dagblog - Comments for "Religious Liberty vs. Hobby Lobby"

May I direct your attention

Beetlejuice — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 01:01:25 +0000

In reply to Religious Liberty vs. Hobby Lobby

May I direct your attention to The Federalist Essay's 9 and 10 by Hamilton and Madison.

In Essay 9, Hamilton addresses the destructive role of a faction in breaking apart the republic.

In Essay 10, Madison answers how to eliminate the negative effects of faction. He addresses the question of how to guard against "factions", or groups of citizens, with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community.

What I find interesting is how they answer what we're seeing today ... yet their wisdom is being ignore.

Your argument is reasonable.

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 11:14:40 +0000

In reply to Public health is not the same

Your argument is reasonable. My doubts have to do with whether birth control is in the same category as medical treatment or building codes. Maybe it is.

I haven't done any research on the effectiveness of abstinence, so I should get on that. I remember that in the 90s one abstinence program, the Grady program, was touted as having some effect. But part of its purported effectiveness was in getting people to use contraception.

I actually would be receptive to exempting people from paying taxes for the military. But I want to abolish the military, so I'm biased.

I'm here as anonymous because I'm on someone else's computer, and I can't seem to sign in on it.

Public health is not the same

artappraiser — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 08:56:10 +0000

In reply to I'm not sure its that simple,

Public health is not the same thing as treatment for disease, though it can include that. It's about having a healthy public. Sanitation, clean water, proper building codes, population control by government provided carrot/benefit for help with family planning. Not a stick, a carrot.

I know you're smart enough to know the social health stats on like, unwed teenage mothers. And things like sustainability.

The vast majority in this country do not want to see everyone breeding like un-neutered pets, nor do they want to see lots of 14-year-old mothers, and do not believe abstinence is enough to prevent that from happening. Most of them have heard about what it's like in, say, India, or Dickens' London, and would prefer not to go back to that kind of thing here. They'd like to see big families happen by choice, not by lack of ability to plan.

Would you find it reasonable to have a religious objection to a country with low population giving tax credits for having more children? If not, why is this current objection reasonable under a religious freedom explanation?

Again, if having taxes pay for war can't be avoided by religious or moral objection, why should this birth control subsidy be able to be avoided? The majority of people in this country want birth control easily available and affordable, heck the majority of Catholics in this country do. It's not even a "moral majority."

Speaking of India, if something like this can stand, why can't Hindus in the U.S. allow cows to run free on urban streets? Rule of law.

Yeah, religious minorities are protected from majority tyranny. But nobody is forcing anyone to run a business the size that rule of law says has to offer health insurance to employees. If their religion doesn't agree with the rules for running a business that size, they should chose another way to make a living. You don't see many Amish electricians ...

An addendum, written after

legalbeagle — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 23:26:46 +0000

In reply to I'm not absolutely sure about

An addendum, written after reading posts over at “Prawfsblog”: state laws against discrimination are unaffected by the Hobby Lobby decision because the Supreme Court has ruled that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply to state laws. The transgender and queer employees you mentioned would seem to be in good shape in Colorado, out of luck in Nebraska. Obviously the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment applies to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause means that plaintiffs like Hobby Lobby or your hypothetical Muslim-owned corporation cannot prevail on Constitutional grounds (see Justice Scalia, writing for the court in Employment Division v. Smith, 1990). Don’t know about cases in which federal sex discrimination law would be pitted against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; surely, though, Title VII carries out an important government objective in a way that isn’t very restrictive.

I am afraid the SC has woke

trkingmomoe — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 23:07:44 +0000

In reply to From MotherJones, Supreme

I am afraid the SC has woke up a sleeping giant.

Amen...Sister...Amen!

trkingmomoe — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 22:15:55 +0000

In reply to The point I made above Aaron

Amen...Sister...Amen!

For me it comes down to who,

ocean-kat — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 17:43:03 +0000

In reply to Doctor Cleveland, isn't your

For me it comes down to who, or what, is a person. The owners of Hobby Lobby claim they don't want to pay for contraceptives essentially claiming they are the corporation. Yet if so many people decided to boycott Hobby Lobby over this decision and the company went bankrupt the owners would claim they are not responsible for the debts because they are not the corporation. They want it both ways and both of those contradictory ways help them and hurt many more other people. Corporations are not people and don't have religions.

From MotherJones, Supreme

NCD — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 16:34:03 +0000

In reply to No, it is not simple at all.

From MotherJones, Supreme Court has ordered review of lower court cases where ANY type (20 mentioned) of contraception is objected to by a boss touting his religious freedoms:

Less than a day after the United States Supreme Court issued its divisive ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has already begun to toss aside the supposedly narrow interpretation of the decision. On Tuesday, the Supremes ordered lower courts to rehear any cases where companies had sought to deny coverage for any type of contraception, not just the specific types Hobby Lobby was opposed to....In both instances the Sixth Circuit had rejected requests from Catholic-owned businesses that sought to exempt the companies from offering insurance that covered any of the 20 mandated forms of birth control.

Unending 24/7 intensified partisan rankling over women's reproductive parts, for years (decades?)?

While the country sinks into the abyss of deadlock, dysfunction, crumbling infrastructure, a shrinking middle class?

And the free speech election financiers on Wall Street gin up the next economic crash, from which they will have no religious objection to being rescued by taxpayers?

No, it is not simple at all.

EmmaZahn — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:27:11 +0000

In reply to I'm not sure its that simple,

No, it is not simple at all. Just trying to get up to speed on the decision just to follow the conversation, I find I still have more questions than answers like:

1) whether or not Hobby Lobby was objecting to all contraceptives or only those marketed as emergency contraceptives known as Plan B and Ella which have been marketed for their abortifacient properties.

2) whether or not it knew its pre-Obamacare plan covered those.

But most of all I wonder why so many are letting Hobby Lobby set the terms of argument that it is an infringement of its religious-freedom instead of an infringement of every employee's basic freedom when the companies they work for get to call health insurance and other benes employee compensaton but then only they get to decide on what it is spent.

More people need to be disabused of the notion that employer-provided benefits are something separate from their wages because how much those benefits cost can have a seriously effect on base pay rates.

This case was a great opportunity to at least make that point. So far I have not seen anyone doing so.

Ouch LOL I'm sure most men

rmrd0000 — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:26:18 +0000

In reply to The point I made above Aaron

Ouch

LOL

I'm sure most men take that blue pill for pulmonary hypertension.