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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religious control of discrimination
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
I see that the US Supreme Court has decided that individual religious bias is to be allowed, in a country that once rejoiced in "freedom". Hobby Lobby is to be allowed to discriminate against its employees re contraception care on religious grounds, which opens the whole can of worms on litigation about the right to discriminate on religious grounds.
Yeah, Yeah, the Court said that this would not be a precedent - how long will that last?
I am interested to see if the same rulings will apply if a Muslim or Buddhist or Pastafarian employer wants to apply for the right to discriminate
We all know that the anti-gay crowd will be beating at the door of the Court very soon.
Does this do more to undermine the respectability of the Court?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
For those who are interested in reading ninety-five pages of legal reasoning (some of it dubious), the full opinion can be found here [PDF].
The "this case is not really a precedent" part can be found on pp. 5-6:
quote:
This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice. United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, which upheld the payment of Social Security taxes despite an employer’s religious objection, is not analogous. It turned primarily on the special problems associated with a national system of taxation; and if Lee were a RFRA case, the fundamental point would still be that there is no less restrictive alternative to the categorical requirement to pay taxes. Here, there is an alternative to the contraceptive mandate. Pp. 45–49
There seems to be exactly zero legal reasoning as to why contraception is a such a special case other than an implied "girls have cooties, so their medical needs don't count".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
For those who don't want to slog through Justice Ginsberg's dissent (which starts at p. 60 of the previously linked PDF), someone has already composed a song on YouTube summarizing its main points.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
From Katie McDonough's article in SALON:
To sum it up, five male justices ruled that thousands of female employees should rightfully be subjected to the whims of their employers. That women can be denied a benefit that they already pay for and is guaranteed by federal law. That contraception is not essential healthcare. That corporations can pray. That the corporate veil can be manipulated to suit the needs of the corporation. That bosses can cynically choose à la carte what laws they want to comply with and which laws they do not. Each specific finding opens a door to a new form of discrimination and unprecedented corporate power. If you think this ruling won’t affect you, you haven’t been paying attention. If you think these corporations are going to stop at birth control, you’re kidding yourself.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's difficult to get my head round this. I'm thinking Christian sharia law?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Presumably, Democrats will now be going hell for leather on this, by campaigning for women's control of their own health; or, 'do you want your boss to regulate your sex life?'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
As an ignorant Englishman I'm not honestly seeing the back story on this (I realise that Americans don't have the NHS and that health insurance is therefore the way to go).
Why is your healthcare anything to do with your employer?
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twangist:
As an ignorant Englishman I'm not honestly seeing the back story on this (I realise that Americans don't have the NHS and that health insurance is therefore the way to go).
Why is your healthcare anything to do with your employer?
Like a lot of things, this goes back to the Second World War. During the war there was national price and wage control. Since companies couldn't compete for workers by offering higher wages (and labor was at a premium with the draft), they started competing by offering better benefits packages, which didn't fall under the wage control legislation. After the war, while the U.K. was busily implementing the NHS the U.S. simply took the existing employer-based insurance system and started subsidizing it with tax breaks, essentially cobbling together an ad hoc "national health care system".
That's the basic history. Of course any type of insurance is something that has to be closely regulated, as it's something that you pay for in advance and receive the benefits later. One of the changes involved in the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. "Obamacare") is that it tightened the requirements for what could be considered "health insurance" and still qualify for the tax subsidy. What Hobby Lobby et al. successfully argued is that their religious beliefs entitle them to offer a sub-standard policy to their employees and still qualify for the tax break.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
Light dawns .....thanks
so does that mean that Mr Obama's reforms have in this case been used to have the opposite effect than was intended? (he presumably wanted better healthcare for more people not worse healthcare for some people)
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
No, it means that immoral sluts who want slut pills, so they can have consequence-free sexyfuntime will still get them, but they will be subsidized by the insurance companies, or maybe the government, not by God-fearing folk, praise the Lord.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I would think that Hillary Clinton is currently dancing a jig in her office, as surely this gives her some useful ammunition; 'Republicans target women's rights and reproductive health' has quite a nice ring.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twangist:
Light dawns .....thanks
so does that mean that Mr Obama's reforms have in this case been used to have the opposite effect than was intended? (he presumably wanted better healthcare for more people not worse healthcare for some people)
Not exactly. The main plaintiffs in this case [Hobby Lobby/the Green Family] are partisan opponents of President Obama and his reforms. This suit was part of a concerted effort to derail the ACA/"Obamacare". Hobby Lobby's opposition to contraception is of dubious sincerity and recent vintage.
quote:
Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012 — three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit — show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
I just read the majority decision in this case and, in fairness, it seems to be driven by some fairly particular facts.
