Surpreme Court, Hobby Lobby case, today...

[bill-pix-trade]

~~~

The Restoration of Religion legislation, approved unanimously by the House of Eepresentatibves and by a 97 - 3 vote in the Senate and signed into law by your favorite cocksuckee, billy boy clinton, reinforces the fundament base of morality of an originally christian nation...

Faith based morals arose in every primitive society on earth until reaonable men discovered a natural way of life that included moral and ethical behavior. It is not strange that fumdamentalist morality closely resembles rational morality, as much is just common sense respect for others.

The problem arises, as it always does, when government and religioin are in bed together... we have a separation of church and state, we need a separation of business and state. Get the fucking government out of our pockets and bedrooms

amicus

No need for the first part but I will assume you know nothing about me.

As for the rest; we agree, especially the last sentence. There has to be a reasonable lever of tolerance and and a large amount of separation.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

If you engage in commerce, you have to follow the same rules every other company follows. Hobby Lobby is going to get slapped down.

Not quite. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically exempts religious organizations from religious discrimination in hiring practices. If the well-paid pastor is found to be faking it while concealing his deeply held atheistic beliefs, he can be summarily dismissed with cause.

For that matter, the law also allows religious organizations to require non-ministerial staff (secretaries, janitors, grounds keepers and handymen) to "keep the faith" as well. The key requirement is that all employees are treated equally. The church can't impose dogma on some employees and give a pass to another because he/she has been known to kneel at the confessional booth equipped with the 'glory hole.'

None of this has anything to do with Hobby Lobby's legal obligation to refrain from all discrimination in its engagement of commerce. Under the law, there is no one whom Hobby Lobby can decline to sell its products to on the basis of that person' s membership in a legally protected class.

I don't believe Hobby Lobby will win this case, because the corporation itself does not deal in an explicit religious product or service. The religious beliefs of its employees are irrelevant to the operation of the business, and I would therefore be very surprised if it qualified for federal religious exemption.

One thing is certain. If it has NOT attempted to discriminate in its hiring practices, it certainly will not be able to discriminate with regard to those same employee's healthcare benefits.

Think about it. You willingly hire someone who does not adhere to your beliefs and you attempt to deny him or her a specific medical procedure based on YOUR religious beliefs?

No. That ain't happening.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Not quite. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically exempts religious organizations from religious discrimination in hiring practices. If the well-paid pastor is found to be faking it while concealing his deeply held atheistic beliefs, he can be summarily dismissed with cause.

...

It doesn't exempt them if they are engaging in non-religious commerce.

If the Catholic church is selling trinkets, they still have to comply with the uniform commercial code... or even if they are building a new church, they still have to comply with building codes.

It's the same thing here. The ACA is a law that places certain requirements on businesses. If you want to run a business, you have to comply with the law. If the law is objectionable to your religious beliefs, don't operate a business.

 

[dan_c00000]

Why corporations don’t deserve religious freedom

March 24, 2014 @ 2:43 pm

By Jay Michaelson

On March 25 the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores [2] and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, whose outcomes will decide whether corporations [3] can exempt themselves from provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), based on religious beliefs. The cases [4] challenge a provision of the ACA that requires employer-provided insurance plans to include contraception coverage.

The rulings’ importance [5] extends beyond the ACA, however. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, its companion case, are also about Citizens United — which established that corporate personhood includes freedom of speech, exercised, in part, by giving money to political causes. Now the court will decide whether corporations have freedom of religion as well, and whether on the basis of those rights, corporations can deprive services to others.

The court should reject this dangerous assertion. Corporations exist as separate legal entities precisely to distinguish their activities from those of their owners. It is that separation that Hobby Lobby threatens to erase.

The facts are straightforward. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers must provide health insurance to employees — including, if the employee requests it, coverage for women’s healthcare, which includes contraception. Hobby Lobby [6], a national corporation with more than 21,000 employees, is owned by conservative Christians who believe that by providing the option of such coverage — though it is chosen and used by someone else — they would violate their religious beliefs. So the company sued [7] Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and the department, among others.

But the injured party here is Hobby Lobby, not the owners. Thus the corporation, not its owners, is alleged to have a conscience and religious beliefs afflicted by Obamacare.

[8]This is an audacious expansion of the corporate personhood established by Citizens United, and one with deeply troubling consequences. In claiming that corporations have consciences, the plaintiffs — or, more precisely, their legal advocates, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty [9] and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the latter of which has largely underwritten the campaign — are entering a theological and legal quagmire.

