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That worked.  So now we are forcibly imposing the religious beliefs of billionaire management on their employees, regardless of whether or not those employees share those beliefs. In this case it's entirely misogynistic since you can still get a vasectomy under that ruling. Also, does this unbelievably horrible ruling also allow Jehovah's Witnesses to object to blood transfusions, Scientologists to object to antidepressants, and Muslims, Jews, and Hindi's to object to pig derived treatments such as anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin? Things aren't so black and white when the quirks of people who aren't white male Catholics ( or some evangelical/primitive protestants) are presented with similar objections. The argument that this only applies to companies held by a small number of people, only affects about 10 million people. Wal-mart, Koch brothers, a few others that employ a huge percentage of the US workforce. De-coupling healthcare coverage from employment would have prevented all of these problems, but NO. CANT FREAKING HAVE THAT EITHER! unless you're a billionaire...or a congressman. I once thought the religious tyrannical government in V for Vendetta was some sort of fantasy, completely not feasible. Now I am depressed.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:36
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Farking Bastage posted:That worked. Like I said, I simply can't comprehend this level of rage for such a minor decision. We've had at least a half-dozen rulings this season to be more worked up over, yet I can't shake the feeling that if the union case would have been a total disaster this morning, contraception coverage would still be the bigger story.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:40
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Stultus Maximus posted:To me, it's a big deal because it's the first time the door has been opened to grant for-profit corporations 1st Amendment religious freedoms. A lot of the confusion here has to do with hastily written arguments from news agencies, social media, and even posters in this very thread. I recommend just reading scotusblog's plain english summary of the case: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/court-rules-in-favor-of-for-profit-corporations-but-how-broadly-in-plain-english/
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Jul 1, 2014 04:43
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Northjayhawk posted:Like I said, I simply can't comprehend this level of rage for such a minor decision. We've had at least a half-dozen rulings this season to be more worked up over, yet I can't shake the feeling that if the union case would have been a total disaster this morning, contraception coverage would still be the bigger story. Once people knew Alito was writing the opinion they were just looking for a reason to get mad. There were people earlier who no joke said they were *more* angry that it didn't give corporations leeway to deny coverage of anything based on religious beliefs because then "it would be more consistent".
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Jul 1, 2014 04:44
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Farking Bastage posted:That worked. I'm pretty sure there isn't a vasectomy mandate. quote:Also, does this unbelievably horrible ruling also allow Jehovah's Witnesses to object to blood transfusions, Scientologists to object to antidepressants, and Muslims, Jews, and Hindi's to object to pig derived treatments such as anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin? If the government provides an accommodation for religious non-profits, probably. quote:De-coupling healthcare coverage from employment would have prevented all of these problems Yep.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:45
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Farking Bastage posted:Also, does this unbelievably horrible ruling also allow Jehovah's Witnesses to object to blood transfusions, Scientologists to object to antidepressants, and Muslims, Jews, and Hindi's to object to pig derived treatments such as anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin? If you mean employers of those groups it does not convey them any rights, the ruling is narrow: SCOTUS posted:This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. These would likely be subject to the RFRA's "least restrictive means" test and upheld as valid. The ACA stupidly included exemptions to begin with for contraception, so it was hard for Health and Human Services to argue that was essential. If the Obama administration had not wanted exemptions they could have just written that this law is exempt from the provisions of the RFRA and this case never would have happened.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:49
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:I'm pretty sure there isn't a vasectomy mandate. Can this be the title of the next SCOTUS Thread?
