?

One idea I've encountered a few times, even from people who lawyers, is that individuals may enjoy religious liberty, but that doesn't apply to for-profit businesses.  As soon as a person forms a business which is open to the public, all bets are off.  At that point the profit motive is all which is protected by law, and he/she will need to conform to the most secular ethics of the public.  Let's call this the "Principle of Public Secular Conformity" (PPSC) 

Curious about whether this had any merit, I began reading "Burwell vs Hobby Lobby" from 2013.  It said the following:

"A corporation is simply a form of organization use by human beings to achieve desired ends.  When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.  For example, extending Fourth Amendment protections to corporations protects the privacy interests of employees and others associated with the company.  And protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies." - Section III.A 

 

"Some lower court judges have suggested that RFRA does not protect for-profit corporations because the purpose of such corporations is simply to make money.  This argument flies in the face of modern corporate law.  

While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.  For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives.  

If for-profit corporations may pursue such worthy objectives, there is no apparent reason why the may not further religious objectives as well."  - Section III.B.2

In other words, the Supreme Court took up the PPSC nearly a decade ago... and rejected it.  People who start for-profit businesses do not forfeit their free-exercise rights as soon as they light up the "Open" sign outside their door.