In a narrow decision, the Supreme Court found for Hobby Lobby and another company in their claim that allowing women, who are NOT members of their religious community and women who are nonbelievers, access to insurance coverage for contraceptive medications and devices, violates their "sincerely" held religious beliefs on family planning.
The decision is mind-numbingly wrong, wrong, wrong in every possible way. The men who made this blundering ruling were, no doubt, influenced by the Roman Catholic Church's and other fundamentalist Christian sects' prohibition against family planning, and by favoring a particular religion's doctrine, they've violated the intent of the founding fathers that government shall not do so.
Here is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's blistering dissent:
"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage"
"Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community."
"Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby's or Conestoga's plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman's autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults."
"It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month's full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage."
"Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision."
"Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude."
"The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield." --h/t Daily Kos
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| And all are Roman Catholics |
When John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency, American Protestants feared he would be unduly influenced by Papist Rome. Kennedy delivered a famous speech that allayed those fears. Fifty-four years later the SCOTUS did what Protestants in 1960 feared Kennedy would do: They favored religious doctrine over freedom from having a corporation impose its tenets on employees who do not share those beliefs.
More here: Religious Freedom Frauds
8 Other Laws That Could Be Ignored Now That Christians Get To Pick And Choose
UPDATE:
HOBBY LOBBY, RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES AND FRAUDS:
Hobby Lobby Invested In Numerous Abortion And Contraception Products While Claiming Religious Objection
21 comments:
But vasectomies and penis pills are still covered.
So let's face it folks, this is all about controlling women.
I wonder if the Walgreen clerks are going to try again to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions. Public opinion and boycott makes it unlikely but the genie is really out of the bottle on this one.
Can't wait till atheism is declared a religion.
Digby has a good article on her site.
Alito:
"According to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients."
Yes, in other words, religious fantasy trumps science once again.
“One way to look at it is this: The whole point of establishing a corporation is to create an entity separate from oneself to limit legal liability,” he writes. “Therefore, Hobby Lobby is asking for special protections/liability limits that only a corporation can get on the one hand, and special protections that only individuals, churches and religious organizations get, on the other. It seems awfully dangerous to allow corporations to have it both ways.“
In addition to fearing the social implications of a pro-Hobby Lobby ruling, other evangelical Christians take umbrage with the theological premise undergirding their case — namely, that opposing the ACA mandate is somehow an extension of a pro-life position. Richard Cizik, former Vice President for Governmental Affairs for the National Association of evangelicals, wrote in the Huffington Post this weekend that evangelicals who support Hobby Lobby “are not actually being pro-religious freedom or pro-life.” Similarly, Julia K. Stronks, evangelical Christian and political science professor at Whitworth University, teamed up with Jeffrey F. Peipert, a Jewish family-planning physician, to pen an op-ed for Roll Call earlier this month in which they argue that granting Hobby Lobby religious exemption will actually lead to more abortions. They write:
Although the owners of these for-profit corporations oppose the contraceptive requirement because of their pro-life religious beliefs, the requirement they oppose will dramatically reduce abortions. … Imagine a million fewer unintended pregnancies. Imagine healthier babies, moms and families. Imagine up to 800,000 fewer abortions. No matter your faith or political beliefs, our hunch is that we can all agree that fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions would be a blessing." Jack Jenkins of Think Progress
Erick Erickson ✔ @EWErickson
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My religion trumps your “right” to employer subsidized consequence free sex.
11:02 AM - 30 Jun 2014
Erick Erickson is an asshat.
On the bright side, this will help fuel the push to single payer.
If someone doesn't like the benefits they receive they are free to look for an employer who provides them. Same goes with pay. Indentured servitude is still not legal and everyone, currently, to make their own choices as to where they work.
Yes, Anon@8:37, because turning down jobs and finding others is so damn easy these days, one has the luxury to just say NO! to employers who impose their religious beliefs on your personal life.
What universe do you live in?
This ruling smells an awful lot like how the theocratic countries in the Middle East operate.
How the hell does a woman who is not the same religion as her employer have anything to do with her employer's beliefs? The employer is not using contraceptives, why should that employer prevent his employee from doing so? What business is it of his or hers what the employee does in the privacy of her own home and in her own life?
You and others who think this is a swell idea would probably like to impose other religious prohibitions on people who don't share your beliefs, wouldn't you. That's just what this ruling has done.
For those of you who damn the Muslims, you just joined them in their fanatic march to make others conform to your religious tenets.
What's next? Making women stay home and produce state-enforced pregnancies?
Anon @8:27 you're wrong.
Exemption from Obamacare for Religious groups
The meme targets a whole host of religious groups. The Amish, Scientologists, Christian Scientists and Muslims are categorized as exempt, but Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Jews are not. But that’s not really accurate.