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Jul 1, 2014 04:49
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:I'm pretty sure there isn't a vasectomy mandate. I might be wrong, but I thought Hobby Lobby covers vasectomies, which people were pointing at as a ridiculous anti-woman contradiction. and it sure looks that way, but for what its worth, Hobby Lobby said they were not opposed to contraception. They were opposed to paying for the pill, because it could be used to terminate a pregnancy. (The "morning after pill" is usually a very large dose of the regular birth control pill)
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Jul 1, 2014 04:50
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Northjayhawk posted:I might be wrong, but I thought Hobby Lobby covers vasectomies, which people were pointing at as a ridiculous anti-woman contradiction. Right, the bee in their bonnet is artificial pre-implantation pregnancy termination.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:55
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Northjayhawk posted:I might be wrong, but I thought Hobby Lobby covers vasectomies, which people were pointing at as a ridiculous anti-woman contradiction. In fairness, whether Hobby Lobby's (or their owner's) religious beliefs are contradictory was never an issue in this case. I mean, if religious beliefs had to be consistent to merit protection, there wouldn't be religious freedom.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:55
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Northjayhawk posted:I might be wrong, but I thought Hobby Lobby covers vasectomies, which people were pointing at as a ridiculous anti-woman contradiction. Of course, the "morning after pill" isn't an abortion pill, and it doesn't terminate a fertilized egg (it can make it a very tiny bit harder for the egg to implant, but eggs fail to implant all the time anyway). It just prevents ovulation, like a normal birth control pill; the large dose is to get hormones to the proper level to stop ovulation right away. The response of Hobby Lobby and other right-wingers is literally "it doesn't matter how it actually works, we have a religious belief that the morning after pill is equivalent to abortion and thus murder."
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Jul 1, 2014 04:56
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:And Douglas did not. The point is that there was at least some for-profit invocation of the Free Exercise Clause, and it wasn't dismissed as frivolous. Except the fact that one of those situations involves a corporation that was founded specifically for the furthering and exercise of religion, and the other one - this one - involves a corporation that was founded to sell crafting supplies and tchotchkes of dubious quality and value. That in and of itself is a coherent reason to distinguish between the two - the fact that one of those entities is governed by laws that recognize it as a religious entity and the other is not. It's also worth noting that while they have a huge problem with providing insurance that would cover particular forms of birth control, having their employee retirement plan invest in companies that provide them was A-OK. Oh, and that their employee healthcare plan included some of those same drugs until 2012, when the owners decided that they wanted to fight the ACA. "Sincerely held belief" my aching left foot.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:58
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Space Gopher posted:(it can make it a very tiny bit harder for the egg to implant, but eggs fail to implant all the time anyway) That is all they are focused on. Doctors have a different idea of when pregnancy begins, obviously. If the pill prevented fertilization, we wouldn't be here. Hobby Lobby and ultra-religious folks consider it a pregnancy at that point, and anything which can prevent implantation is an abortion device in their eyes. edit: well some religious nuts don't like the condom, but we aren't dealing with that particular brand of religious nut with this Northjayhawk fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 05:00
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Barlow posted:As the court points out it likely will actually affect no one, provided the current administration doesn't try and make it deliberately harm women to make a point. They were passing the cost of the contraceptive care of employees of nonprofits with exemptions onto the insurers, no reason the federal government couldn't do that here. One of the amicus briefs even points out that it actually saves money for most employers not to offer any care rather than apply for an exemption, in which case the federal government would be providing the ACA coverage anyway. I kind of doubt any women will be affected directly by this ruling. You're assuming rational actors and that Hobby Lobby won't simply deny insurance coverage out of pseudo-religious spite. On that note, ACA coverage may be better than nothing, but it's pretty costly compared to employee-subsidized programs. And beyond that, there's theh issue that it essentially opens an(other?) avenue for corporations to tell women what they can and can't do with their body. The best counterargument I've seen so far is that they can simply get a job elsewhere, but as pointed out earlier, "unemployment > 0." (And then there's the psychological pressure of feeling trapped between a sure but lovely thing and speculation about your future. It's not a very good one to be in.) I don't know about arguments that the ruling leaves the door open for even dumber stuff. It wouldn't surprise me, but the fact it was literally "lol no abortatives, even coincidentally, everything else is peachy" both leaves me with hope about scope and infuriates me even further. It's just such a blatant middle finger to women everywhere from the highest court in the land, and that's ... concerning, even if the repercussions are minimal. With that being said, if the end result of this really is Obama going "ok fine now everyone gets it HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW," I would laugh and laugh and laugh. That's my two cents. Someone will be along shortly to rip my argument to shreds because I'm not very good at the "Debate" part of D&D. 
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Jul 1, 2014 05:01
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Kugyou no Tenshi posted:Except the fact that one of those situations involves a corporation that was founded specifically for the furthering and exercise of religion, and the other one - this one - involves a corporation that was founded to sell crafting supplies and tchotchkes of dubious quality and value. That in and of itself is a coherent reason to distinguish between the two - the fact that one of those entities is governed by laws that recognize it as a religious entity and the other is not. Hobby Lobby also had documents stating their religious mission. Unless they lived in a really weird jurisdiction, HL has the authority to do “any lawful purpose.” It should be obvious why rights shouldn't be tied to whether or not you've been granted a tax exemption.
