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Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge[W:513,870]

Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Wrong. They would be forced to pay for abortifactants.

We'll agree to disagree, but the same insurance they'll get from HL, will, through administrative rules issued by HHS, give those same employees the same access to those same abortifactants.

No, the issue of whether religious objections should result in a waver hinge on whether the government has a compelling interest in implementing the law and whether they are using the least restrictive means reasonably possible. It's clear that the Court's problem with how HHS did things was that they had a less restrictive alternative available and didn't offer it to HL.

The HL folks also had to demonstrate that the burden was substantial. The court addressed that point head on, and those who disagreed with the ruling, including the dissent, found differently. I see the other side, but that IS a major point of departure between the two groups on this issue.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

I chose not to comment on this decision right out of the box, and instead decided to read the decision, sleep on it and let the dust settle. Well, the dust has settled, so...

I agree that the religious rights of closely held companies like Hobby Lobby should be respected, when those religious beliefs are part of a companies charter, well established and woven into the fabric of the company. This does not mean that every religious kook has the right to claim everything is against their religion just to save a buck.

In this case I agree with the Supreme courts decision because I believe Hobby Lobby's objection to those 4 drugs in question is valid, and even if I didn't think it violated their religious beliefs, I still think they should have won. Let me put it this way... It's not so much that I think Hobby Lobby should have won the case, but more a belief that HHS and the Administration should have lost. I don't say that from a "Repeal Obamacare" perspective, it's based on principal and accountability.

Remember the heated debate about whether abortion would be included in Obamacare? Obama stated quite clearly while campaigning for the passage of Obamacare that it would not cover abortions, because he knew that if it did, it would cause a firestorm of public outrage and stop Obamacare in it's tracks. So what does HHS turn around and do? They include 4 contraceptive types in Obamacare that HHS acknowledges don't prevent conception, but instead destroy a potentially fertilized egg after conception...

What was Sebelius thinking?

I'm sorry, but HHS should have been content with the 16 preventative types of birth control and never included those other 4 in the first place. This is either another example of this administrations incompetence, or a demonstration of their arrogance. Either way, as far as people of faith and the pro-life movement are concerned, the inclusion of those 4 types of contraceptives in Obamacare was in effect an end-around by the Administration.

In my opinion, I think HHS should have just removed those 4 contraceptives from their mandatory contraceptive coverage as soon as the Hobby Lobby case built up steam, instead of stubbornly sticking to their agenda and causing all this controversy and mess. Since HHS and the Obama Administration weren't smart enough, or respectful enough of religious rights to do that, they fully deserved to lose this case.


There is one other thing I'd like say about this... The court decision does not diminish the availability of contraceptive products, prevent anyone from obtaining contraceptive products, nor did it have the potential to do either of those things from the outset.... Therefore it needs to be pointed out in no uncertain terms, that the SCOTUS decision yesterday does NOT violate women's rights, does NOT in any way effect women's rights, and from the very beginning NEVER had a damned thing to do with women's rights... Anyone who says this is a womens rights issue is doing so purely in the name of partisan politics in order to advance their liberal agenda.

I disagree that it will be easy to interpret this ruling narrowly enough to avoid consequent undesirable rulings down the road. "Every religious kook" is quite a subjective term, and the SCOTUS will have to be very cautious what it labels as 'kooky', if it is to stand by its principles.

Disclaimer: I seem to have to reiterate this over and over again when I make anything close to the above argument: Even with the undesirable consequences that I believe will come out of this ruling, I still believe the ruling is a good one. Sometimes freedom isn't free, and I think this will turn out to be a case of that. So please don't characterize my argument as being against this ruling or against religious freedom. Arguably, I am MORE principled regarding religious freedom than conservatives who want this ruling to be so narrow and unprincipled that it won't have any of the undesirable consequences that liberals have been saying it will have. Again, my argument is that the ruling will have SOME of the undesirable consequences liberals say it will have, and it is STILL as good ruling despite that.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

What's wrong with you?
You better read your own link.
It says what I said.
HL's objection was specifically to abortifacients on religious grounds.
Those other cases were also based on religious reasons and the SC sent them back for review given their ruling.
If those companies can't make their case given the SC ruling they will fail ... if they can they will succeed ... that's as it should be, right?

I actually don't know what your point is. The ruling clearly allows employers to state a moral objection against ALL contraception, and refuse to cover any of the option. This is clear FROM THE WORDING OF THE FINAL ORDER, and confirmed by the orders today. It covers the 'contraception mandate' not just abortifacients. If you agree, great, if not, read the rulings and the orders in that link.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

So then we would both agree that both men and women should take caution, contraceptives really, to avoid unwanted pregnancies that result in the mistreatment of a child.

btw, comparing a man not wanting to change diapers to a woman abusing a baby is kind of a stretch, or no?