The law doesn’t contain specific language about which denominations or religions would qualify for an exemption, but it does specify that individuals belonging to religious groups for exemptions if they have religious beliefs opposed to health insurance or medical treatment. These kinds of exemptions exist for other federal programs, and there are rules for determining who qualifies.
Based on who has obtained exemptions from other federal programs like Medicare and Social Security, it looks like the Amish would qualify, as would Mennonites. The assertion that an exemption for Muslims is specified in the law is wrong -- Pants on Fire wrong. Scientologists typically have no objection to medical treatment for physical ailments.
Our ruling
This Internet meme rattles of a list of groups that are and are not exempt from the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Most of the claims are way off-base, but we found some facts buried among the falsehoods.
Obama and Biden don’t need to buy insurance on the marketplaces, but they’re not exempt from fines if they don’t have coverage. Prisoners and American Indians are in fact exempt, but they still have health care of some sort. Members of small number of religious groups can receive exemptions if they have formal objections to medical care or health insurance, but we found no evidence that Muslims or Scientologists meet that criteria.
Because most of the list is wrong, we rate the claim Mostly False.
The Christianist won't be happy until everyone believes the way they do.
They used to say “An aspirin will keep any girl from pregnancy…she just has to hold it between her KNEES!” it was a little joke. Lots of wisdom, though (smile!)
Anon@9:58,
Yuk, yuk. There is no need for aspirin contraception in the 21st century. We've actually advanced from those cavemen days. But I understand that for your generation that was considered funny. Tell that to a 21st century woman and see if she laughs along with you.
Another Republican "outreach" to lure women to the GOP?
*eye roll*
democrats believe in freedom,freedom to screw everything in sight but not have o pay the consequences for it aka Sandra Fluke
Anon: If someone doesn't like the benefits they receive they are free to look for an employer who provides them.
By this argument, any kind of workplace abuse could be legalized. Sexual harassment, grossly unsafe working conditions, requiring an employee to be a Satanist as a condition of employment, anything. One could always say that any employee who didn't like it was free to look for another job.
The standard libertarian response is that employers wouldn't do such things because they would lose too many good employees. But too many employers are already pushing the limits all the time to see what they can get away with -- Hobby Lobby's own policy here is an example. The barbaric working conditions of the 19th century, before unions, show what would eventually happen if all the controls came off.
What the conservatives never understand is that the American people voted TWICE for President Obama and his vision for America.
The conservatives scream that Obama is lawlessly using executive privilege, but in fact he is carrying out what the people voted for him wanted: his left of center vision for America. The Republicans in the House have done all they can to thwart the will of the American people.
Conservatives believe they are the only ones who know what is best for the country and they will try to impeach Obama as soon as they take over the senate in 2015.
The modern GOP is a rogue party of fascists.
It might be time to split America in half. Create Conservative America and Progressive America, each with their own constitution, or lack thereof if C.A. desires, and see which is most prosperous, free, and comfortably happy in 25 years.
Each individual with a choice of which ideological vision they prefer.
Cause the current BS has gone on far too long. IMNHO.
Anon @9:14: "democrats believe in freedom,freedom to screw everything in sight but not have o pay the consequences for it aka Sandra Fluke"
You must be a FAUX NOOZ viewer because the facts are actually completely opposite to what you've written.
The highest unwed pregnancy rates are in the conservative red states, where apparently not only are people having lots of sex, they're also having irresponsible sex, y'know, like irresponsible gun ownership.
Massachusetts, a very liberal blue state, has one of the lowest unwed pregnancy rates in the country. Contraception = responsible sex.
Also Anon, Sandra Fluke hasn't paid the consequences for what? Having protected sex?
Please try to make even a little bit of sense the next time you come here and post a comment.
Thanks. And have a nice day.
Anonymous @9:43 AM
I'm not sure the GOP is fascist, but I am sure they've gone completely bonkers.
Also, it's difficult keeping up with all these Anonymice. Can some of you please, at least, come up with a name so I can reply to the correct commenter?
Thanks.
We should be appalled, not reassured, by the Supreme Court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby precisely because it’s such a narrow ruling. The Court has ruled that only the religious views of abortion opponents count. The views of other religions do not count – Jehovah’s Witnesses (no blood transfusions), Orthodox Jews (no vaccinations on the Sabbath), Christian Scientists (no doctors, period). The narrowness of this ruling not only exposes it as the most blatantly political since Bush v. Gore, it is also the most blatantly Catholic – the result of having five Catholic conservatives in the majority.
Well Shaw, both Professor Leonard Piekoff and Ayn Rand held the view America was drifting to the fascist sphere, under conservative republican administrations.
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