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Jul 1, 2014 05:05
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Chokes McGee posted:You're assuming rational actors and that Hobby Lobby won't simply deny insurance coverage out of pseudo-religious spite. Seriously this is more of a victory for religious freedom than a defeat for healthcare. The effect on healthcare is pretty minor. Barlow fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 05:07
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Hobby Lobby also had documents stating their religious mission. Unless they lived in a really weird jurisdiction, HL has the authority to do “any lawful purpose.” It should be obvious why rights shouldn't be tied to whether or not you've been granted a tax exemption. I'm really having a hard time bending my mind into whatever tangle you've managed in which "the owners have a religiously-based mission for their store" somehow makes them equal with an actual loving church. I can only agree with Ginsburg here - Hobby Lobby does not itself engage in the actual practice of religion as defined in the RFRA, and having a religious owner or some vague religious "mission" does not change the fact that they don't actually operate in a religious capacity. But you just keep on bangin' that tax exemption drum or whatever you're on about, and ignore the fact that this supposed "sincerely held belief" didn't crop up as a matter of company policy until 2012, when the pills they used to cover were suddenly evil abortifacients that the owners held deep objections to. Barlow posted:Seriously this is more of a victory for religious freedom than a defeat for healthcare. The effect on healthcare is pretty minor. Sorry that I don't see that allowing a corporation to say they won't meet a standard for their employees because the government will take up the slack as a victory for religious freedom, unless you mean the "religious freedom" to weasel your way out of complying directly with the law of the land when it doesn't suit you. It's almost indistinguishable from how Wal-Mart is perfectly fine with paying their employees as little as possible because the government will give them food stamps. And don't forget that a lot of the people wanting this sort of "freedom" are the type that also want to defund the government's ability to provide those things that corporations won't provide their employees.
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Jul 1, 2014 05:16
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Northjayhawk posted:That is all they are focused on. Doctors have a different idea of when pregnancy begins, obviously. But the pill does prevent fertilization. That's how it works. When a man and a woman have unprotected sex, the sperm hang around inside the woman's body until they die, waiting for the egg to come out. The morning after pill works by manipulating a woman's hormones to make sure that, if she hasn't ovulated yet, the egg won't ever come out. The fact that the morning after pill can in some cases make the uterine environment slightly less conducive to implantation is a tiny, tiny side effect - which you can see by noting that the morning-after pill has a significantly higher failure rate than genuine abortifacients like mifepristone, even though it is almost always capable of preventing ovulation. If anything, the morning after pill should be a slight positive for the life-begins-at-conception crowd: instead of a
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Jul 1, 2014 05:23
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Kugyou no Tenshi posted:I'm really having a hard time bending my mind into whatever tangle you've managed in which "the owners have a religiously-based mission for their store" somehow makes them equal with an actual loving church. I can only agree with Ginsburg here - Hobby Lobby does not itself engage in the actual practice of religion as defined in the RFRA, and having a religious owner or some vague religious "mission" does not change the fact that they don't actually operate in a religious capacity. I said religious non-profit, not church. The Boy Scouts would have already been eligible for RFRA claims, for example. quote:But you just keep on bangin' that tax exemption drum or whatever you're on about, and ignore the fact that this supposed "sincerely held belief" didn't crop up as a matter of company policy until 2012, when the pills they used to cover were suddenly evil abortifacients that the owners held deep objections to. If their religious beliefs weren't sincere, HHS had ample opportunity to challenge them.
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Jul 1, 2014 05:25
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Kugyou no Tenshi posted:I can only agree with Ginsburg here - Hobby Lobby does not itself engage in the actual practice of religion as defined in the RFRA, and having a religious owner or some vague religious "mission" does not change the fact that they don't actually operate in a religious capacity. But you just keep on bangin' that tax exemption drum or whatever you're on about, and ignore the fact that this supposed "sincerely held belief" didn't crop up as a matter of company policy until 2012, when the pills they used to cover were suddenly evil abortifacients that the owners held deep objections to. There is little question that the owner of Hobby Lobby's religious belief is sincere or they tried to integrate it into their business practices. To quote the court: SCOTUS posted:Hobby Lobby’s statement of purpose commits the Greens to “[h]onoring the Lord in all [they] do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.” Each family member has signed a pledge to run the businesses in accordance with the family’s religious beliefs and to use the family assets to support Christian ministries. In accordance with those commitments, Hobby Lobby and Mardel stores close on Sundays, even though the Greens calculate that they lose millions in sales annually by doing so. The businesses refuse to engage in profitable transactions that facilitate or promote alcohol use; they contribute profits to Christian missionaries and ministries; and they buy hundreds of full-page newspaper ads inviting people to “know Jesus as Lord and Savior.”
