Merged Hobby lobby and the slippery slope/SCOTUS decision

[sunmaster14]

It's a little premature to be coming to that conclusion. Until those cases resolve (and they may not resolve in the plaintiff's favor), you really don't know if the slope is slippery at all.

Actually, I like to think of it as the Supreme Court pouring a little sand on the slope to arrest our momentum as we go down.

 

[Mister Earl]

It's a little premature to be coming to that conclusion. Until those cases resolve (and they may not resolve in the plaintiff's favor), you really don't know if the slope is slippery at all.

Given fourteen separate organizations are each acting as thought it were slippery should be something of a concern. Fourteen in the first 24 hours.

Yeah, it really depends on where the court cases go, because we all know that needs to be challenged, but the only reason they've got the foot in the door is because the SCOTUS opened it for them.

 

[SezMe]

But not specifically sin. The choice is completely up to someone else, and the payment of salary does nothing to encourage sinful choice. But the coverage of sinful procedures does specifically encourage those sinful procedures. That is, in fact, the explicit purpose of coverage.

Sin as defined by one portion of one sect of one religion. Does this display of preference in light of the First not trouble you, Zig?

 

[SezMe]

In my opinion, this case is really about the rule of law. The RFRA is a statute that Congress passed with unanimous support in the House and 97-3 in the Senate, and it was signed into law by Clinton.

I agree that the RFRA played an important role here. RFRA=Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This was a bull excrement political act for election purposes only. Nothing needed to be "restored". No this political theater action has come back to bite. It's damn frustrating.

Since the RFRA is a statute, Congress would have been well within its rights to have exempted any provisions of ACA, or regulations promulgated under the authorities created by ACA, from the RFRA.

Theoretically, yes. Practically, no. The ACA was/is a horrible mess of political compromise in order to get it passed. Adding something such as you suggest would have cost enough Dem votes to deny its passage.

 

[nelsondogg]

Given fourteen separate organizations are each acting as thought it were slippery should be something of a concern. Fourteen in the first 24 hours.

Yeah, it really depends on where the court cases go, because we all know that needs to be challenged, but the only reason they've got the foot in the door is because the SCOTUS opened it for them.

And the SCOTUS in the past has used their own "limited scope" rulings as precedent, thereby oiling up said slippery slope.

The template here is the court’s voting-rights jurisprudence. In the 2009 case of Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, the court upheld a challenge to an application of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice Roberts’s decision was “narrow,” and it even drew the votes of the court’s more liberal members. Four years later, though, Roberts used the Northwest Austin precedent as a wedge to destroy both Section 4 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as much of its effectiveness, in the case of Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. The liberals who signed on to the Northwest Austin decision howled that they’d been betrayed. But it was too late.

 

[SezMe]

3. Someone that is working such that they have medical insurance can pay for elective medical services out of pocket.

Riiiight. Many people working full time still get government assistance since their wages are so low. But, hell, paying for an abortion is easy - they'll just not eat for a week or so.

 

[Sherman Bay]

If employees have other religious beliefs they are working for the wrong employer imo.

I can see the employment ads now. "Baptist truck driver wanted. Heretics not hired. Only Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912 Baptists need apply."

 

[Neally]

Riiiight. Many people working full time still get government assistance since their wages are so low. But, hell, paying for an abortion is easy - they'll just not eat for a week or so.

Even if an elective abortion was provided in the emergency room, which it is not as I explained, it wouldn't be free. If the person was employed, which the hypothetical assumes, and they couldn't pay for it immediately, the hospital would eventually get paid for the procedure with small monthly installments if necessary. Thus the whole, "Now we will all have to pay for an abortion if someone was raped..." claim is completely false and stems from ignorance on how emergency services are delivered and paid for.

 

[Beerina]

I am still waiting on why being forced to pay for some immoral medical treatments are ok, such as vaccines and blood transfusions but this is such an imposition.

The main thing seems to be those who sided with them belong to a religion that agrees that birth control is immoral but does not take a stand against vaccines or blood transfusions.

So how do we determine which counter factual claims made by religions deserve protections and which do not?

Conceivably vaccines, etc., could be re-done the same way. Government can have a lower impact on the exercise of religion by providing tax dollars to support those in cases where they conflict with the religious beliefs.

There isn't necessarily something tremendously wrong with this, either.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Conservatives defending this decision only do so because it agrees with their own religious beliefs.