The decision interprets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, not the First Amendment. As I understand it, the RFRA provides much greater protection against "adverse effect" discrimination -- i.e., discriminatory effects of facially neutral laws -- than the SCOTUS's First Amendment jurisprudence does. The RFRA applies to "persons" and by default, in a federal statute a person includes a corporation.* It appears to be have been common ground that a "person" for the purpose of the RFRA can include at least some kinds of corporations, i.e., non-profit corporations.
(*Caveat: virtually everything I know about the statutes interpreted in this decision comes from having read this decision.)
The RFRA has a pretty strict standard for justification for facially neutral laws that burden religious freedom. That is to say, there must be a compelling state interest justifying the burden, and there must not be some other way of accomplishing the same objective in a less burdensome way. This basically a version of the "proportionality" test commonly found in rights-protecting documents, e.g., the Charter of Rights in Canada.
The majority held that, like non-profit corporations, closely-held corporations can have beliefs including religious beliefs. This doesn't strike me as obviously wrong. That is, it doesn't strike me as obviously wrong to say that a group of people can get together and form a corporation with the intent to conduct a for-profit business in a certain way (i.e., by respecting certain religious, political, environmental principles etc.) such that the beliefs of the owners of the corporation can be attributed to the corporation itself.
What seems to have driven the result for the majority here (and especially for the perennial swing vote, Kennedy J.) is that in the Affordable Care Act Congress had already set up an exemption for non-profit corporations that don't want to cover some or all contraceptives in their health care plan, by allowing them to opt out and having the government cover the cost of these specific items instead. That is, even assuming (as all nine justices did) that the government has a compelling interest in making contraceptives available as a mandatory part of health insurance plan, it may be difficult to understand why for-profit corporations that attempt to govern themselves in light of certain religious beliefs shouldn't benefit from the exemption already provided to religious non-profit corporations.
My concern when I first read about this decision was that employees shouldn't get shafted because of the religious scruples of their employers, especially in cases where they might have no reason to suspect the existence of these scruples when they took the job. This doesn't seem to be what's happening here. The government gets shafted, because Congress chose to enact protection against facially neutral laws in the form of the RFRA and the majority has given the RFRA a very expansive interpretation here.
Of course this is all arguable, and I agree with Croesos that there are some questionable leaps here, but the majority opinion does have a certain logic to it which is driven by the structure of the RFRA and the existing statutory scheme provided for by the ACA. It's certainly not a general statement to the effect that for-profit companies can discriminate on religious grounds.
If Congress doesn't like the result here, they could amend the RFRA to explicitly exclude for-profit corporations from the definition of a "person" in the RFRA -- thereby leaving the complainants to their First Amendment protections which I gather are considerably less extensive.
As an aside, both complainants here were not objecting to paying for all contraceptives, only four types of contraceptives (including IUDs and morning-after pills) which they believed to be abortifacients in effect. I don't see how this affects the logic of the decision as written, but presumably it would be have been a factor lurking in the background.
[cross-post with Croesos' last post]
[ 01. July 2014, 14:43: Message edited by: marsupial. ]
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
One fascinating aspect of this is the belief by the employers (Green et. al.), that the contraceptives in question are abortive. However, some scientists and doctors seem to disagree that they are abortive, but the court seems to have concluded that that does not matter, what matters is the belief by Green et. al. that they are abortive.
I believe this is already being called a rollback of the Enlightenment - belief trumps truth.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
Double-posting to correct a mistake: it seems to be the larger private insurance pool, and not the government itself, that picks up the tab for contraceptives that non-profit religious corporations are not willing to pay for. The effect is presumably the same either way: the rest of world pays (a bit) more so that objecting corporations don't have to contribute to the pool for medical services they don't approve of.