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Jul 1, 2014 05:35
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If I'm understanding the logic of the court correctly, the main thing that Hobby Lobby needed to prove was that their religious beliefs were indeed sincerely held and they had no trouble with that. Here the court's basically established precedence that a corporation can challenge any portion of the ACA, or indeed any law, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act provided the owners can prove their religious convictions and can prove that complying with their religion at the expense of the challenged law will cause a significant financial burden. Okay, I get that, even if I don't agree with it. What I don't get is why the court says this won't apply to an objection to vaccines, for example - ostensibly it's because vaccines serve the interest of every American by stopping the spread of disease, so mandating that the corporation provide the vaccinations it is the least restrictive option while still serving spirit of the law. Then they say that because the ACA mandates these forms of birth control be provided, it can be assumed that providing them also serves a public interest - and yet forcing the companies to provide THAT would be too restrictive, so the federal government will subsidize that for Hobby Lobby. Can someone explain the difference between the two instances to me(I get that it's actually because the conservative judges aren't cool with women having sex out of wedlock, but I'm interested in the actual legal explanation)? Hell, I'm wondering if a company can object to providing insurance at all, because insurance is tantamount to gambling and the Bible says not to do that. What's the actual reason that a objection to providing insurance on those grounds couldn't be taken seriously, besides the court majority going "Nuh uh that won't happen we pinky promise"?
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Jul 1, 2014 09:42
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Discendo Vox posted:The rationale focusing on the specific provisions in question is apparently a mess. I'd recommend seeing what other folks in the thread have already written, or look to the scotusblog coverage. I can't comment on or study this stuff too much since I'm now beginning my bar exam review. Pray for me. Good luck dude!
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Jul 1, 2014 09:58
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Barlow posted:I will remind people that the RFRA was a creation of Ted Kennedy and was a bi-partisan effort. It's what prevents states from creating laws that businesses should be closed on Sundays and driving Jewish businesses out of business when they can't open any days on the weekend, it was intended to address the injustice of Native Americans being arrested for peyote use. Upholding the RFRA is something leftists should be dedicated to. Didn't the Supreme Court already decide that the RFRA can't be applied against the states anyway?
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Jul 1, 2014 10:54
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Can someone explain to me why this decision causes so much anger? They did not forbid woman to morning-after pills or IUDs, they only said that their employer, if he is a person or a small group of persons who believe that using said devices/pills is literally killing a human being, can not be forced to pay for it. So I looked up the cost for such a pill, which is between 30$ and 65$ and they are described as "emergency" contraceptive, so you would assume that you dont take one every day/week/month. And those IUDs? They cost 500$ but work for 12years, so about 42$ per year. With those numbers and the fact that it's not something that you dont even need unless you have unprotected sex, I just don't get the uproar.
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Jul 1, 2014 11:14
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VitalSigns posted:Didn't the Supreme Court already decide that the RFRA can't be applied against the states anyway?
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Jul 1, 2014 11:19
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Space Gopher posted:The response of Hobby Lobby and other right-wingers is literally "it doesn't matter how it actually works, we have a religious belief that the morning after pill is equivalent to abortion and thus murder." I don't get it, how did they differentiate between what they wanted or not? Are there no clear legal definitions on abortion? Femur fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 11:21
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GaussianCopula posted:With those numbers and the fact that it's not something that you dont even need unless you have unprotected sex, I just don't get the uproar. While hormonal birth control isn't a "need" per se, there are quite a few women I know that started taking it long before having sex because it helps with PMS and periods in general. As much as the birth control pill is about preventing pregnancy, it is also about helping women be not-miserable every 28 days. Depending on the type of birth control, a woman may not have a period at all! The list of benefits of birth control extend far beyond the act of sex. Additionally, it isn't about the cost. The HL women had contraception coverage before. The owner's of HL didn't get religiously offended by contraception until the ACA was passed. This was entirely a way to end around the ACA and save some of their own money.
