I don’t have a problem (in theory, anyway) with carving out a category of corporation that has a specifically religious set of policies, even if it is for-profit, i.e. a Catholic bookstore that applies some degree of Catholic limitations on employees, though their actual business is selling books.
For this privilege, there will have to be some limitations, i.e. they must be closed on Sunday, or something - they’re not allowed to pick-and-choose just the convenient parts of their religion and claim their beliefs are sincere.
OK, this is what confuses me, and it may have been covered already. if so, please point me to the correct post in the above 23 pages.
Insurance benefits are part of an employee’s compensation, right? Salary + benefits = compensation package. HL has the right to say that paying for what they consider to be abortion causing medical treatment is sinful, and that they do not have to do it. HL pays for the benefits, the benefits are or are not used by the employee, sin happens. HL > insurance > employee > abortion, and that’s too close. BUT if an employee takes the money paid as a wage, and procures an actual abortion, or to keep things the same, Plan B, then that is even closer in steps but HL has no right to say anything at all, right? In the second scenario, HL > employee > abortion, and sin. Could a company make a legal argument that they should be allowed to have employees - I don’t know, sign an agreement or something - that says that their wages will not be used what they consider to be a sinful way?
I am having a hard time understanding why a company, who pays another company who then gives employees the ability to do something that the company believes is a terrible thing, can say no, *these *insurance benefits are not to be used in this way, but the same company can’t argue to have influence over the way *those * other, monetary benefits are used.
It belatedly occurs to me what the point of Bricker’s question actually was. I’d like to point that what prompted my earlier comment about how the “rules were supposed to apply” was prompted by this statement:
…which was sufficiently strawmanny and slippery-slopey that it didn’t really warrant a
precision response.
C’mon, guys, make hay while the sun shines! It’s time to open that chain of dark, Satanic mills and hire me an army of minions. What laws do you think I can evade?
Do you mean “follow the law” as simply not doing anything that actually goes against the law? Or do you mean that the decision of the majority is so clearly correct that no other interpretation is possible?
Five members of the SCOTUS (aka a majority) ruled that since the RFRA, as passed by Congress in 1993, still exists, then it applies to BURWELL v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC… The majority of the court followed the law.
On pg 91 of the opinion pdf -
GINSBURG, J., dissenting -
Why should decisions of this order be made by Congress or the regulatory authority, and not this Court? Hobby Lobby and Conestoga surely do not stand alone as commercial enterprises seeking exemptions from generally applicable laws on the basis of their religious beliefs.
Ginsburg indicates that she wants to legislate from the court and ignore Congress’s input.
Ginsburg doesn’t want to follow the law. Ginsburg wants to create law.
You got me, though if someone’s sincere belief were “do as thou wilt”, all federal laws would potentially burden their free exercise of religion (though this doesn’t describe my outlook), but this response raises another interesting question: Does the fact that the RFRA is powerless against state laws have any connection with the fact that the red states have avoided using state insurance exchanges, putting that burden instead on the feds?
No. We can be certain that the Supreme Court decided that the RFRA did not apply to the states without being influenced by its possible effect on the Affordable Care Act for two reasons. One is because judges don’t make decisions that way.
And because the case was City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), well before anyone had ever heard of Obamacare – or for that matter, of President Obama; Barack Obama was just beginning his first term as an Illinois State legislator.
But so what? There’s never been a court that hasn’t issued at least one stupid, unclear, unjust, unobsoletable or misappliable decision.
The difference is that we can elect legislators, and if they offend us greatly with their stupid, unclear, unjust, unobsoletable and/or misappliable decisions, we can elect their opponents next time.
When the federal judge issues his stupid, unclear, unjust, unobsoletable and/or misappliable decision, we can’t.