Of course the larger issue is whether religious organizations should have the right to opt out of paying for treatments they don't approve of. Obviously, in a public health care plan funded by tax dollars, that right does not exist. As the dissent (I think) points out, the connection between a religious organization paying for an insurance benefit and the result they disapprove of is pretty remote. But Congress seems to have decided that the connection is not so remote as to require religious non-profit corporations to fund the benefit.
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One fascinating aspect of this is the belief by the employers (Green et. al.), that the contraceptives in question are abortive. However, some scientists and doctors seem to disagree that they are abortive,
In fairness to the complainants, I'm not sure what to make of the phrase "some scientists and doctors". And I wonder if everyone is working with the same definition of what constitutes an abortion (a question which if pursued would no doubt take us directly to Dead Horses). I don't think anyone tried to argue in this case that the complaints' understanding of the science was simply wrong.
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by marsupial.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One fascinating aspect of this is the belief by the employers (Green et. al.), that the contraceptives in question are abortive. However, some scientists and doctors seem to disagree that they are abortive,
In fairness to the complainants, I'm not sure what to make of the phrase "some scientists and doctors". And I wonder if everyone is working with the same definition of what constitutes an abortion (a question which if pursued would no doubt take us directly to Dead Horses). I don't think anyone tried to argue in this case that the complaints' understanding of the science was simply wrong.
But haven't the courts determined that it is not within their remit to determine the plausibility of a religious claim? This seems to mean that it doesn't matter whether Green et. al. are correct in calling these contraceptives abortive and therefore immoral; what matters is that they sincerely hold this belief.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
I think you're probably right, at least in principle.
That said, if it was clear and obvious according to accepted science that the disputed contraceptive methods were not abortifacient even under the complainants' normative understanding of what an abortion is, I think it's pretty sure thing that somehow, this case would not have proceeded as far as it did. It would certainly be excellent fodder for cross-examination on the sincerity issue.
[ 01. July 2014, 15:45: Message edited by: marsupial. ]
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
This actually seems to be a Pyrrhic victory for those who are against birth control and for corporate/institutional religious freedom (at the expense of individual freedom).
Last year there was a huge controversy over Obamacare mandating that the insurance carriers for all institutions, including Catholic hospitals/universities, etc. provide contraception coverage. The Catholic bishops fought tooth and nail over it, saying that they shouldn't have to pay for something they are against. The Administration ultimately provided a compromise whereby insurance companies are still required to provide contraception coverage but that the government would pick up the cost. However, some conservative religious organizations asserted that this compromise still infringed on their religious rights. That is winding its way through the court system.
In this ruling, Kennedy and Alito both acknowledged that contraception coverage is in the government's legitimate interest. The ruling actually advises the Obama Administration that if they apply the same compromise to these "closely held" corporations that they already do to Catholic hospitals, they could mandate contraception coverage without infringing on corporate religious rights. By recommending this compromise, it spells a blow to those who continue to argue that allowing contraceptive coverage at no cost to the company still infringes on their religious beliefs.
This article says it better than I can: Religion News Service (RNS) Hobby Lobby decision actually guarantees contraception coverage
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by marsupial.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One fascinating aspect of this is the belief by the employers (Green et. al.), that the contraceptives in question are abortive. However, some scientists and doctors seem to disagree that they are abortive,
In fairness to the complainants, I'm not sure what to make of the phrase "some scientists and doctors". And I wonder if everyone is working with the same definition of what constitutes an abortion (a question which if pursued would no doubt take us directly to Dead Horses). I don't think anyone tried to argue in this case that the complaints' understanding of the science was simply wrong.
Alito actually addresses this on pp. 36-38 of the opinion.
quote:
The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage. This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principal dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. For good reason, we have repeatedly refused to take such a step. See, e.g., Smith, 494 U. S., at 887 (“Repeatedly and in many different contexts, we have warned that courts must not presume to determine . . . the plausibility of a religious claim”); Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U. S. 680, 699 (1989); Presbyterian Church in U. S. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U. S. 440, 450 (1969).
<snip>
Similarly, in these cases, the Hahns and Greens and their companies sincerely believe that providing the insurance coverage demanded by the HHS regulations lies on the forbidden side of the line, and it is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial. Instead, our “narrow function . . . in this context is to determine “whether the line drawn reflects “an honest conviction,” id., at 716, and there is no dispute that it does.