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Jul 1, 2014 12:17
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AustinDodge posted:If I'm understanding the logic of the court correctly, the main thing that Hobby Lobby needed to prove was that their religious beliefs were indeed sincerely held and they had no trouble with that. Here the court's basically established precedence that a corporation can challenge any portion of the ACA, or indeed any law, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act provided the owners can prove their religious convictions and can prove that complying with their religion at the expense of the challenged law will cause a significant financial burden. Okay, I get that, even if I don't agree with it. What I don't get is why the court says this won't apply to an objection to vaccines, for example - ostensibly it's because vaccines serve the interest of every American by stopping the spread of disease, so mandating that the corporation provide the vaccinations it is the least restrictive option while still serving spirit of the law. Then they say that because the ACA mandates these forms of birth control be provided, it can be assumed that providing them also serves a public interest - and yet forcing the companies to provide THAT would be too restrictive, so the federal government will subsidize that for Hobby Lobby. Can someone explain the difference between the two instances to me(I get that it's actually because the conservative judges aren't cool with women having sex out of wedlock, but I'm interested in the actual legal explanation)? From my rather laymans understanding of the ruling: It has to do with the exemption to the ACA the HHS provided for religious non-profits specifically for contraception (since pro-choice/no-choice is a thing), and the keywords "least restrictive means". The court opinion suggest that since an exemption exists, the government interest in providing contraception is less absolute than its interest in vaccines (for which no exemptions exist). Ginsburg calls the Court out on making the assumption that contraception is an important government interest and then promptly ignoring it. So that's part of it. Another part is that vaccines etc. apply to all employees, whereas (these types of) contraception only apply to females. For something that is relevant to everyone, forcing the employer to pay is easier to show as the least restrictive means of getting the desired result, whereas something that only applies to females burden employers with many female employees more severely than others. So, the Court argues, since RFRA applies to for-profit corps as well as non-profit corps, because reasons, is there a less restrictive means of enforcing this government interest which only applies for some of its citizens, than forcing all employers to pay, even if it runs counter to their faith-based objections? They say yes, and the answer is in the law already, in the form of the exemption the HHS already allow (from which it follows that the insurer or the government itself pays the bill). This is where it starts to break down. You could extend that argument to any government interest that conflicts with a religious objection, but for this case, since it was decided based on RFRA, the relevant part is the exemption that exists, not the greater question of 1A that you would have to win to extend it to any type of religious objection.
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Jul 1, 2014 12:21
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GaussianCopula posted:They did not forbid woman to morning-after pills or IUDs, they only said that their employer, if he is a person or a small group of persons who believe that using said devices/pills is literally killing a human being, can not be forced to pay for it. quote:With those numbers and the fact that it's not something that you dont even need unless you have unprotected sex, I just don't get the uproar. Of course, these companies have no problem covering Viagra, which is something nobody "needs". It's funny how it's only women who are required to justify to society why they should be allowed to have sex, isn't it?
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Jul 1, 2014 12:47
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Mr. Nice! posted:While hormonal birth control isn't a "need" per se, there are quite a few women I know that started taking it long before having sex because it helps with PMS and periods in general. As much as the birth control pill is about preventing pregnancy, it is also about helping women be not-miserable every 28 days. Depending on the type of birth control, a woman may not have a period at all! The list of benefits of birth control extend far beyond the act of sex. HL did only refuse to pay for the morning-after pill not the regular birth control pill that a woman takes reguarly (source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/30/morning-after-iuds/11768653/). Those pills are only used to make sure that you are not pregnant after you had unprotected sex. If a woman is taking the regular pill this decision will have zero impact on her because would never need the no longer covered items anyway. VitalSigns posted:Of course, these companies have no problem covering Viagra, which is something nobody "needs". It's funny how it's only women who are required to justify to society why they should be allowed to have sex, isn't it? I dont see how morning after pills and IUDs are required to have sex. You can't say the same about Viagra for men suffering from errictile dysfunction. If you want to have free, protected obamacare sex as a HL woman you can use condoms or the regular pill. GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 12:52
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VitalSigns posted:IUDs don't work by causing abortions. You might as well say they shouldn't have to offer benefits to interracial couples because every time a white woman gets a black penis in her, somewhere an unborn child drops down dead. This highlights why science can never beat religion in our current situation. The government has to admit that there is a non-zero chance that these methods can result in a fertilized egg not implanting even though it is not the actual way they prevent pregnancy because it is based on facts that can be proven or dis-proven. However religious people do not have to prove anything since it is all nebulous "belief." They don't even have to prove that they are being consistent within that belief. It's totally lopsided.