 

[Beerina]

Conservatives defending this decision only do so because it agrees with their own religious beliefs.

Certainly. And liberals decrying it do so because it disagrees with their own religious beliefs, that is, massive, all-intrusive, secular government insinuating itself into every aspect of human existence, dragging it's jackbooted stomping power to grind religion under it's heal along with it.

Open thine eyes and see that politics and religion are not just similar phenomena, but are the exact same phenomenon. They both proffer worldviews that justify gathering together large masses of people to attempt detailed dominance of everyone's lives.

As with religion, the best defense against the quasi-religion of big government is...wait for it...freedom from religion/government.

 

[BenBurch]

Conservatives defending this decision only do so because it agrees with their own religious beliefs.

And in doing so they hasten the day when we will treat all religious belief as mental illness.

 

[petrov2500]

Link

Thanks for the info. I am glad the SC applied the ruling to all contraceptives. Religious freedom is a lot more important to me then small entitlements.

 

[Kestrel]

I can see the employment ads now. "Baptist truck driver wanted. Heretics not hired. Only Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912 Baptists need apply."

The help wanted ads when I was young often included cute little expressions of faith like "Jews need not apply". They were also conveiniently divided into sections for "help wanted men", "help wanted women" and "help wanted colored" to assist employers in expressing their freedom.

These practices really appealed to the kind of person who understood the message of Luke 10:25-37 as "Samaritans are good".

 

[Ziggurat]

Sin as defined by one portion of one sect of one religion. Does this display of preference in light of the First not trouble you, Zig?

Why should it trouble me if everyone gets to define sin for themselves? I see no preference here on the part of the SCOTUS for any particular conception of sin, but rather an allowance for private individuals and groups to have their own preferences.

 

[petrov2500]

I am still waiting on why being forced to pay for some immoral medical treatments are ok, such as vaccines and blood transfusions but this is such an imposition.

The main thing seems to be those who sided with them belong to a religion that agrees that birth control is immoral but does not take a stand against vaccines or blood transfusions.

So how do we determine which counter factual claims made by religions deserve protections and which do not?

I don't think anyone should have to pay for procedures they find objectionable. If a company wants, they should be able to offer compensation with no health benefits. Comparing birth control to medical procedures is unfair though, since birth control is cheap, and medical expenses can be huge.

And in doing so they hasten the day when we will treat all religious belief as mental illness.

Bring it on radical atheists!

 

[Kestrel]

Why should it trouble me if everyone gets to define sin for themselves? I see no preference here on the part of the SCOTUS for any particular conception of sin, but rather an allowance for private individuals and groups to have their own preferences.

We satisfy that requirement nicely by having a national standard for insurance coverage and letting each insured individual decide if a specific medical proceedure is sinful.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I know the Mother Jones article has been cited before but I just wanted to point the hypocrisy out one more time in case anyone actually believes these lying executives.

Take for instance Hobby Lobby's argument that providing coverage for Plan B and Ella substantially limits its religious freedom. The company admits in its complaint that until it considered filing the suit in 2012, its generous health insurance plan actually covered Plan B and Ella (though not IUDs). The burden of this coverage was apparently so insignificant that God, and Hobby Lobby executives, never noticed it until the mandate became a political issue.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Conservatives defending this decision only do so because it agrees with their own religious beliefs.

Certainly. And liberals decrying it do so because it disagrees with their own religious beliefs, that is, massive, all-intrusive, secular government insinuating itself into every aspect of human existence, dragging it's jackbooted stomping power to grind religion under it's heal along with it.

Open thine eyes and see that politics and religion are not just similar phenomena, but are the exact same phenomenon. They both proffer worldviews that justify gathering together large masses of people to attempt detailed dominance of everyone's lives.

As with religion, the best defense against the quasi-religion of big government is...wait for it...freedom from religion/government.

Let me guess... God the Father would be the Executive branch of government? Seems like he'd make a good President.

I imagine the Holy Ghost would have to be the Judicial branch, with the Legislative branch entirely absent, having ascended to Heaven this past Easter.

 

[Ziggurat]

We satisfy that requirement nicely by having a national standard for insurance coverage and letting each insured individual decide if a specific medical proceedure is sinful.

If insurance were not coupled to employment, but only purchased by the individual, that might be true. But that is not the case.