So those who exercise their First Amendment rights are “bitching”? Does that mean you think the First Amendment is a bad idea?
Hasn’t it been clearly explained that this isn’t being reviewed under the 1st Amendment, but under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(b).
Or are you claiming that it should be a 1st Amendment issue?
It’s precisely because of this kind of bigotry that the nuns, and any citizen of the United States, ought to have some protection from being compelled to violate their consciences by someone who accuses them of being “fruitcakes.”
Jack Batty specifically brought up the First Amendment; I was responding to him.
But that said, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was written to protect rights that its proponents viewed as already being in the Constitution, not to create new rights. The Congressmen who authored it believed that the Supreme Court had given the First Amendment’s freedom of religion guarantee an excessively narrow reading, and wrote the legislation to counteract that. Just as the Voting Rights Act didn’t create a new right to vote, but only enforcement of the right to vote that was already in the Constitution.
Yes. I made that decision right after I stopped beating my wife.
Give this ridiculous rhetoric a break, will ya?
Yes, but did the RFRA succeed? It was an attempt to restore the Sherbert test by legislative act after the Supreme Court threw out the Sherbert test in the Smith decision. But after the law was enacted, the Supreme Court said in the Boerne decision that it didn’t matter what law Congress enacted; they said that Congress couldn’t legislate how the Court interpreted the Constitution.
That there is collision between what is provided for the common good versus people paying into the common good (or playing ball with it, or whatever) who don’t agree with every last thing the common good provides.
Yeah, I’m not really seeing the violation, here. The transaction that the nuns are claiming involvement in is between the employee and the insurance company. That the nuns say they’re involved (and therefore being forced into sin) looks unsupported to me.
So, ladies, render unto Caesar and shut the fuck up, already.
How so? The question being addressed is, should the Little Sisters of the Poor be forced to sign a piece of paper? The piece of paper in question will not affect any transfer of money in any way, according to the Obama Administration. Where do you see any mention of “paying into the common good”.
It is, of course, worth noting that the Little Sisters of the Poor are a group dedicated to good works, specifically caring for the poor elderly. If Obama successfully shuts down their operation in this country, that will certainly hurt the common good. So much for any claim that the Democratic Party cares about the poor.
I was asking a general question regarding the conflict between two positions and how it’s handled in other countries, regarding the same, or very similar issues over public health and religion.
In retrospect, I should probably leave that for its own thread. God forbid (no pun intended) we veer away from the real problem here: that nuns are being persecuted again (over there own myopic views and a refusal to work and play well with others (translation: “wah, why can’t we get our way?”)).
Why is that worth noting and how does the choice to shut down rest in the hands of anyone but the nuns themselves?
As good works go, I would rank helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies right up there with helping the elderly. And in the long-term view, it’s of considerably more value to society. (Sorry gramps.)
Only the nuns themselves can do that.
Correct.
But this isn’t the Court interpreting the Constitution – this is the Court interpreting the ACA. The RFRA controls how the ACA is interpreted.
Not sure about this claim – what is the “compelling government interest,” specifically? Is it to reach x% of employees, and (x - epsilon)% means failure?
In other words, I’d argue that the true government interest is met by opt-in plus advertising even if there’s a tiny fraction of difference in effectiveness.
Or more to the point, that there’s a balancing test in which the delta between opt-in and opt-out is balanced against the intrusiveness of the regulation.
Mind if we start calling you “Stretch”?
While it is undoubtedly true that for many Democrats, their primary concern for the poor is to avoid being one of them, the clever ruse they employ is to support legislation that actually does help them. Whether or not individual Dems act from conscience or from cynical motives or selfish concerns is a question over my pay grade. And yours.
As to the issue at hand, isn’t employment a very secular act? Do the Sisters pay unemployment insurance and Social Security? Are they not bound by the same legal framework that all other employers must comply with?
I favor any reasonable accomodation that can be made for the sincerely religious. I expect them, as well, to make reasonable accomodation for the sincerely secular. I would even favor the manufacture of a polite legal fiction to that end. If such a device rebounds to the benefit of, say, Scientology…that would surely give me pause. But I might well be willing to throw up in my mouth a little bit and then nod my head in marginal compliance. We have, after all, bigger fish and loaves to fry.
Anaamika the Catholic church doesn’t require anyone to be a ‘baby making machine’, and they fully support limiting family size. They object to certain means of doing so. Specifically, they allow various techniques of natural family planning, and they forbid artificial contraception.
I realize that you disagree, but given the moral premises of the Catholic Church, it makes sense that they would be annoyed at having to be complicit in evil, as they see it. I’m not a lawyer and have no idea if their legal case is defensible on the merits. But I think the morality of contraception is one on which reasonable people can disagree.
No, the RFRA was an attempt by Congress to tell the Supreme Court it had to apply the Sherbert test after the Court ruled the Sherbert test was no longer constitutional. And the Court rejected this and said that Congress could not compel the Court to use the Sherbert test. So it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the ACA or any other law - the Court said Congress cannot tell the Court how to interpret a law.
I don’t think that’s right. Congress can’t tell the Court how to interpret the Constitution. But Congress can absolutely tell the Court how to interpret a law. See generally the Dictionary Act. Or, more relevantly, O Centro.
That’s kinda the problem - it’s as they see it, or more accurately, as they claim to see it. Anybody can claim to see evil anywhere, after all.