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Jul 1, 2014 12:58
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GaussianCopula posted:HL did only refuse to pay for the morning-after pill not the regular birth control pill that a woman takes reguarly (source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/30/morning-after-iuds/11768653/). Those pills are only used to make sure that you are not pregnant after you had unprotected sex. If a woman is taking the regular pill this decision will have zero impact on her because would never need the no longer covered items anyway. 30-40 dollars may not seem much to you, but to a minimum wage worker (assuming say 7$/hour) that's one days wages. Add to that lost income from going to the doctor for the prescription. An IUD may come out to 45$/year, but I'm not paying that, I'm putting down 500$ now (half a months wages). But as the poster above said, it's not about the money. It is a question of principle. Providing health care is part of your compensation for working. Bluntly put, the only reason employers provide health care plans, is because it is cheaper than giving employees a raise large enough that they would be able to pay for similar private health insurance. Thus, they pay less overall (wage + insurance), making them more competitive, and employees can get coverage even in jobs that pay too little to afford both living and being privately covered, making it more attractive to work for these companies even if the pay is poo poo. Now though, the employer has an indirect say in, how you spend your compensation. "Here's your paycheck, but you can't buy milk with it" But that's not really the issue either. If the ruling had the stipulation that employers who object must instead give those affected a raise, so they can pay for the additional coverage out of their salary, the uproar might have been less. But that is not the case. Instead we have the situation where the employers religious beliefs restricts the womans choice (in consultation with her doctor) about how to best take care of her health. IUD is one way they can avoid having unprotected sex ("protected" in this context from having an unwanted pregnancy), and depending on the woman in question, may be the safest way for her. Some women suffer severe sideeffects from "the regular pill". The woman may even suffer from a condition that makes it dangerous for her to ever get pregnant. If she cannot access methods of birth control that are entirely under her control (rather than the man remembering to buy condoms), we are back to saying "Sorry, can't have sex!" That is an invasion of privacy that even SCOTUS wouldn't let fly. So why, exactly, does her boss get any say in this whatsoever? GhostBoy fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 13:06
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Radish posted:This highlights why science can never beat religion in our current situation. The government has to admit that there is a non-zero chance that these methods can result in a fertilized egg not implanting even though it is not the actual way they prevent pregnancy because it is based on facts that can be proven or dis-proven. However religious people do not have to prove anything since it is all nebulous "belief." They don't even have to prove that they are being consistent within that belief. It's totally lopsided. Exactly. If Hobby Lobby were consistent in refusing to contribute to any increased risk of miscarriage, no matter how small, they'd give pregnant employees 9 months of paid leave so she wouldn't risk killing her precious baby by standing all day or getting in a car accident on the way to work. It's all about using abortion as a wedge to control woman's sexuality as much as possible; they don't give a poo poo about those sacred blastocyst souls. It's absolutely ridiculous that they can say "We believe X causes abortions" and the government is afraid to challenge it out of fear that the Court will rule 5-4 that it's purely a matter of faith whether gay marriage or the Civil Rights Act are abortifacients.
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Jul 1, 2014 13:14
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razorrozar posted:My roommate is saying that this ruling is fine because people aren't forced to work for any company; they choose to, and they can choose to leave, so the company isn't forcing its religion on its workers. Can someone better at debating than me rebut this? What does your roommate think about unions? Does he hold the same opinion about the limitless jobs when unions are involved? Or are workers forced to work for a union shop since there's 'nothing else available'?
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Jul 1, 2014 13:22
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ShadowHawk posted:This didn't happen though -- the first amendment wasn't part of the majority opinion. An act of congress (the RFRA) was. The Supreme Court merely said that the RFRA law applies in this case. The act of Congress, RFRA, did not explicitly apply to corporate persons. This court decision applied RFRA to corporate persons, granting corporate persons religious rights for the first time. From Ginsburg's dissent: quote:Indeed, until today religious exemptions had never been extended to any entity operating in the commercial, profit-making world.
