The nuns are trying to control the lives of the employees outside of their workplace and force them to conform to their religious fundamentalism. Signing that piece of paper is not an agreement by the nuns that their employees can get birth control, its an acknowledgement that the nuns are exercising their religious freedom to not provide contraceptives themselves. However, it has the additional effect of freeing up the employees to go elsewhere for birth control. The nuns don’t want that, they want to hold the employees hostage by denying them birth control AND not release them to go elsewhere for birth control. They don’t get to do that and therefore they are the ones oppressing their employees
Its like this: you find someone bleeding to death but refuse to call 911 for help because its not your responsibility and you don’t have to, however you also actively try to prevent anyone else from calling 911 to help them. You are wrong, you should be punished, and the nuns are 100% in the wrong on this. If they don’t want to provide birth control, fine, but they should not be able to prevent someone else from doing it.
You’re talking about this part?
Is that what you think they are basing the claim on or what their lawyers have submitted to the relevant authorities that they are basing the claim on?
And is it your contention that they believe there is an even less restrictive means of furthering the government’s interest which would be to not have the nuns sign the paper and somehow just acknowledge that the nuns will be passing on the responsibility of providing health care to someone else?
Broadly speaking, I do not believe that Congress infringed on the rights of Americans by such a mandate. Not being a lawyer, I base my logic on a case-by-case basis. What I do believe is twofold: 1) the OP doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and 2) the nuns are trying to have their cake (not provide birth control) and eat it too (not let anyone else give these people birth control).
Well, maybe. The nuns have not said whether they would also consider it a stain on their faith if the government gave their employees birth control. For me, that’s pretty much the deciding factor here.
Boerne said that Congress couldn’t legislate how courts interpreted the Constitution for state law purposes - that is, the RFRA is unconstitutional as applied to the states. Congress is free to tell courts to interpret its own enactments, which is what the remaining portion of the RFRA does.*
What difference does it make? If I can advance a viable legal theory, then would their failure to make the same claim be somehow fatal to their cause?
However, to avoid derailing the discussion over that quibble: it’s not original to me. The nuns’ original complaint raises the RFRA. See para. 7 of the Complaint:
yes.
Well, no argument on point (1). First Amendment caselaw since 1990 has pretty clearly established that a law like this one, of broad, general applicability, can’t be challenged on First Amendment grounds merely for its incidental effects.
But point (2) is a bit trickier. I agree that the nuns are trying to have their cake and eat it too. But they claim that federal law, specifically the RFRA, allows them to have their cake and eat it too in this instance. You can’t really rebut their argument by simply saying they wish to have their cake and eat it too. Yes, they do – because the law says they can.
It’s an interesting idea, but I think that’s not how current law works. Generally, it is sufficient for the government to show that the proposed alternative would work less well to accomplish the compelling interest (which is usually pretty vaguely defined, like “security”). There is no weighing of how much less well versus the degree of intrusion.
Indeed, a test that weighed the degree of intrusion would seem to have to examine the severity or seriousness of the claimed sin, which is what the doctrine is trying to avoid.
I don’t think that’s true for strict scrutiny – the government could always point to some small benefit gained by their implementation of the law. Requiring that the law be narrowly tailored cuts against the government and in favor of the challenging plaintiff.
I think you’re making two claims: (1) some marginal benefits from a particular scheme are de minimis; (2) the benefits versus the alternative are to be weighed against the degree of intrusion.
I think (2) is unequivocally false. I’m not aware of any case doing that analysis in the RFRA context. (1) may or may not be true, but even if its true in the abstract I think it’s pretty clear that even quite small benefits are not de minimis. I have very little doubt that the difference in participation between an opt-out scheme and an opt-in scheme would not be seen as de minimis.
Part of the reason the test is so deferential to the government is that most RFRA litigation has occurred in the context of non-Christians in prisons. As a consequence, many courts have bent over backwards to find ways to declare even somewhat mundane government interests to be compelling, and even somewhat ham-fisted schemes to be narrowly-tailored. I’m not saying the precedent is right–I don’t think it is, really–but I do think the test as established is a lot more deferential to the government than you are characterizing it to be. Unlike true strict scrutiny, which is almost never satisfied, the exemption in RFRA is satisfied more often than not.
The Court has responded by essentially saying, “You can tell us what you think but we are not obligated to listen to you.”
The O Centro decision reaffirmed this principle: “the very sort of difficulties highlighted by the Government here were cited by this Court in deciding that the approach later mandated by Congress under RFRA was not required as a matter of constitutional law under the Free Exercise Clause.”
I, and others, have already explained clearly, over and over again, why what you’re saying is not true. I’ve no clue what you’re trying to accomplish by pretending that you haven’t read the thread, but I will prove you wrong once again.