So in other words, it doesn't matter if a form of contraception actually causes abortion, what matters if whether or not you believe it does. The triumph of conviction over reality.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There is also the sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander angle. I look with interest for Muslim businesses to insist that all employees wear certain clothing, or not eat pork. And surely somewhere in this land of the free there is a Satanic employer?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Don't you think that it may also be a Pyrrhic victory for the Christian Right? Surely this is going to exercise many women, and probably increase the number voting for Hillary?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Croesus wrote:
So in other words, it doesn't matter if a form of contraception actually causes abortion, what matters if whether or not you believe it does. The triumph of conviction over reality.
Maybe the Enlightenment has now come to an end, or has been anaesthetized.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
(Replying to Croesos, but not trying to edit that long quote:)
I saw those paragraphs in Alito's decision. I read them as addressing the issue of moral remoteness, not the issue of the science itself.
I have difficulty accepting Alito's reasoning on this point. Remoteness is no doubt a question for moral philosophy and theology but offhand I would say it's also a question of law that needs to be addressed in an RFRA analysis.
In fairness, sincerity, and not objective reasonableness, is is test for protection of religious belief in Canada and I assume elsewhere as well. But as I said above, every SCOTUS appeal starts off somewhere as a trial. If there was actually no evidence that these drugs did what the complainants said they did, this would be excellent fodder for undermining the complainants' credibiity and avoiding a finding of sincerity.
And of course remember the justification analysis.
[ 01. July 2014, 16:01: Message edited by: marsupial. ]
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Don't you think that it may also be a Pyrrhic victory for the Christian Right? Surely this is going to exercise many women, and probably increase the number voting for Hillary?
I'm fairly sure that anyone making the case to women that handing the Republicans the power to appoint more Supreme Court Justices like Samuel Alito is a bad idea will cite this opinion as Exhibit #1. (Unless a more atrocious opinion is issued between now and November 2016.)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
Last year there was a huge controversy over Obamacare mandating that the insurance carriers for all institutions, including Catholic hospitals/universities, etc. provide contraception coverage. The Catholic bishops fought tooth and nail over it, saying that they shouldn't have to pay for something they are against. The Administration ultimately provided a compromise whereby insurance companies are still required to provide contraception coverage but that the government would pick up the cost.
Actually HHS simply stipulated that insurance companies had to offer no-cost riders to employees of exempted non-profits, without the government picking up the cost. I suspect that the "cost" of these riders is something most insurance companies are more than willing to bear themselves, since a year's worth of contraceptives is a lot cheaper for them to cover than an unplanned pregnancy. In short, I suspect the "cost" of contraceptive riders is negative, from the insurer's point of view.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Dear me. And all of this because the religious right couldn't discriminate PROPERLY, on the basis of race, any more.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yes, one must pity those ageing white males, beset upon all sides.
I will say that all my female friends are spitting mad about this. And we do vote, yes we do.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Interesting addendum:
quote:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of businesses that object to covering all 20 methods of government-approved contraception.
You'd think something like that would have been clearly spelled out in the opinion.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Dear me. And all of this because the religious right couldn't discriminate PROPERLY, on the basis of race, any more.
Still, they have some nice juicy targets now; first, the horrid gays, with their horrid life-style choices. Second, all those uteruses, which somehow must be controlled, or horror, horror, they will be empty! And that means women are not fulfilling their divine duty to babyfarm; instead the immoral sluts are having sexyfuntime and taking slut pills. #NoPillsForSluts
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And do not neglect persons of ethnicity. All those annoying demands to vote, or work, or sit down on buses.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And do not neglect persons of ethnicity. All those annoying demands to vote, or work, or sit down on buses.
Well, we can considerably restrict their right to vote, or rather, their ability to vote.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by marsupial.:
(Replying to Croesos, but not trying to edit that long quote:)
I saw those paragraphs in Alito's decision. I read them as addressing the issue of moral remoteness, not the issue of the science itself.
Given how weaselly Alito is about emphasizing that the sincerity of the plaintiff's beliefs, not their accuracy, is what's key, I'm not sure this is the most plausible interpretation of the opinion. From p. 8:
quote:
The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients. If the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions, and if they do not comply, they will pay a very heavy price — as much as $1.3 million per day, or about $475 million per year, in the case of one of the companies. If these consequences do not amount to a substantial burden, it is hard to see what would.
