“Jesus says that I must love my neighbor as myself, but does that mean I have to go next door and jerk him off too?”
- St. Rodney of Dangerfield
I don’t have any problem with the sincerely religious, so long as they don’t try to impose it on anyone else. I don’t see any particular hypocrisy in a Mom and Pop store not wanting to be open on Sunday, nor any problem with them hiring someone to work on Sunday because he does not share their theological calender. Nor a very Orthodox Jew hiring a shabby goy to come around on Saturday to help out. I question whether any God worthy of the Name imposes irrational and unreasonable demands just for the heck of it, but that’s way over my pay grade…
But when did we begin to assume that a business is an incarnation of its owners? That it legitimately takes on the religious restrictions of its owners? Is it the divine miracle of property? I own a piece of land, haven’t noticed that I’m all brown and loamy, covered with grass and weeds. Not has my property become noticeably witty, charming, and warm-hearted. Still just a bunch of dirt.
A business is more a pubic entity than a private one, and we have rules about public entities. That they may not injure and belittle our citizens by refusing them accommodation on the basis of race being the most prominent example.
What, then, is unreasonable about insisting that a business has no business concerning itself with the reproductive health decisions of its employees? It does not own its employees, they are not required to be communicants of a particular faith, so why is there some sort of exception for issues of sex and reproduction?
As well, this barrel of bullshit about “sincere” religious opinions reminds me too much of the Dark Days, when young men tried to prove themselves legitimately “conscientious objectors”. And the conniption fits local draft boards put themselves through, trying to weed out who was sincerely religious and who just didn’t want to get shot. Why, I heard there was one draft board in Vermont that accepted a Unitarian as being “sincerely religious”.
Sincerity cannot be quantified or objectified, no judge can peer into another man’s soul, or decide what is best for her ovaries. Not even a supreme judge. Perhaps a Supreme Judge, but again: way over my pay grade…
Absolutely. Thanks very much for these words. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to get this feedback.
Yes, first we are assured that a business as a person is quite properly a sociopath that has not human concerns other than earning money for its shareholders, then that it has legitimate political concerns that allow it to use that money it has no ethical concerns about earning to sway politicians in the legalized bribery we call PACs, and now we are to believe they have sincere religious beliefs. It’s fricking insane!
For about half a second, I read this and said “you know…that’s actually a good point. Do corporations have free speech rights?”
And that half second was over and I said “wait. New York Times v US wasn’t about free speech. It was about freedom of the press. So his comment was completely off point.”
Care to try again?
Ever hear of free agency? Pretty major concept in most Abrahamic traditions, I think.
(awaits inevitable sports-related joke)
Yes I see. Like I said, I don’t even know what my own plan is “up to”. For all I know, it could be investing some of the money in Somali pirates or Mongol warlords. Or GINGERS! 
As I said before: “When you start to claim that the law doesn’t have to apply to you because of your religious beliefs, then I would start to worry about it. When you make a tenuous claim about paying someone else to provide something makes you sin, despite the fact you’re OK with paying a person to provide the exact same thing themselves, then you should worry. When you claim that your religion is so fucking important to you that even providing money to a third party that might, maybe just maybe, be used to sin, you better make damn sure you’re not doing the exact same thing with your own money.”
I still plan to NEVER give Hobby Lobby one damned penny. Ever. Just on principle. As is my right.
If “boycotting” them in this way makes me a “religion hating Nazi engaging in Kristalnacht” (as one moron put it) then that’s fine and dandy by me.
But it’s not “the exact same thing.”
It’s something that you, personally, feel should be treated the exact same way, because it has similarities that you feel make it a fair comparison and differences that you probably think of as trivial.
Hobby Lobby feels that the two situations are not the same, and it feels the differences are significant and not trivial, so it’s justified in handling them differently.
While it might be nice for others to see you embrace moral relativism, I have no qualms about judging the actions of others. Of course Hobby Lobby thinks their not doing anything wrong. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with their flimsy rationalizations.
I’ve been pretty clear all along that I don’t buy Hobby Lobby’s rationalizations for their imaginary line drawing. Saying they feel differently is kinda pointless. Of course they feel differently. So does everyone who rationalizes their actions.
Yes.
But I feel I should remind you, and those reading, that the legal standard was set well before this case. In Thomas v. Review Board (a pre-RFRA case, but using the standard that RFRA claims are still supposed to use), the Court considered a Jehovah’s Witness who quit his job because his religious beliefs did not allow him to participate in the production of weapons, and then was denied unemployment benefits. He offered his testimony that his beliefs would permit him to work for a steel company that produced the raw materials for a tank, but not permit him to make the tank parts. The lower court found that this was an inconsistency, but the Supreme Court held that it simply meant that Thomas found the foundry work “sufficiently insulated from producing weapons of war.”
