Can you clarify your question? Are you saying the employee has a religious belief that their employer MUST pay for health insurance that includes all 20 forms of birth control? I only ask because it seems like such an odd question to ask, so maybe I’m reading it incorrectly.
Because, remember, HL is preventing anyone from obtaining any type of BC they desire, as long as that person pays for it.
HOBBY LOBBY DECISION IS NOT ABOUT RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
http://news.yahoo.com/hobby-lobby-decision-not-religious-freedom-050114526.html
Mostly just throwing it out there - but sure why not, I want Hobby lobby to pay for it. BTW, you meant HL is not preventing anyone in your post above.
Actually, I should have connected this with my second link, where a local Right to Life Ex. Director is suing under the 1st Amendment because he wants abortion free insurance. Using the same logic as you posted above, I feel that he is SOL, because as he admits in the story, he has other options including buying a much more expensive plan, or going without insurance and paying the penalty. Crappy options to be sure, but he does have choices - no one is forcing him to buy abortion insurance.
No one, not even the mighty Bricker, can convince me that he has a 1st Amend case here because I know of no law that everyone is Constitutionally entitled to buy the exact insurance they want cheaply.
Get ready.
The proof is… is…
(and this will be amazing, this proof…)
It is:
Nah, I got nothing.
Of course, I haven’t seen his pleading, but assuming the article is substantially correct, he certainly doesn’t have a First Amendment case.
Remember, though, the First Amendment protections in these matters are weaker than those provided by the RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was under auspices of the RFRA that Hobby Lobby’s victory was delivered.
So, does Barth Bracy have an RFRA case?
No, I don’t think so. RFRA asks if he has a sincere religious belief, if the government is substantially burdening it, and if these questions are answered in the affirmative, then is the government’s reason for burdening it based on their compelling interest and is it the least restrictive means available.
So let’s assume for this discussion that his religious belief exists and is sincere. I’m not sure we can say the government is “substantially” burdening it, since, at worst, he has this problem only through 2017. The fines he’d face for going without insurance will eventually rise to roughly $1000 – but not by 2017. The fines in 2014, 2015, and 2016 are more modest.
More to the point: he’s not entitled to have insurance. The fact that the inexpensive insurance comes with abortion coverage gives him a choice: take the cheap coverage or pay for the expensive, abortion-excluding coverage. And that choice is being foisted on him by the various insurance companies, not the government, so the RFRA isn’t implicated, at least as far as I can see.
So in my view, this guy is out of luck.
Nope.
As I suggested in my response above, the RFRA limits how Congress can infringe on someone’s religious exercise – it does not affect how the states, or how individual people, natural or otherwise, might infringe on your religious exercise.
I’ll admit to not treading the whole thread, but can I zoom up to 30,000 feet and ask what I see as a very obvious question? (To me anyway.) This might be a bit simplistic, but in a country founded upon religious freedom and religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution, how could the court have decided otherwise? I am pro-choice (and non-religious), but I don’t see how my take on the issue should force a private business owner, an individual protected by the same Constitution, to so flagrantly go against his religious conviction.
Anyone? My apologies if this has already been answered. If so, I’d appreciate someone pointing me to the relevant post.
He is perfectly at liberty to follow his religious convictions, he is not so endowed with making decisions regarding his serfs…excuse, employees…who might very well have their own ideas on the subject. Or at least, he ought not to be.
I get that argument. But if the ruling went the other way, then he’d have no choice than to go against his religious convictions if he wanted to have a business. Right? Seems to me that the easy solution for an for whom the coverage was important would be to find an employer whose religious convictions don’t cause problems for her. So, how would you propose that the situation be dealt with?
You are right. So instead I will have to sue Congress for passing a law that allowed Hobby Lobby to infringe on my God given right to an abortion. Right after I get hired at Hobby Lobby. Any chance they will settle out of court and give me a pony?
He’s not stopping his employees from doing anything. He’s just not financing it. Similarly, you are not censoring my by refusing to finance the publishing of my manifesto.
In reality he is even financing it, Thru higher wages, you just have to go buy it yourself!
What should the employer do? He should fully exercise his First Amendment rights and put forth his religious opinions, in the hope that his enterprise will prosper, and his employees will come to see things his way. Then, they will* not* use their insurance benefits to purposes that he would find objectionable.
For most of the Dope, by forcing everyone to do what liberals tell them to do.
Most of them act and believe as if the First Amendment’s restrictions on religion are only, and solely, to prevent “an establishment of religion”, and tend to dismiss the other clause.
Regards,
Shodan
None. For one thing, the Speech or Debate Clause insulates Congressmen and Senators from any civil liability. The United States is itself immune by the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
They have no reason to settle.
The freedoms enshrined in our Constitution are only tangentially relevant.
Hobby Lobby won the day by invoking the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, not the Constitution.
The rule under the First Amendment is that as long as the government requirement is neutral, which this is, the Constitution is not violated. “… if prohibiting the exercise of religion is not the object of the [government action] but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended…”
The RFRA goes well beyond that First Amendment rule by requiring any instance in which the government substantially burdens a person’s religious exercise to be justified by a compelling government interest and a narrowly tailored law.
That is too bad, I was going to ask you to represent me Pro Brony.
Pay the two dollars.
I’m personally hoping a whole slew of increasingly outrageous and ridiculous legal claims follow, i.e. people who claim they believe fire escapes are sinful, hence the corporations they own don’t need to have them. It’ll hasten the dereligioning of America.
Friendship is magic, but legal advice costs.
The sincerity of that claim would be unlikely.