The emphasis is added by me, but you can see the outline of the argument. The contraceptives in question cause abortions "according to their religious beliefs", not according to the FDA or any other kind of evidence. "[T]hey believe they will be facilitating abortions", argues Alito, leaving aside the question of whether that belief in any way reflects reality.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Where logic would imply that they would be preventing abortions. Hey ho.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So if I sincerely believe that blacks are only 2/3 human, so I only need to pay them 2/3 of the minimum wage, does that trump the science that suggests they are fully human?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Sounds reasonable to me. Don't forget that there is a powerful financial incentive to dropping all those women from the health insurance, paying black people only 2/3rds and so on. Your sincerity of belief could be powerfully stimulated by the bottom line. And who could deny you, if you insisted that your faith called for paying women less? Is it not in the OT, somewhere?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
It may be of tangential interest to readers of this thread that the name Hobby Lobby is prominently inscribed in the dome of the Oklahoma State Capitol building, along side those of other big businesses such as the oil companies Conoco and Phillip Petroleum, the oil- and war-services company Haliburton, the telecommunications company SBC Bell, and General Motors. Here and here are citations.
I wouldn't believe this had I not seen it with my own eyes. Americans are so allergic to paying their own way with appropriate levels of taxation that they are auctioning off their public commons piece by meretricious piece.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Al Eluia
Inquisitor
# 864
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would think that Hillary Clinton is currently dancing a jig in her office, as surely this gives her some useful ammunition; 'Republicans target women's rights and reproductive health' has quite a nice ring.
I'd phrase it a little differently: the conservatives on the Supreme Court think women who use birth control are dirty whores. It comes down to that. They also wouldn't weigh in on whether certain birth control methods that the plaintiffs think cause abortions (IUD, morning after pills) actually cause abortions or not (hint: they don't), which I think is really chickenshit. Can I say that in Purgatory?
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Posts: 1157 | From: Seattle | Registered: Jul 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I'm on record, elsewhere, as a fan of the idea of the vagina dentata. I want them to think of Down There and wince. To worry that interfering below the waist of any woman may well lead to massive blood loss and permanent maiming. I want them to think of that area, and shrink, personally. May their generative organs become the size and shape of a Planter's peanut, about the size of their souls.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The emphasis is added by me, but you can see the outline of the argument. The contraceptives in question cause abortions "according to their religious beliefs", not according to the FDA or any other kind of evidence. "[T]hey believe they will be facilitating abortions", argues Alito, leaving aside the question of whether that belief in any way reflects reality.
This is interesting. I don't know anything about the science, though before looking at Wikipedia a moment ago I would have assumed the science was more on their side than Wikipedia says it is. In the end, as you say, as a matter of law it doesn't matter whether they have the science right. As a practical matter I would have thought it was a bad idea to embark on a long expensive court case if there was no scientific evidence supporting your belief in the actual effect of these contraceptive methods. I think you would risk a (very embarassing) finding at first instance that your belief in the actual effect of these methods was not a sincere religious belief but simple scientific misapprehension. Of course if the empirical issue is more debatable then I suppose we are off to the races.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl
Maybe the Enlightenment has now come to an end, or has been anaesthetized.
I think this is just wrong. Courts have never been in the business of assessing the objective reasonableness of religious beliefs. The key thing is that finding a sincere religious belief doesn't end the analysis. There is a justification analysis for interfering with these beliefs based on whether there is a compelling state interest in taking action that burdens that belief, and the normative basis for assessing this state interest is (broadly speaking) that of the liberal constitutional state. It's very clear that a majority of the Court (Kennedy J. + the dissent) thinks there is a compelling state interest in making all forms of contraception generally available. But the "least restrictive means" argument was a hard argument for HHS (given the majority's holding) because Congress had already carved out a similar exception for religious non-profits.
This form of proportionality analysis is very similar to that prescribed by other modern rights-protecting instruments, including, as I think I said above, the Canadian Charter of Rights.
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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hilaryg
Shipmate
# 11690
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by marsupial.:
This is interesting. I don't know anything about the science...
