# Let The Slippery Slope Begin: Government Contractors Using Hobby Lobby Ruling To Deny LGBT Rights
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 3, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238 "2014-07-03T00:22:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/21 "2014-07-03T04:15:08Z")
> [@doorhinge](#):
>
> I’m not familiar enough with Dylan Scott of TPM Livewire’s work to include the word “much” but this particular article certainly seems disingenuous.
Ha ha ha I see what you did there. Clever.
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### Author:  [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/22 "2014-07-03T05:17:33Z")
There will be an apocalypse, there will be an End Of Days, it won’t include any gods, or Mohammeds or Jesuses, but it will start with religion.
Of course, some of these people might falsely claim they’re religious just so they don’t have to deal with gay people at work due to their own prejudice.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/23 "2014-07-03T07:16:17Z")
> [@Locrian](#):
>
> There will be an apocalypse, there will be an End Of Days, it won’t include any gods, or Mohammeds or Jesuses, but it will start with religion.
> **[Supreme Court Rules JCPenney Allowed to Sacrifice Employees to Appease Cthulhu](https://www.moonmontchronicle.com/supreme-court-rules-jcpenney-allowed-to-sacrifice-employees-to-appease-cthulhu.html)**
>
> July 1, 2014 - Citing the newly-established precedent of corporate-religious exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of JCPenney, upholding the company's right to sacrifice...
But it will end in madness (or possibly getting brained by a supertanker)
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### Author:  [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/24 "2014-07-03T09:47:06Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> [Supreme Court Rules JCPenney Allowed to Sacrifice Employees to Appease Cthulhu - The Moonmont Chronicle](http://www.moonmontchronicle.com/supreme-court-rules-jcpenney-allowed-to-sacrifice-employees-to-appease-cthulhu.html)
>
> But it will end in madness (or possibly getting brained by a supertanker)
YAY! They finally get a more fun god with Chutulu. Suit looks good on 'im. Joey Smith was so damn puritan.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/25 "2014-07-03T12:37:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Have the guts to admit the real scourge; religious people. The Republicans are just doing the bidding of the loudest, votingest religion. Get rid of them and some other party will buy votes from people who believe in imaginary men in the sky. The problem’s religion, not Republicans.
Yes. Shame the Democrats don’t run a whole slate of candidates who adopt the position that the problem is people who believe in imaginary men in the sky. I would love to see that happen.
But, as you hint, the problem is not having the guts. Right?
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/26 "2014-07-03T12:42:11Z")
[QUOTE=Shayna]
Did I say their argument had merit wrt the Hobby Lobby abomination? No I did not, asshole.
[/QUOTE]
You’re a liar, and not even a good one.
This kind of doublethink ought not to surprise me, but it still does.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/27 "2014-07-03T12:49:02Z")
As if there aren’t enough _“then what if…”_
Justice Ginsberg cited the possible discrimination against Black patrons by a restaurateur whose religious convictions require racial segregation. I’m not familiar with that religion, _but then what if_ a Quaker employer with strong pacifistic beliefs refuses to re-hire a National Guardsman returning from deployment?
Or do some laws, like the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, have more teeth than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? (I’m pretty sure the tax codes are plenty toothy: no cutting off the percentage of your taxes that go to national “defense” outside the US borders).
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/28 "2014-07-03T14:26:25Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> As if there aren’t enough _“then what if…”_
>
> Justice Ginsberg cited the possible discrimination against Black patrons by a restaurateur whose religious convictions require racial segregation. I’m not familiar with that religion, _but then what if_ a Quaker employer with strong pacifistic beliefs refuses to re-hire a National Guardsman returning from deployment?
That seems clear: RFRA absolutely applies, but there’s a compelling government interest and no lesser restrictive means of accomplishing it. Quaker is out of luck.
And think about this: even if you’re outraged that the RFRA applies to corporation, it’s uncontroversial that it applies to natural persons. Your example could just as easily be a sole proprietor Quaker, a natural person, and the same conundrum would exist even with the Hobby Lobby precedent.