Don't know about the other men here but I had a lot of trouble breast feeding at night and couldn't seem to satisfy the baby's appetite. Other than that I had no problem changing diapers and helping my wife take care of the kids and in fact enjoyed it. Guess that is why I have such a good relationship with my kids todasy plus we have always accepted responsibility for our actions which is why we are conservative
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Let's say you're an atheist who owns a business and employees a few thousand people. You don't limit your employees beliefs in any way and even provide a small room where employees can exercise their religious beliefs in a reasonable manner during regular, paid breaks. You think you're being plenty fair and amenable to your employees and your employees aren't complaining at all.

Then, one day, a court case comes down that says you have to provide religious symbols and amenities for your employees. Now, you aren't opposed to employees bringing their own religious artifacts to use at work as long as they keep it private and limit their use to the designated break time but you're kind of bent out of shape by having to provide crucifixes, prayer mats, statuary, etc. The cost isn't really the issue but you're starting to feel like this might be an imposition on your religious freedom so you decide to sue the government.

Finally, after spending a ****load of money and suffering much unwanted publicity you win your case. That day, however, someone comes in and says the decision is screwed and you're getting over on people...forcing your beliefs on them....because you refuse to provide them with the articles of their faith.

This is the common strawman where the freedom to impose your religion on other people is conflated with the freedom to practice your religion.

Women's health care is Health Care, not religion. Someone taking birth control is not practising their religious beliefs. Someone else may believe it's wrong to use birth control and choose to not to take it. Someone else may believe that taking medicine is immoral. But that doesn't mean that I'm committing a religious act by taking a Tylenol.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Who are the "they" you refer to?

You summed up the situation nicely.
There just seems to be a a lot more chatter than necessary for a company
saying they will not provide morning after pills as part of their insurance.
It is not like Hobby Lobby is not covering traditional birth control methods.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

No it's not at all. Catholics have a very restrictive, well known, well publicized view of contraception and sex. It's for procreation, period. And five MEN, with those personal religious views, decided to allow employers to restrict access to the contraception their religion tells them is sinful.

I'm just stating the optics, particularly of FIVE MEN holding a decidedly minority view on contraception, deciding the healthcare needs of women, and on top of the GOP holding an all MALE panel on the contraceptive needs of WOMEN. If you can't see the optics look bad to women, then you're not paying attention. I can just tell you because I've read it 1,000 times that many women would just rather ignorant old men who have no clue about the healthcare needs of women keep their old man noses out of their lady parts business. Those old men don't have to live with the consequences. Disagree if you want, but that feeling is out there.

It's the Democrats, the party of race, sex, and belief division, who care about such optics.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Remember the heated debate about whether abortion would be included in Obamacare? Obama stated quite clearly while campaigning for the passage of Obamacare that it would not cover abortions, because he knew that if it did, it would cause a firestorm of public outrage and stop Obamacare in it's tracks. So what does HHS turn around and do? They include 4 contraceptive types in Obamacare that HHS acknowledges don't prevent conception, but instead destroy a potentially fertilized egg after conception...

What was Sebelius thinking?

I'm sorry, but HHS should have been content with the 16 preventative types of birth control and never included those other 4 in the first place. This is either another example of this administrations incompetence, or a demonstration of their arrogance. Either way, as far as people of faith and the pro-life movement are concerned, the inclusion of those 4 types of contraceptives in Obamacare was in effect an end-around by the Administration.

The problem is many pro-life people also believe many of those on that list of 16 are also abortifacients. In my area, there is widespread opposition to the pill in all its forms because the evangelicals, some of them at least, believe that can and do cause abortions in many cases. So I don't think they'd have avoided the controversy, just perhaps changed the names of the litigants. The court system is full of dozens of employers suing to deny coverage for ALL contraceptive options as well. Finally, there is just a factual disagreement about whether those 4 forms actually cause 'abortions.'

So based on all that, I don't blame them for the decision. If they had contraceptive options greater than zero, they were sure to be the subject of intense opposition, lawsuits, etc. and so I think rationally decided to include the full list because that makes the most sense medically, and best achieves the desired outcome. IUDs are extremely effective, for example, at the very top of the list and long lasting.