Under this logic, if a corporation abhors birth control, it can also abhor the mixing of races, two women holding hands in a shopping mall, the profession of a belief in any God but Allah — you name it. To take one example, a fast-food chain (like Chick-fil-A which, like Hobby Lobby, is owned by conservative Christians) could forbid entry to Jews, African-Americans, or anyone else they wanted to, as long as the corporation asserted a conscience claim.

We don’t have to imagine such hypotheticals. In 1965, restaurateur and politician Lester Maddox said that to obey the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and allow African-Americans to eat at his restaurant, would be “a sin against God.” Just like the Hobby Lobby owners and the ACA provision, Maddox said that being forced to serve food to mixed-race groups violated his religious beliefs. Maddox lost in court and closed his restaurant rather than integrate it. Then, in a backlash against the civil rights movement, he was elected governor of Georgia the following year.

Surely this was the right legal result: whatever a business owner’s religious beliefs, the business itself should obey the same laws as every other corporation, including civil rights laws and the ACA.

Those concerned about corporate governance should also oppose this expansion of Citizens United. It represents an inverse “piercing of the veil” of corporate liability. If Hobby Lobby’s owners are responsible for their company’s religious beliefs, why not for its negligence, for example? Or its debts?

Indeed, the ludicrous notion of a crafts store kneeling to say its novenas undermines the premise of Citizens United itself. Corporations aren’t moral agents. The notion of “corporate personhood” is a legal fiction.

It’s wishful thinking that the court will overturn Citizens United on the way to rejecting Hobby Lobby’s claim to conscience. It need not, and probably will not, do so. Then again, Hobby Lobby’s claim also seemed like wishful thinking when it was first proposed.

Lawyers, like corporations, can dream.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

It doesn't exempt them if they are engaging in non-religious commerce.

Which is exactly why I do not think SCOTUS will affirm their claim.

If the Catholic church is selling trinkets, they still have to comply with the uniform commercial code... or even if they are building a new church, they still have to comply with building codes.

It's the same thing here. The ACA is a law that places certain requirements on businesses. If you want to run a business, you have to comply with the law. If the law is objectionable to your religious beliefs, don't operate a business.

But here is where your train is jumping the track. The ACA cannot impose a requirement which civil rights law permits. If civil rights law permits a religious organization as an employer to customize a health plan WITHOUT abortion benefits for its employees, then what is the legal basis for denying that right under the ACA?

Your "building codes" analogy is not relevant to the question I just posed WHICH IS the question the Supreme Court is being asked to resolve. They will either answer that question on the merits or they will deny Hobby Lobby has the standing to raise the claim regardless of whether the exemption might otherwise grant the relief being sought.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Hobby Lobby's argument is founded on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which prevents a law from burdening a person's exercise of their religion. That law has never been held to apply to a large commercial entity, as it's hard to see how such an entity could have it's own religious doctrine. If that were all the case were about, it would be over.

But, HL's lawyers argued that the Citizen's United case conferred "personhood" on corporations; therefore the RFRA applies to Hobby Lobby.

It's a stretch, in my opinion because the owners of HL are asking the court to extent their personal beliefs to the corporation they own.

 

[Wrong Element]

Hobby Lobby's argument is founded on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which prevents a law from burdening a person's exercise of their religion. That law has never been held to apply to a large commercial entity, as it's hard to see how such an entity could have it's own religious doctrine. If that were all the case were about, it would be over.

But, HL's lawyers argued that the Citizen's United case conferred "personhood" on corporations; therefore the RFRA applies to Hobby Lobby.

It's a stretch, in my opinion because the owners of HL are asking the court to extent their personal beliefs to the corporation they own.

They want to have it both ways, because they're certainly not arguing, for instance, that someone who slips on a wet floor in a Hobby Lobby and breaks their ankle should be able to sue not the company, but its owners personally. You can't do that because of limited liability. The "personhood" of the corporation protects its shareholders.


I think this far left wacko put it well:

Congress and the courts have been sensitive to the needs flowing from the Free Exercise Clause, but every person cannot be shielded from all the burdens incident to exercising every aspect of the right to practice religious beliefs. When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.

Antonin Scalia, Employment Division v. Smith, 1990

 

[JohnnySavage]

I read the briefs months ago, and don't really remember the specifics. But, I remember thinking HL had no chance of winning. But my vote doesn't count.


I'll be interested to listen to the tapes of the oral arguments.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Hobby Lobby's argument is founded on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which prevents a law from burdening a person's exercise of their religion. That law has never been held to apply to a large commercial entity, as it's hard to see how such an entity could have it's own religious doctrine. If that were all the case were about, it would be over.

But, HL's lawyers argued that the Citizen's United case conferred "personhood" on corporations; therefore the RFRA applies to Hobby Lobby.

It's a stretch, in my opinion because the owners of HL are asking the court to extent their personal beliefs to the corporation they own.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't think many of us are surprised that expansion of Citizens United would be attempted along these lines.

Besides, we all should have probably read this article first: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/24/religious-exemptions-a-guide-for-the-confused/?wprss=rss_national&clsrd