Right?
> [@](#):
>
> Or do some laws, like the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, have more teeth than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? (I’m pretty sure the tax codes are plenty toothy: no cutting off the percentage of your taxes that go to national “defense” outside the US borders).
Same point: are you objecting to the RFRA or its application to corporations?
And in any event, people have already tried using the RFRA to dodge some taxes, and sure enough, even though their beliefs were sincere, the government interest was compelling and the taxes the least restrictive means.
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/29 "2014-07-03T14:28:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Yes. Shame the Democrats don’t run a whole slate of candidates who adopt the position that the problem is people who believe in imaginary men in the sky. I would love to see that happen.
>
> But, as you hint, the problem is not having the guts. Right?
It’s funny. When **Shayna** , as hyperpartisan and blind to nuance as anyone on this board, blames Republicans for something, and a poster who isn’t even American, and so can’t possibly be a Democrat, responds by saying hey, this isn’t about parties, it’s a cultural problem that’s broader than that…
you respond with something about Democrats and a misrepresentation of what **RickJay** said about guts, as if you can’t tell the difference in any event, because either way it’s your ox being gored. One imagines that several months from now in some unrelated thread, you’ll ask some other poster who wasn’t involved in this conversation why leftist posters never call out overbroad or inaccurate attacks by other leftist posters, and why they’re OK with any level of rationalization or outright misrepresentation if it gores the right ox.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/30 "2014-07-03T14:39:09Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#):
>
> It’s funny. When **Shayna** , as hyperpartisan and blind to nuance as anyone on this board, blames Republicans for something, and a poster who isn’t even American, and so can’t possibly be a Democrat, responds by saying hey, this isn’t about parties, it’s a cultural problem that’s broader than that…
>
> you respond with something about Democrats and a misrepresentation of what **RickJay** said about guts, as if you can’t tell the difference in any event, because either way it’s your ox being gored. One imagines that several months from now in some unrelated thread, you’ll ask some other poster who wasn’t involved in this conversation why leftist posters never call out overbroad or inaccurate attacks by other leftist posters, and why they’re OK with any level of rationalization or outright misrepresentation if it gores the right ox.
1. I have no idea whether RickJay is American.
2. RickJay’s post is a rude attack on the religious, and imputes to Republicans their supposed ills. That’s not imagination on my part, is it?
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Have the guts to admit the real scourge; religious people. The Republicans are just doing the bidding of the loudest, votingest religion. Get rid of them and some other party will buy votes from people who believe in imaginary men in the sky. The problem’s religion, not Republicans.
So, sure, it’s my ox being gored, but I don’t agree that my post misses his mark. Yes, I deliberately use “guts” in a different way than he did; his use of the word was a call to have the courage to admit that the religious are a scourge while mine was a wry note that the other party - Democrats - would not dare to adopt this admission either. But this was a deliberate choice to highlight the impossibility and incongruity of either party rejecting the religious.
Is my post really inaccurate?
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/31 "2014-07-03T15:06:16Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Justice Ginsberg cited the possible discrimination against Black patrons by a restaurateur whose religious convictions require racial segregation. I’m not familiar with that religion…
Sure y’are. It’s called “Christianity,” and [these folks here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity) have a desperately tortured version of it that would certainly qualify as "requir[ing] racial segregation.
But race and religion are protected classes. I honestly don’t ever see SCOTUS wading directly into that swamp.
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### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/32 "2014-07-03T15:24:16Z")
It’s funny (in both senses of the word)–
When conservatives warn of a slippery slope in relation to gun restrictions–registration, etc.–liberals pat us on the head and say, “Don’t be so silly. That will never happen.” And yet when something comes along that liberals don’t like, all of a sudden it’s “SLIPPERY SLOPE! THE SKY IS FALLING! SLIPPERY SLOPE!”
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/33 "2014-07-03T15:36:31Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Sure y’are. It’s called “Christianity,” and [these folks here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity) have a desperately tortured version of it that would certainly qualify as "requir[ing] racial segregation.