If you're wary of Wikipedia, how about what the FDA says? Here is the patient information leaflet for Plan B
quote:
Emergency contraceptive pills are not effective if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B
One-Step is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun.
and the Prescribing information for Mirena, a commonly used IUD.
quote:
It is not known exactly how Mirena works. Mirena may work in several ways. It may thicken your cervical mucus, thin the lining of your uterus, inhibit sperm movement and reduce sperm survival. Mirena may stop release of your egg from your ovary, but this is not the way it works in most cases. Most likely, these actions work together to prevent pregnancy.
FDA is extremely fussy about what information goes into these kind of leaflets, and generally you can't say anything in them or make claims without hard data that they have thoroughly evaluated. So they will generally represent the most up to date science and consensus (companies are obliged to update their leaflets whenever new data comes to light, whether they generate it or someone else does).
The other thing to note is that medical science (at least in both the USA and UK) defines conception as implantation. So even if Plan B or Miranda do prevent a pregnancy due to inhibiting implantation, they are not abortifacients as defined by the medical community, only by people who define conception as fertilisation.
Only 50% of fertilised eggs ever eventually implant and form a pregnancy. I've not yet seen the "life begins at fertilisation" crowd address the matter of the 50% of fertilised eggs that never become a pregnancy.
Posts: 261 | From: back home in England | Registered: Jul 2006
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SeraphimSarov
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# 4335
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would think that Hillary Clinton is currently dancing a jig in her office, as surely this gives her some useful ammunition; 'Republicans target women's rights and reproductive health' has quite a nice ring.
It may give her some vision and message besides "It's my turn now " which it has been up to now
[ 02. July 2014, 01:36: Message edited by: SeraphimSarov ]
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"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
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marsupial.
Shipmate
# 12458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hilaryg:
The other thing to note is that medical science (at least in both the USA and UK) defines conception as implantation. So even if Plan B or Miranda do prevent a pregnancy due to inhibiting implantation, they are not abortifacients as defined by the medical community, only by people who define conception as fertilisation.
I.e., as I said above (way above), the issue is partly purely an empirical issue and partly a definitional issue. I think reasonable people would generally agree that the empirical issue should be settled purely on the evidence and has nothing to do with religious belief. The definitional issue has to do with normative issues that could reasonably be matters of religious belief (the reasonabless or otherwise of which of course is a topic for Dead Horses).
Posts: 653 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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hilaryg
Shipmate
# 11690
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by marsupial.:
I.e., as I said above (way above), the issue is partly purely an empirical issue and partly a definitional issue. I think reasonable people would generally agree that the empirical issue should be settled purely on the evidence and has nothing to do with religious belief. The definitional issue has to do with normative issues that could reasonably be matters of religious belief (the reasonabless or otherwise of which of course is a topic for Dead Horses).
I must admit that the Supreme Court ruling feels somewhat anti-science. This is established facts and mainstream science that HL are saying they do not believe, and the ruling effectively says that's ok in law.
As someone who is both a scientist and a Christian, I do sometimes have to clarify that the word "believe" means different things those groups of people. Scientists do not "believe" in science in the way that people "believe" in their faith. So when a scientist is discussing her work and starts off "well, I believe my data shows....", it's not a statement of faith, but a linguistic convention based on allowing for the 0.1% chance they could be wrong. They know what their data shows, but its not the done thing to say that directly.
It's a subtle thing, but I think is sometimes the reasons people can talk past each other without realising and getting frustrated.
Posts: 261 | From: back home in England | Registered: Jul 2006
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I'll believe that a corporation can be a person with religious convictions when I see one baptized (total immersion for Hobby Lobby would be fun).
Or better yet, when I see one in Hell.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hilaryg:
Only 50% of fertilised eggs ever eventually implant and form a pregnancy. I've not yet seen the "life begins at fertilisation" crowd address the matter of the 50% of fertilised eggs that never become a pregnancy.
There are plenty of cases of spontaneous abortion in early pregnancy. If you think "life begins at fertilisation", then you would naturally rank fertilised eggs that don't implant alongside fertilised eggs that implant but are spontaneously aborted soon after. I don't think "addressing" is required.