What they COULD have done is just accept the compromise offered by the House as I recall and give employers a "conscientious objection" out to any or all coverage. In retrospect, that was likely a mistake, although the compromise to the mandate is also being litigated, so even THAT wouldn't have cut off the debate, just blunted some of it.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

I disagree that it will be easy to interpret this ruling narrowly enough to avoid consequent undesirable rulings down the road. "Every religious kook" is quite a subjective term, and the SCOTUS will have to be very cautious what it labels as 'kooky', if it is to stand by its principles.

Disclaimer: I seem to have to reiterate this over and over again when I make anything close to the above argument: Even with the undesirable consequences that I believe will come out of this ruling, I still believe the ruling is a good one. Sometimes freedom isn't free, and I think this will turn out to be a case of that. So please don't characterize my argument as being against this ruling or against religious freedom. Arguably, I am MORE principled regarding religious freedom than conservatives who want this ruling to be so narrow and unprincipled that it won't have any of the undesirable consequences that liberals have been saying it will have. Again, my argument is that the ruling will have SOME of the undesirable consequences liberals say it will have, and it is STILL as good ruling despite that.

Interesting.

Does a religious belief need a certain number of believers before it "counts"? If other people don't share in your deeply held religious beliefs are they no longer important? What about taxes? Can you now opt out of paying for the portions of government you have a moral objection to? What's the legal distinction between women's reproductive health care and immunization, prescription drugs, or any other form of health care? What about someone who believed that all healthcare was an affront to god, should they be allowed to ban their employees from purchasing health care too?

I think we all have to accept that this was a TERRIBLE ruling. The idea that something you own can avoid paying something for someone else which contributes to something which pays for something you don't like just because you own it is incredibly destructive to the legal system as a whole. I mean, in WV there are people who play with venomous snakes to prove their devotion to god. Is it really that hard to imagine a time in which theses same individuals believe that insurance in any form is immoral because god will provide? Is that actually a stretch?
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

This is the common strawman where the freedom to impose your religion on other people is conflated with the freedom to practice your religion.

Women's health care is Health Care, not religion. Someone taking birth control is not practising their religious beliefs. Someone else may believe it's wrong to use birth control and choose to not to take it. Someone else may believe that taking medicine is immoral. But that doesn't mean that I'm committing a religious act by taking a Tylenol.

The issue is one of mandating that one person pay for the CHOICES another makes.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

There just seems to be a a lot more chatter than necessary for a company
saying they will not provide morning after pills as part of their insurance.
It is not like Hobby Lobby is not covering traditional birth control methods.

You'll notice that the bulk of the discussion is about the impact of this ruling on other cases.

For example, could a Buddhist company object to the 40% of their taxes which go towards the military because they're pacifists? What's the legal difference? Tax revenues go into a fund which gets appropriated and then some of those appropriations go to something which people find morally objectionable. Hobby Lobby was required to pay for insurance essentially out of their employees wages which then went into a fund which could potentially pay for something which the owner of the company found objectionable.

Why does anyone have to pay for anything or do anything anymore?
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

It's the Democrats, the party of race, sex, and belief division, who care about such optics.

That's just not true and you're reasonable enough to see that. This is a polarizing issue. If the democrats had an all female panel of women's rights activists and atheists decide that employers should provide abortion on demand to all women, plus all contraceptives, there's not a religious conservative on the planet who believed that decision wasn't influenced by the beliefs of those making the decision, that their biases in fact dictated that outcome.

You can't tell me that those on the other side of the decision, mostly younger single women, aren't allowed to see the people on the SC making this decision and rationally suspect their personal biases also played a large role in THIS decision.

Heck, this is true for every issue. If we want to know about the best way to treat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, we should probably include actual veterans in that discussion. If we want to know about religious liberty, I KNOW you'd want to hear from actual religious leaders, not just academic gearheads who study religion. Etc.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

There just seems to be a a lot more chatter than necessary for a company
saying they will not provide morning after pills as part of their insurance.
It is not like Hobby Lobby is not covering traditional birth control methods.

But many companies are already getting the go ahead from the SC to not cover traditional birth control methods. HL was just a named party, the effect goes far beyond HL.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

You'll notice that the bulk of the discussion is about the impact of this ruling on other cases.

For example, could a Buddhist company object to the 40% of their taxes which go towards the military because they're pacifists? What's the legal difference?

The Contraception policy was a presidential mandate, not a tax for the legislative branch.

So, yes, if a President ever decides to mandate that Buddhists need to buy ammunition and then deliver it to soldiers at a national guard armory, I bet they can refuse.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

A ruling cannot be so narrow that it violates the idea of having some kind of principle. If rulings are to be without principle, then it is simply the caprice of the Judges. "This ruling only applies to Christians of a mainstream belief set" simply doesn't cut it.

