And while we’re about it, the “scare quotes” around investment is perfectly transparent, it is an insinuation that you cannot actually support: that if an investment is small enough it isn’t really an investment.
Big duck, small duck. Still duck. But nice try.
Wow, awfully curt for a guy who just had to eat crow. But I’ll take what I can get.
By the way, if there is an accident that blocks the road, but you can detour and take the long way around, was your access to the road blocked?
If a woman can access birth control easily through her insurance, and some cultist moron blocks her access, so she has to go the long way around and go to the Piggly Wiggly and pay extra, was her access to birth control blocked?
Yes, they still look silly but in a very solemn, and respectful manner.
Ginsburg (with a “u”) has debated/discussed her concerns with her fellow Supremes and failed to convince them that the Supremes should legislate this particular issue from the court. The ruling states that the government didn’t make it’s case. Existing law would decide the outcome of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc…
The majority has made it clear that the HL ruling was very narrow. That didn’t deter Ginsburg pointing out possible future problems. It didn’t deter many in the media and blogosphere from whining that the sky-was-now-falling and maybe dogs and cats would be living together in the future.
It wasn’t objecting to the word “objects”. I was objecting to the word “use”. HL objects to providing insurance to its employees that covers x, y and z. So far, I’ve not seen them offer any objection to the employees using x, y and z as long as the employee purchases it herself.
You can call it whatever you like, but our statement was not correct. Certainly it was “misleading”. Unless you meant it to be so, you should not object to being corrected.
Really? If you were to discover that Hobby Lobby had a penny’s worth of stock in a ten million-dollar company, you would feel like you were conveying the whole, unvarnished truth by saying, “Hobby Lobby is invested in that company?” That meets your standards?
No.
And don’t you notice how you, and your side, is arguing this. They’re not choosing words that unambiguously describe the situation. You can argue that this is a fair use of “blocked,” but it’s certainly a deceptive use. The articles that stack up confusing but true statements that lead a quick reader to believe that Hobby Lobby has $73 million invested directly in abortion-medicine companies – same trick.
It’s impressive how your devotion to your imaginary friend has stunted your capacity for rational thought.
I didn’t go to court to insist that my standards must be respected by law. They did.
Is the basis on which Hobby Lobby have fought for their ability to direct their money regarding contraception likewise as limited? I mean, let’s say that Hobby Lobby own a subsidiary company, who in turn license a franchise location, who in turn hire a consultant (just trying to think of a potential “remove”, here). Would the decision HL have sought for and won apply to this consultant as it would to, I don’t know, the front desk secretary at head office?
Sure, OK. But since they could *just as easily *have offered funds that were ideologically pure, I don’t think the percentages are the most important issue - although I can see why you cling to it.
Actually, they went to court to ask that the existing law, which already respected their standards, be applied.
And it did, and it was.
But the point of the RFRA is what they think, not what you think.
That’s why the Supreme Court said, in an earlier case, “We see, therefore, that Thomas drew a line, and it is not for us to say that the line he drew was an unreasonable one.”
OK. But wouldn’t you agree that they think as a hypocrite thinks?
No. I agree with them that the line they’ve chosen is a reasonable one.
This is not to say that I would draw the line in the same place. I think there is value in being watchful about your investments, and as an employer I would not object to covering all contraception anyway.
So if I offered to replace the adjective “heavily” invested with “significantly”, since they claim it is a moral issue, would you agree with that? Or do you think it is insignificant that they willfully invested and profited from the same products they refuse to cover for their employees? If a religious person who takes a vow of chastity has just a 'little bit" of sex, is that significant?
I don’t agree that they “willfully” invested. They hired a company to manage their 401K. That company purchased various mutual funds, and each mutual fund manager purchased hundreds of companies’ shares.
I don’t agree your analogy to a vow of chastity is meaningful. Such a vow represents a line in the sand, so to speak, that precludes sex, even a little bit.
Hobby Lobby has drawn a line, to be sure, but their line doesn’t preclude their arms-length 401K investment decisions, made by two managers separation from them.
By the way, S.2578 would roll back the RFRA.
It looks DOA in the Senate, though.
I do think this tangent is a red herring. Even if Hobby Lobby was hypocritical and their faith was an act, someone out there would have genuine faith and not be investing in birth control.
I don’t doubt Hobby Lobby is genuine in their beliefs. I doubt that they are actually being oppressed by paying for insurance that might include birth control. I think that’s a downright histrionic level of offense taken.
They pay taxes that bomb wedding parties. They pay wages that get used for cocaine and blowjobs. Christians used to be fed to animals and tortured to death. They’ve grown so utterly soft that they scream oppression at something as laughable as paying for overall insurance that can, at the will of the insured, be used for birth control Hobby Lobby doesn’t like.
Oh the humanity!
Apparently not. Reaching out to touch their employees, another thing altogether. The sex lives and moral values of their employees is a matter which demands due diligence. Where their corporate money goes? Well, its only money, right?
Any hint, from any quarter, that they asked their employees as to their feelings and preferences? Not that they have any legal standing, or anything, after all, they are…well, employees, aren’t they? Probably fly coach.
Let us establish a realistic framework: there is no possible set of laws and court decisions that will establish a legal and social framework that will allow all religious convictions to be fully reflected. It can’t happen, it just isn’t possible.
But we live together, or we die. To that end, we should muddle through, tolerance above all. To that end, government must be as secular and religiously neutral as humanly possible. But even that has to be supported by our behavior, by our mutual willingness to put up with each other. Requiring a conscious decision to do that, to go along, to get along.
Don’t Be A Dick About Your Shit is my inelegant way to put it, I’m sure there are better, but in this case clarity is more important that artfulness. Hobby Lobby is being a dick about their shit. That they are adjudged to have every legal right to do so is nearly irrelevant in this context, they shouldn’t anyway. The Phelps crew has every legal right to do what they do, they still shouldn’t.
Don’t be a dick about your shit.
“They scream oppression?”
They filed suit to force the government to follow the RFRA’s requirements. They didn’t need to scream. And they were certainly entitled to the protection of the law.