They went on to say:
This is the standard courts must apply.
I agree that you’re not a court, and are free to apply whatever standard you wish. But I hope you acknowledge that the court, in analyzing an RFRA claim, may see that the claimant draws a line, and it is not for them to say that the line drawn is an unreasonable one.
That’s not to say they cannot question his sincerity. And as they said, “One can, of course, imagine an asserted claim so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection…” but there, as here, that simply isn’t the case.
You don’t buy it. But the courts, applying the RFRA’s well-established standards, should. And did.
In my opinion, you were on the firmest grounds with your argument that the RFRA simply did not apply to for-profits. I don’t see how a reviewing court would get to the position that Hobby Lobby’s position was imaginary or mere rationalization while remaining faithful to the existing precedents. But they could have ruled that there was no precedent for a for-profit company, because there wasn’t. Of course, in my view, that would have meant departing from the text, but it isn’t a crazy distinction.
As I’ve said, on more than one occasion, in this very thread TO YOU even:
“The court, however, didn’t find that their belief was consistent with their own actions, reasonable, rational, not hypocritical, not politically motivated, or sane.”
And, as you are like to point out, there is a huge difference between the legal and the moral. My comments about Hobby Lobby’s rationalizations and motives are about their inconsistent morality, questionable reasonableness, and poorly thought out decisions. They are not about whether or not Hobby Lobby will win in front of a judge, who is only to ask themselves whether or not the belief is sincerely held. Why is it so difficult for you, of all people, to grasp the legal v. moral difference in this case?
I know. And that’s because nne of those questions were before the court.
Those questions were not before the court because none of them are relevant to the court’s legal steps and reaching their conclusion.
I do. But I spoke up here because I fear that imprecisely identifying the type of judgment you were offering would have the potential of confusing those who read your words. You’re offering your own moral view of Hobby Lobby’s choices.
Yes, because I hadn’t explained that exact thing three times before in this thread:
Fourth time a charm, or do I need to say it a fifth?
So Bricker’s the protector of the potentially-misled, now?
Around here, that would be the perpetually misled. 
I admire his stamina. His explanation that he hopes others following along might be informed and persuaded made sense to me when I first saw it, because he is often debating with people who seem impervious to fact or logic. People who can’t go so far as to say even, “I see your point, though I disagree with it” after a Bricker response with cites, detailed arguments, and generally a very specific debate point the response summarizes, teed up for a counter-argument if the other guy is inclined to actually debate. Very often around here the response is some form of, “You’re a fucking lying asshole who distorts the facts and reduces everything to legal nitpicking. Not like those of us on the side of the angels who know the real truth.”
Bricker’s Sysiphean challenge (I think he enjoys mixing it up, too) is to convince people who unreasonably consider certain assertions as axiomatic that they’re missing the point. And, naturally, people who consider something as beyond argument are stunned and frustrated when someone tries to argue the point. The cycle goes on in perpetuity, but the benefit is that I, for one, invariably learn from Bricker’s contribution. Sometimes for the other guys, but more often than not I just learn new curse-word insults. Which can come in handy, I’ll admit.
I know you’ve said it before – I certainly didn’t suggest you were in any way dissembling. But when a thread closes in on 1,000 posts, it sometimes happens that people read just the most recent posts rather than slogging through everything. So my clarification was certainly cumulative, but surely there’s no harm in emphasizing accuracy on a site dedicated to fighting ignorance, right?
Bricker, just to change things up a bit, since the circular reasoning here is circling the bowl, here is something from my church - full link below, but important part here:
“The Reverend J. Herbert Nelson this week expressed dismay at the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decision in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The Presbyterian Church spoke to the question of access to contraception when the 205th General Assembly (1993) called on Congress to provide funding that ensures access to contraception, at no cost, to any person who needs it. In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), we affirm that each person is created in God’s image, and that each woman is endowed with God-given moral capacity and authority to determine whether or not to become pregnant. Denying any woman the right to exercise that moral agency is wrong. It is because of our faith that we view access to contraception, and all forms of health care, as a human right.”
So, would a suit by a Presbyterian Hobby Lobby employee claiming that their decision not to offer certain types of birth control was a violation of their personal religious beliefs have any chance? Note: I realize so much would depend on how the suit was worded, but I just wanted to give you some fresh meat to chew on.
Oh, one more for discussion - local Right to Life director suing because he doesn’t want to pay abortion fees.