The response Lowdown gave from the conservative perspective, and quoted in the post above this one, is a far more intelligent conservative view than your own about how the ruling might be limited. And it has some implications which might mitigate what I have been saying.

He's obviously got more time to educate you than I have today.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

The issue is one of mandating that one person pay for the CHOICES another makes.

Hardly.

This is like forcing a piece of property which was constructed as a liability shield to protect the owners of that property's assets to pay for insurance on behalf of the employees (in effect out of their wages) which goes into a fund which is required to cover a set of procedures among which are a few the owners of the property may object to. The insurance does not belong to the owners of the company, it is part of the required minimum compensation due to their employees. Now that piece of property has a competitive advantage because it is able to reduce it's labor cost as it no longer has to pay for what every other company is required to cover.

And why is women's reproductive health care a choice but your health care isn't?
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

But many companies are already getting the go ahead from the SC to not cover traditional birth control methods. HL was just a named party, the effect goes far beyond HL.
Citation?
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

You'll notice that the bulk of the discussion is about the impact of this ruling on other cases.

For example, could a Buddhist company object to the 40% of their taxes which go towards the military because they're pacifists?

No, because the state has a compelling interest in funding the military with taxes. A waver for religious objections would be denied. This sort of thing has come up many times before. No, you can't avoid paying income taxes because of your religious beliefs.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

The Contraception policy was a presidential mandate, not a tax for the legislative branch.

So, yes, if a President ever decides to mandate that Buddhists need to buy ammunition and then deliver it to soldiers at a national guard armory, I bet they can refuse.

Wrong. Wavers for religious objections are routinely denied if the state has a compelling interest in doing so.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

This is the common strawman where the freedom to impose your religion on other people is conflated with the freedom to practice your religion.

Another invalid comparison. Hobby Lobby did not advocate that those products be banned (though the owners may feel privately that they should).

Rather, the owners are simply decling to purchase certain lega products and then give them to other people. Ie Pornogrpahy is a legal product. Yet, I cant demand that my employer purchase it and then give it to me. Rather, I must either purchase it with my wages, or find somebody willing to provide it to me.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

The Contraception policy was a presidential mandate, not a tax for the legislative branch.

So, yes, if a President ever decides to mandate that Buddhists need to buy ammunition and then deliver it to soldiers at a national guard armory, I bet they can refuse.
Hobby Lobby isn't directly paying for anything. They're paying for a portion of the insurance their employees own which by law must cover a minimum set of requirements among which are some which the owners of the piece of property known as Hobby Lobby disagree with.

Trying to say it's totally different because one is a tax and the other is (what is incorrectly stated as a presidential) mandate is laughable.
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Another invalid comparison. Hobby Lobby did not advocate that those products be banned (though the owners may feel privately that they should).

Rather, the owners are simply decling to purchase certain lega products and then give them to other people. Ie Pornogrpahy is a legal product. Yet, I cant demand that my employer purchase it and then give it to me. Rather, I must either purchase it with my wages, or find somebody willing to provide it to me.
So you agree that you have a right to keep your property from paying for anything you find to be morally objectionable however indirectly that money is spent?
 
Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

Wrong. Wavers for religious objections are routinely denied if the state has a compelling interest in doing so.

And would in normal peace time circumstance, the Supreme Cout say that the president has a "compelling reason" for mandating that buddhists or amish buy ammunition and then deliver it to the National Guard?

My guess is that they would easily see that the mandate would be far more about advancing a social agenda, then providing needed security.

So you agree that you have a right to keep your property from paying for anything you find to be morally objectionable however indirectly that money is spent?

No, not anything and definetly not under all circumstances (txes cannot generally be refused).

I am saying is that the whim of a President to mandate people to do "X" (buy and provide BC, ammunition, alcohol) against their will must be scrutinized- and usually rejected.
 
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Re: Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby in contraceptive mandate challenge

You'll notice that the bulk of the discussion is about the impact of this ruling on other cases.

For example, could a Buddhist company object to the 40% of their taxes which go towards the military because they're pacifists? What's the legal difference? Tax revenues go into a fund which gets appropriated and then some of those appropriations go to something which people find morally objectionable. Hobby Lobby was required to pay for insurance essentially out of their employees wages which then went into a fund which could potentially pay for something which the owner of the company found objectionable.

Why does anyone have to pay for anything or do anything anymore?

You can find out why easily enough. Simply attach a note to your next tax return telling the IRS that you aren't paying 40% of the taxes. They will explain to you why you are wrong. If you disagree and can find a lawyer that won't mind looking like an idiot defending you, then you can sue them in court and then the court can tell you why you are wrong and maybe you'll understand it the way they tell you. :)
 
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