As the author notes, "compelling government interest" is also in play as is the implied legal limits of the "Free Exercise" clause.

Even though he left it till the very end, I was glad to see him acknowledge my argument under the Civil Rights Act.

With this much varying legal spaghetti on the tray, it will be interesting to see which strand the Court pulls out of the pile as the basis for its opinion in Hobby Lobby.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Yeah, well, I wouldn't think many of us are surprised that expansion of Citizens United would be attempted along these lines.

Besides, we all should have probably read this article first: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/24/religious-exemptions-a-guide-for-the-confused/?wprss=rss_national&clsrd

As the author notes, "compelling government interest" is also in play as is the implied legal limits of the "Free Exercise" clause.

Even though he left it till the very end, I was glad to see him acknowledge my argument under the Civil Rights Act.

With this much varying legal spaghetti on the tray, it will be interesting to see which strand the Court pulls out of the pile as the basis for its opinion in Hobby Lobby.

The compelling government interest is an element of the standard of review; in this case (I belive), Strict Scrutiny.


Disclaimer: I didn't read the article. I can't find my reading glasses and can't see the computer screen. The eyes are the second thing to go.

 

[Sean]

Hobby Lobby's argument is founded on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which prevents a law from burdening a person's exercise of their religion. That law has never been held to apply to a large commercial entity, as it's hard to see how such an entity could have it's own religious doctrine. If that were all the case were about, it would be over.

But, HL's lawyers argued that the Citizen's United case conferred "personhood" on corporations; therefore the RFRA applies to Hobby Lobby.

Which is exactly what I said would happen when the Citizens United case was decided. I was told I was being ridiculous.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The plaintiffs have the cart before the horse. Individuals are forced to carry coverage for birth control regardless of their sex, fertility status, or religious convictions.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The plaintiffs have the cart before the horse. Individuals are forced to carry coverage for birth control regardless of their sex, fertility status, or religious convictions.

And women are required to carry coverage for prostate cancer, testicular cancer and erectile dysfunction, regardless of their sex, fertility status, or religious convictions.

Insurance isn't a "cafeteria plan", no matter how often Fox News tells you it's unfair.

 

[amicus]

The commerce clause was much debated and ended up a compromise... bad idea

amicus

 

[Sean Renaud]

The commerce clause was much debated and ended up a compromise... bad idea

amicus

Agreed. All decisions should have been made at the Federal level as inconvienent as it would have been at the time it would have saved us a lot of heartache today. And the Founding Fathers should have predicted that even though people had been riding horses and carts literally for thousands of years that a mere 200 years after they founded the country we'd have flying machines and phones. How dare they forget to stop by Delphi before finalizing the Constiution!

 

[RobDownSouth]

The commerce clause was much debated and ended up a compromise... bad idea

amicunt

Compromise is a bedrock principle of a free and democratic republic.

As such, it would be anathema to a jackbooted cryptofascist such as yourself.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

The compelling government interest is an element of the standard of review; in this case (I belive), Strict Scrutiny.


Disclaimer: I didn't read the article. I can't find my reading glasses and can't see the computer screen. The eyes are the second thing to go.

When you find your glasses, give the article a look. It really is a clear, interesting look at a complex subject. I haven't kept up with this case that closely, so I was surprised to see that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was a specific reaction to the SCOTUS decision in Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

That fact alone puts an interesting wrinkle on things.

 

[Busybody]

Hobby Lobby Lib Kerfuffle in short

Pay for my Vagiina, stay outa my Vagina

 

[amicus]

Legalities aside, and I listened to a bunch of them... the issue is whether a government health plan can force an employer to provide a health plan that contains an abortion medication.

A point to consider... millions of people have been granted exemptions from the ACA for religious reasons, even non profit corporatioins. Thus, the government admits there is a moral question involved and at the heart of the controversy.

The scotus decision will not be known until June, a prediction made following a debate on cspan was that the Holly Lobby would win the suit.

we shall see

In general, this is but another angle of attack among many against the concept of socialized medicine in america.

The nation will return to its republic roots although not peacefully...

amicus

 

[Wrong Element]

When you find your glasses, give the article a look. It really is a clear, interesting look at a complex subject. I haven't kept up with this case that closely, so I was surprised to see that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was a specific reaction to the SCOTUS decision in Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

That fact alone puts an interesting wrinkle on things.

The RFRA might give Scalia the opening to make the vote for Hobby Lobby he certainly wants to deliver -- I'm certain he finds them more sympathetic than the druggies in the 1990 decision.

The ACA exemption of explicitly faith-based nonprofit organizations answers that objection for anyone who is intellectually honest, but we already know there's an activist core who will vote "against Obamacare" regardless of precedent.

 

[Wrong Element]

The nation will return to its republic roots although not peacefully...

And what better way to achieve that than through unelected judges, eh?

 

[amicus]

And what better way to achieve that than through unelected judges, eh?

