It's more like the can of worms your buddies have opened up where an employer based on his religious beliefs determines what you as an employee can get health coverage for. And what you fail to realize is that this continues to lay the groundwork for a single payer health care system. You're winning a battle on the way to losing the war. Congrats!
I think main issue is . . .. . Separation of CHURCH AND STATE is just that These are neither churches nor state They are corporations . . . QUESTION: The Government cannot for Religion on anyone or [in this case] thing . . . .can the Government force the REJECTION of Religion on anyone or [in this case] thing? Rocket River
It is anything but common sense. A corporation, closely held or not, has ALWAYS been a separate legal person from its ownership and has has never been held to have religious beliefs. If closely held corporations are their owners for this purpose, it seems that this pierces the corporate veil. This begs the question...when does the corporation stop being the same person as its owners? Essentially, the court took the state law of corporations, put it on its head and made it break dance.
It's not the same issue. There's a concerted campaign here. The issue in the one from Thursday is way worse. Basically the government is allowing religious nonprofits an exemption by having them declare in writing that they wish to be exempt from certain provisions. Basically- well let you be above the law if you want to be. Their position is that having to even do this is unconstitutional. The government just needs to guess which laws they wish to follow/don't wish to follow, because asking is against the free exercise clause.
I don't believe the author intended those as literal quotes - it's satire. Though I don't think it would be that hard to find support for some variant of many of the ideas expressed from the right.
The comic makes the claim that Hobby Lobby and by extension the right wing is against birth control, something that is not true and is not backed up by this case. In any case, I responded to a poster who said it was on target. The intent of the author of the quotes is irrelevant.
It's comic satire in the vein of Jon Stewart, who also uses exaggeration to be both funny and to point out the hypocrisy in politics. Like Stewart, this comic strip doesn't just aim at the GOP and its cronies. They ridicule all sides of the political spectrum. As satire, it certainly hit pretty close to home, didn't it.
Really? Opposition to birth control is why Hobby Lobby even exists in the first place. If the Hobby Lobby founders didn't think Jesus told them that IUD's (a form of birth control) were a sin, we wouldn't be having this conversation, and the various examples of opposition from social conservative groups to birth control (both on pro-life and on general "sex is naughty naughty!" grounds) are too numerous and tedious to even bother recounting; I'd rather read "Abstinence-Only" sex ed curriculum.
Hobby Lobby opposed a small cut out of the the available birth control options. I don't want the Rockets to get Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Chris Anderson, Chris Mihm or Thabo Sefalosha. Would you say I am opposed to the Rockets getting basketball players all together?
Basu: Court steps into religion quagmire By Rekha Basu Des Moines Register Let’s say that I’m an observant Hindu who keeps a strict vegetarian diet because my religion frowns on killing animals. And let’s say I own a software company that employs only vegetarians, because I don’t believe I should be forced to subsidize meat-eating with the money I pay in salaries. Could I get away with that that sort of discrimination? Apparently I could, if you follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s logic in a ruling Monday that a company should not be forced to subsidize an activity that offends its owners’ religious beliefs. The court ruled that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. may be exempted from the federal government’s mandate that for-profit corporations’ employee health plans cover all 20 types of contraception. Their Christian owners believe life begins at conception and oppose four contraceptive methods that interfere with implantation of a fertilized egg. It makes no difference under the ruling if the employee shares those beliefs, or even that religion. “It is not for the Court to say that the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs are mistaken or unreasonable,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in his majority opinion. The impact of the ruling has been analyzed mostly through the prisms of birth control and the Affordable Care Act. But the implications of allowing private companies to opt out of certain laws for religious reasons are sweeping, and dangerous. If a company can dictate how employees spend their salary or benefits according to its owners’ religious beliefs, at what point does religious accommodation of an employer end and religious discrimination against employees begin? The court should have left religious exemptions to religious and nonprofit organizations. The court majority tried to tailor its ruling to “closely held” corporations and certain types of contraception. But the rationale could become precedent in ways that even Christian groups hailing the ruling in the name of religious freedom would take serious issue with. What if a conservative Muslim or Hasidic Jewish business owner believes women and men should not work in close physical proximity to each other so it won’t hire women? “Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a dissenting opinion. “Little doubt that RFRA — the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act the majority opinion cited — claims will proliferate, for the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood — combined with its other errors in construing RFRA — invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith.” It seems unlikely the court would have been as accepting of a case brought by employers from minority religions such as Judaism, Islam or Hinduism. But this ruling allows business owners of any faith to claim religious exemptions. The ruling will probably be used to justify anti-gay business policies such as those of the Gortz Haus in Grimes, Iowa, whose owners claimed the Iowa Civil Rights Commission was forcing them to violate their religious beliefs by accommodating a same-sex wedding. Ginsburg cited the case of a New Mexico photographer refusing to photograph a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony for religious reasons. And in a Minnesota case, the born-again Christian owners of health clubs cited biblical objections to employing people who live together unmarried, as well as “fornicators and homosexuals.” “Would RFRA require exemptions in cases of this ilk?” asked Ginsburg’s dissent. “And if not, how does the Court divine which religious beliefs are worthy of accommodation, and which are not?” Under the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, the government can’t play favorites with religions. Much as some might wish otherwise, America is a pluralistic nation without a state religion, and the government is not allowed to pick and choose which religions can claim certain rights or exemptions. The ironic result of this wrongheaded ruling may be that business-owners of every faith will claim a religious right to discriminate, in decisions from health coverage to employment to buying, selling and accommodations. That’s a long way from how the founders conceived of religious freedom. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/basu-court-steps-into-religion-quagmire/ngX3d/