I'm hearing a lot of snark about corporations being people. Publicly-traded companies are another thing, but can anyone advance a real argument for why John Smith, private individual should be treated differently from John Smith, self-employed tradesman, or from Smith LLC, a company with two employees entirely owned by Mr. Smith?
Because the implication of snarking about corporations being people is that you think it's different.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Publicly-traded companies are another thing, but can anyone advance a real argument for why John Smith, private individual should be treated differently from John Smith, self-employed tradesman, or from Smith LLC, a company with two employees entirely owned by Mr. Smith?
Because the implication of snarking about corporations being people is that you think it's different.
Not all corporations are publicly traded, so your distinction is meaningless. The difference is between corporations and entitities in which the owners take direct responsibility for the actions of the company.
A corporation is a legal fiction designed to allow people to not take responsibility for their actions. If you're going to hide behind the corporate wall, then insist that your religion should be allowed to permeate that wall in one direction, but responsibility should not permeate the wall in the other direction, then you are a fucking hypocrite (generic "you").
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Not all corporations are publicly traded, so your distinction is meaningless.
No, really, it's not.
It's obvious that Exxon Mobil, say, does not represent a single person. It's owned by a large number of people (and a lot of its owners are pension funds and the like, which in turn ...)
It is equally obvious that John Smith the person is still John Smith the person when he's pretending to be John Smith the S corp or John Smith LLC.
quote:
A corporation is a legal fiction designed to allow people to not take responsibility for their actions. If you're going to hide behind the corporate wall, then insist that your religion should be allowed to permeate that wall in one direction, but responsibility should not permeate the wall in the other direction, then you are a fucking hypocrite (generic "you").
In practice, people who own small businesses allow their personal morals and ethics to govern their business practices all the time. I don't think any one of us would view a landlord who threw a young family out on to the streets any differently because he happened to manage his rental properties through a corporation rather than as an individual. Same guy, same actions.
Now, it's not unreasonable to say that the limited liability shield is a benefit that you get from the state to encourage entrepreneurial activity, but that that benefit comes with some strings attached, and that if you want to place yourself on the line down to the last cufflink, you don't have to have those strings.
But that's a different argument from "corporations aren't people </snark>."
ETA: It's also reasonable to argue that the Obamacare mandates (including contraception etc.) should ultimately apply to all employers including individuals. In which case, again, "corporations aren't people" is irrelevant.
[ 02. July 2014, 04:50: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
It's obvious that Exxon Mobil, say, does not represent a single person. It's owned by a large number of people (and a lot of its owners are pension funds and the like, which in turn ...)
It is equally obvious that John Smith the person is still John Smith the person when he's pretending to be John Smith the S corp or John Smith LLC.
But John Smith LLC, even if it's a corporate "person" in some ways as concerns the law, is not the SAME person as John Smith. And it's not at all clear that all of John Smith the person's rights should devolve onto John Smith LLC, when all of the responsibilities of John Smith LLC do not devolve onto John Smith. It's trying to have it both ways.
Nor is it at all clear that religious rights, which are rights for people of the person variety, since corporate "persons" are not religious beings, should devolve from John Smith to John Smith LLC.
We have forgotten that the "personhood" of the corporate is a legal fiction that allows certain legal transactions and so forth, and it is not literal or real. This is where the "corporations are not people snark" comes in. They're not people in any but a strictly limited legal sense that is a metaphor or legal fiction only. The problem is that this SCOTUS is treating them as if they are human beings, and indeed in places where the rights of the corporate "person" interfere with the rights of real, live, flesh-and-blood human beings, the SCOTUS is saying the corporate person's rights trump.
If incorporation is going to mean anything at all, it has to mean that once you incorporate, your corporation isn't you, and you and your corporation do not share the same rights under the law. The court wants to have it both ways. The owners are shielded from the legal ramifications of their actions (and let's face it, companies don't DO anything, only people take actions, on behalf of the company or on behalf of other people), and yet the customers and employees are not shielded in any way from the owners' licentiousness, greed, or religion.
Companies cannot be baptised, they cannot be circumcised, they cannot go on hajj. There is a category error taking place here -- the type of "person" that a company is, is incapable of being religious. You might as well say a rock is religious. At least a rock could be baptised, although you'd be hard pressed to say it was a believer's baptism.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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