~~~

Judges and Senators that were originally chosen by the legislatures of the various states, might well be an area of consideration...

and of course some rewriting on the constitution which I have already done

heh

amicus

 

[Ishmael]

I was listening to the news and they played a sound bite of the protestors outside the SCOTUS bldg. There was one woman screaming, "we don't want anyone telling us what we can or can't do with our bodies!!!!!!"

OK sweetheart, apparently you haven't quite figured out that this case in NOT about what you can or can't do with your body. The case is about who is going to pay for whatever you want to do with your body. You are out there demanding that someone else pays for the decisions you make about your body.

Ishmael

 

[eyer]

Compromise is a bedrock principle of a free and democratic republic.

Too friggin' funny...

..."Compromise" enabled slavery to continue in this nation, and there's not a thing "free and democratic" about that.

 

[koalabear]

I was listening to the news and they played a sound bite of the protestors outside the SCOTUS bldg. There was one woman screaming, "we don't want anyone telling us what we can or can't do with our bodies!!!!!!"

OK sweetheart, apparently you haven't quite figured out that this case in NOT about what you can or can't do with your body. The case is about who is going to pay for whatever you want to do with your body. You are out there demanding that someone else pays for the decisions you make about your body.

Ishmael

Most of them were bused in by Planned Parenthood, they want to sell the most pills.