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Jul 1, 2014 13:26
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VitalSigns posted:IUDs don't work by causing abortions. You might as well say they shouldn't have to offer benefits to interracial couples because every time a white woman gets a black penis in her, somewhere an unborn child drops down dead. HHS stipulated that IUDs sometimes work by preventing implantation, so for the purpose of this litigation they do work by causing abortions.
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Jul 1, 2014 13:43
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GaussianCopula posted:I dont see how morning after pills and IUDs are required to have sex. You can't say the same about Viagra for men suffering from errictile dysfunction. If you want to have free, protected obamacare sex as a HL woman you can use condoms or the regular pill. Painkillers are also not required to heal from a cut. But that is prescribed, and covered, anyway. Framing it as sluts wanting to have free sex just makes you look like a shithead.
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Jul 1, 2014 13:47
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KernelSlanders posted:HHS stipulated that IUDs sometimes work by preventing implantation, so for the purpose of this litigation they do work by causing abortions. See the problem is that if we go down this road, why is Hobby Lobby and SCOTUS (yes I know it's because it wasn't brought to their attention in the case but they still wouldn't care) unconcerned with NSAIDs (such as most over the counter pain killers) since it's possible those cause implantation to fail? I understand that since science is driven by facts and information it is true that IUDs and Plan B can cause what could be considered an abortion if you make the definition of that as wide as humanly possible, but then you see how uneven the playing field is when by their own definition of what an abortifacient is, religious conservatives such as the Green family or certain Supreme Court Justices don't have to subscribe to their own logic. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16493584 This isn't refuting your post or anything it just frustrates me a lot. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 14:02
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:I understand the fiction just fine. There's no coherent reason to distinguish between the two: You need to be careful here, because Alito only cites half of RBG's statement to suit his own interpretation. RBG posted:Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation's qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA. 13 The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. As Chief Justice Marshall observed nearly two centuries ago, a corporation is "an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law." Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518 , 636 (1819). Corporations, Justice Stevens more recently reminded, "have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires." Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n, 558 U.S. 310 , 466 (2010) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). It's true that "furtherance of the autonomy of religious organizations often furthers individual religious freedom as well" in a way that also applies to for-profit entities, but the overlap ends there. The distinctions are derived from: A) The fact that organized religion is central to much religious practice and identity (such that religious organizations are protected by the free exercise clause, regardless of what RFRA says). B) The fact that members and workers of religious organization are more uniformly members of that religion (a "community of believers") in a way that members and workers of for-profit entities are not. and C) The purpose of labor in a for-profit entity is necessarily to turn a profit (at least in part), where the purpose of labor in a non-profit religious entity is to serve the goals and/or needs of the religious community. SCOTUSBlog has a more extended writeup of why Alito's treatment of for-profit corporate religious identity is a mistake: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/hobby-lobby-symposium-hobby-lobby-unconstitutional-conditions-and-corporate-law-mistakes/ Here's the relevant section to this conversation: quote:The Court makes a second corporate law mistake. In arguing that for-profit companies can have religious purposes, the Court makes hay from the fact that state incorporation statutes typically allow businesses to be chartered for any “lawful purpose or activity.” The Court uses this corporate law truth to argue, as a descriptive matter, that some corporations in fact engage in behavior that is in conformity with the religious views of their shareholders. Forever_Peace fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 14:08
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Radish posted:See the problem is that if we go down this road, why is Hobby Lobby and SCOTUS (yes I know it's because it wasn't brought to their attention in the case but they still wouldn't care) unconcerned with NSAIDs (such as most over the counter pain killers) since it's possible those cause implantation to fail? I understand that since science is driven by facts and information it is true that IUDs and Plan B can cause what could be considered an abortion if you make the definition of that as wide as humanly possible, but then you see how uneven the playing field is when by their own definition of what an abortifacient is, religious conservatives such as the Green family or certain Supreme Court Justices don't have to subscribe to their own logic. Well presumably Hobby Lobby isn't buying OTC Advil for its pregnant employees. And also the fact that at a certain point lawyers and judges want to reach the actual legal arguments involved instead of bickering back and forth over whether someone's religious beliefs make them a hypocrite.
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Jul 1, 2014 14:10
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