>
> But race and religion are protected classes. I honestly don’t ever see SCOTUS wading directly into that swamp.
I don’t think it’s fair to call it “Christianity” when it is a distinct subset, and a rather small minority of those who call themselves Christians. Now, if you wanted to say that Christianity _used_ to be that religion, you’d be on firmer ground.
And, **Flyer** , while the slope is much less slippery than I thought it was, thanks to **Bricker** ’s additional information, it still is slipperier than I would like. “Closely held corporations” is still much too broad a category. At the very least, it should be “closely held corporations with a clear religious history.”
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/34 "2014-07-03T15:46:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Is my post really inaccurate?
I think it was totally accurate, in that it hit the mark you were aiming for: establishing a tu quoque with that complaisant air: a wonder the Democrats don’t come out and say that themselves, must be about guts, don’t you agree? Definitely accurate: Democrats, because they cannot, do not ever say “I don’t give a shit about the Bible” when they shouldn’t be giving a shit about the Bible.
But accuracy isn’t really the metric I had in mind; it’s aiming there in the first place. He’d just said, in so many words, the problem’s not Republicans, and you responded - ah, but the Democrats! There’s no bloody way you believed that **RickJay** was trying to make a point about the “other party,” but you responded as if you did.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/35 "2014-07-03T15:57:53Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#):
>
> I think it was totally accurate, in that it hit the mark you were aiming for: establishing a tu quoque with that complaisant air: a wonder the Democrats don’t come out and say that themselves, must be about guts, don’t you agree? Definitely accurate: Democrats, because they cannot, do not ever say “I don’t give a shit about the Bible” when they shouldn’t be giving a shit about the Bible.
>
> But accuracy isn’t really the metric I had in mind; it’s aiming there in the first place. He’d just said, in so many words, the problem’s not Republicans, and you responded - ah, but the Democrats! There’s no bloody way you believed that **RickJay** was trying to make a point about the “other party,” but you responded as if you did.
No, he was trying to make a point primarily about what he views as the insidious influence of religion, and only secondarily about the Republicans. My points was that if it’s true the Republicans are moved by the religious, his apparent sweet spot of rejection of religion would doom the other party too.
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/36 "2014-07-03T16:18:33Z")
And mine is that he explicitly said that the identity of the party doesn’t matter.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/37 "2014-07-03T16:23:32Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s fair to call it “Christianity” when it is a distinct subset, and a rather small minority of those who call themselves Christians. Now, if you wanted to say that Christianity _used_ to be that religion, you’d be on firmer ground.
Wellnow, I get your point…although I would disagree with the last sentence (I don’t believe that Christianity as a whole has ever been married to white supremacy).
But I, as a non-Christian, don’t have much room to judge whether one sect or another is “Christian.” I certainly don’t judge all Christians by the CI idiots, nor by the Phelpsians. But I also cannot judge all Christians by Mennonites or Friends.
That’s doubly the case when it comes to the law. If we as a society are going to afford special rights to people based on their religious beliefs, it’s awfully problematic to try to distinguish which beliefs are worthy of those protections.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/38 "2014-07-03T17:09:47Z")
The sooner Americans shed religion, the better off they’ll be.
We may as well cut to the chase, wot?
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/39 "2014-07-03T17:50:26Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> The sooner Americans shed religion, the better off they’ll be.
>
> We may as well cut to the chase, wot?
Especially if they’re going to complain about how people using something they offer as compensation in a way they don’t like is religious oppression.
Aren’t the five who voted for this Catholic?
It’s unsurprising that they’d share the same defect as Bricker. They had the same lies poisoning their minds.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-slippery-slope-begin-government-contractors-using-hobby-lobby-ruling-to-deny-lgbt-rights/692238/40 "2014-07-03T18:05:17Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#):
>
> And mine is that he explicitly said that the identity of the party doesn’t matter.
Well, then perhaps I was a bit quick off the trigger. But in the United States, ~Democrat = Republican, for all practical purposes.
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