How the hell did my link get turned into an Amazon ad? Weird. Anyway, Fidelity still offers Timothy Plan funds. (I am working off a very clunky computer at the moment. Dad always gets the least, as the theory is that he can manage to keep it limping along, but that’s a different Pit thread).
Isn’t Hobby Lobby entitled to the protection of the law?
OK. Fidelity offers other fund choices as well. So far as I am aware, there’s no path to saying, “I only want this fund in the portfolio.”
I don’t dispute that they could have done it. I simply dispute that they were required to in order to draw the line that they did.
What does that line mean to you?
Just spitballing here, noting with some amusement that some degree of objective plausibility might be in play when evaluating a claimed sincere belief;
“I sincerely believed I had permission to take the car.” - sure, maybe.
“I sincerely believed my life was in danger.” - perhaps reasonable.
“I sincerely believed an omnipotent extraterrestrial would subject me after my death to an eternity of flaming torment if I was complicit with my employee’s desire to have her health insurance cover the cost of an IUD.” - oh, that’s religion, where anything goes.
Seriously, a person (natural or legal) who tried invoking any number of religious justifications could easily be considered deeply delusional, if not psychotic, if anything approaching an objective evaluation was applied.
Sure. But they aren’t, in actuality, having their religion oppressed. That claim is absurd.
People should have the right to their religion. I think it’s stupid, but people have the right to be stupid. However, when they start taking offense at potential actions, they’re not really feeling oppression. They’re inflicting their beliefs on others.
If the law is that employers must give a Safeway Gift Card as compensation, I don’t think they employer’s beliefs are being oppressed if I use that card to buy a carrot to put up my butt.
I get it, they don’t like that I put the carrot up my butt. But my using the gift card that way is my right. Their rights end when they hand the card over. To say that the gift card is a burden on their beliefs, because some dude may use a carrot in an unGodly fashion, well, that’s blubbering horseshit. Maybe those silly cunts should render unto Caesar and calm down.
You probably don’t agree, because communion crackers contain LSD and you’re TRIPPIN’ BALLZZz!1!!11!
Who gets to decide whether the claim is absurd?
I mean, I understand you personally believe the claim to be absurd – but since you also believe religion in general to be absurd, perhaps you’re not the best person to turn to for judgement on a claim of a burden on religious exercise.
I don’t dispute that they could have done it. I simply dispute that they were required to in order to draw the line that they did.
Great. Finally. I was just calling them out on their hypocrisy, dude.
Well, in this discussion, people who are able to reason and think.
I, of course realize that for the government’s purpose it’s up to the five male Catholics to decide how women get to access birth control. Which is awesome. They are final, but they are not necessarily correct. I would say they, and the rest of the court for that matter, have too much deference to religion.
I’d welcome someone making the case that HL is somehow having their religion oppressed by offering the legally mandated panoply of medical care, which includes some stuff, that maybe they don’t like. They aren’t giving Abortion Co. Gift Cards. They’re offering health insurance, which legally includes some stuff they disapprove of. Any dollar given to Kaiser funds IUDs because money is fungible. Not by any sane stretch is that religious oppression. The wages they pay include a wide variety of sinning possibilities. But they don’t have a problem with that, because the GOP has yet to institute Trinity Dollars™ that can’t be spent on sinful things.
I respect the right of people to have their religions. Just like I respect the right of people to be fat. Or to smoke.
I don’t respect the right of religious people to make other’s lives harder based on their religious beliefs. Freedom of religion shouldn’t include the right to make it harder for your employees to do legal shit.
And who then decides who qualifies for inclusion on the list of “people who are able to reason and think?”
What if the written statute ordered the court to defer to religion? What if the law said something like, “This law shall be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted?”
Does the court still have too much deference for religion in that case? Or are they simply following the written law, if it said something like that?
Why?
I’d leave that up to the peanut gallery. We’re having a discussion, right? The point here is you want to not have to argue *why *you’re right, because sitting on your fat ass and waving an arm at the SCOTUS is easier.
Since, the idea that they are offering health insurance, which includes some options they don’t like, but are not specifically required, is pretty much not an infringement on their beliefs, unless paying wages that can’t be spent on hookers and blow is an infringement on their beliefs, I’d say their exercise of their religion is being permitted fine.
Instead of addressing arguments you put on your Socratic Prick hat. I get it, you don’t like to lose. No one does. But sometimes the embarrassment is necessary for proper emotional development. Deny Jesus and come to the reasonable side. There is cake. Sinful cake.
That’s a good point. Why does it make more sense for five Catholic men to decide how much HL can make women’s lives harder?
I guess i’m missing some nuance, here. It sounds like **Bricker **is saying "no matter how absurd most of us find the claim to be, who are we to judge? (“Who gets to decide whether the claim is absurd?”
Shall we disband the courts, then?
The same way it made sense for 7 men to decide Roe vs Wade? Wild guess: you don’t have any heartburn about that case being decided by men.
Let me take another wild guess: it’s not that it was men who made the HL decision, it’s not that it was Catholic men who made the HL decision, it was that you don’t like the HL decision and as a bonus, get to take a shot at men and Catholics.
I don’t dislike men. I regularly masturbate one.
I don’t necessarily dislike Catholics. Unless they try to push their delusional world-view on others.
I mean they think crackers turn into meat, via magic. Those nutjobs shouldn’t be allowed to drive cars on public roads, much less tell women how to handle their reproductive lives.
Also, wasn’t the Roe court all men?
No. The question of sincerity is a question of fact, for the courts to decide.
The question of why religious exercise gets this much deference is answered by the explicit text of the RFRA, which requires it. And that’s something Congress can change.
Yes (Sandra Day O’Connor wasn’t appointed until 1981), but the decision was 7-2.
Because someone whose opinion of religious practice includes, “I mean they think crackers turn into meat, via magic. Those nutjobs shouldn’t be allowed to drive cars on public roads, much less tell women how to handle their reproductive lives,” is not a person who understands how to apply a law that says, “This law shall be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted.”
Surely I do understand it. I respect your right to exult in delusion every week. I don’t respect your right to force others to act in accordance with your delusions. Honestly, I believe in freedom of religion. I believe in freedom in general. Which is why I dislike the idea of bending over backwards to allow religious people to make other people’s lives worse. Especially by pretending they’re being oppressed when they are, in fact, not.
Also: Does it taste like a Hebrew National when Jesus teleports his meat into your mouth?
Whoa! Hear that, guys! What an idea! We don’t have to fuck around with arguing, persuading, all that bullshit, we just take away their protection of the law! We would never even have thought of that, took a Republican lawyer to pull our coats in the right direction!
Thanks,** Bricker**! Smooth sailing from here on out. I don’t know who’s in charge of the Straight to the Wall Come the Revolution list, but whoever, maybe we can take his name off! Gratitude, you dig?