I asked you: “What’s your justification for the statement that the nuns are trying to push their religious beliefs on their employees? Please be specific.” Not surprisingly, you didn’t answer, but instead just repeated your claim, as if your untrue statement will become true by endless repetition. Are the nuns seeking to do anything that will affect anything that their employees do outside of the workplace? No. Obviously, any employee of the Little Sisters of the Poor is free to purchase birth control, or get it for free, in any of countless places. Obviously, no member of the Little Sisters of the Poor has made any attempt to prevent any person from getting birth control. This has been stated many times already. Therefore you are wrong.
You say: “signing that piece of paper … has the additional effect of freeing up the employees to go elsewhere for birth control.” This is flat out untrue, and we’ve demonstrated over and over again that it’s untrue. Whether or not the Little Sisters sign the paper will have no effect on the birth control coverage offered to any person, anywhere, at any time. The Obama Administration itself has said this, in a legal filing, and I quoted the exact words from that legal filing in the first post in this thread, and yet you apparently are going to keep pretending that you’re unaware of this fact.
To summarize, you made two statements that are blatantly untrue, and which were already proved to be untrue before you made them.
As already mentioned, dozens of judges across the country, including a Supreme Court justice, have already issued injunctions based on assuming that the Little Sisters and similar groups will win their cases, or at least have a good chance of doing so. You may feel that their case is absurd, but that doesn’t matter. You’re not a judge.
Well, the remainder of that paragraph in O Centro recognizes the obligation of the courts to apply RFRA. Indeed, the whole point of O Centro is that the courts must apply Congress’ exemption scheme to statutes. Sure, it’s not constitutionally required, but it is statutorily required and courts must apply it.
Well if I was debating you, then no. But if I was talking about how stupid nuns are, then yes
Ok. That seems oddly ignorant of them. When do we ever just throw up our hands and say everybody must acknowledge something. Having something signed, and this is where I get into my disagreement with the nuns, shows a paper trail so that there is no “he said, she said” crap. Everyone knows that documentation is important, it doesn’t matter if its a receipt from the ice cream man for a pack of gum or a signed court statement, the nuns can’t just say nope and refuse to consider it any further. Signing a paper is the least restrictive means of furthering government interest. I cannot see their refusal as anything else other than a refusal freeing the employees to get contraception somewhere else
Well here’s where we disagree. I think that the law does provide people in general with an out if it is the least restrictive way. Since I consider signing this paper to be the least restrictive way, my interpretation of the law is that the nuns were wrong and the RFRA does not allow them to do what they are doing
Sure, like I’m going to believe you and your interpretation of the facts. :rolleyes: And if you’re talking about gigi in post #73, then I simply disagree with his interpretation as well as it is exactly covered by my response to you. Its not a first amendment issue, if its anything, its an issue that Bricker cited that was pulled from their actual complaint
I was specific, don’t blame me if you either disagree with my answer or don’t understand it. They’re religious fanatics who feel they have the right to force others to act they way they want them to.
You know what would have been a good, moral, and Christian response? Have the nuns provide the birth control themselves. Buy it for their employees, hell, have the pill in a candy dish sitting at the reception area of their office. But counsel their staff to not use it because it is a moral sin. That would have been the Christian thing to do, not hold people hostage and use bureaucracy to obfuscate the line between the state and religion
Yes, they are seeking to prevent them from obtaining contraception through a 3rd party insurance company.
Obviously they have, or else they wouldn’t be lawyering up to try to fight the government. Again, the correct, moral, and Christian thing to do would be to provide the health care themselves but counsel people not to use it for immoral deeds. But instead, the nuns claim that signing a piece of paper is too much of a burden and so as a result they allow their employees to be trapped in a legal limbo.
Ask yourself this: what would happen if, as you think the paper’s so meaningless, the nuns just signed it?
Like its been pointed out before, the nuns sued the state. Obviously, they don’t think its a meaningless, so you have to ask yourself why you continue to make that claim that it is meaningless. And if you are going to play dumb and say its not you who’s saying it, then stop bringing it up.
The standard for an injunction (in federal jurisprudence) is a likelihood “of succeeding on the merits.” inter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 555 U.S. 7 (2008).
Re: Have the nuns provide the birth control themselves. Buy it for their employees, hell, have the pill in a candy dish sitting at the reception area of their office. But counsel their staff to not use it because it is a moral sin.
In what way would it be ‘Christian’ to provide people with the means to do something immoral, and then tell them not to use it? You’re not supposed to tempt other people to stumble, after all.
The case is complicated a bit because, for Catholics, as I understand it (I’m not Catholic), taking the birth control pill itself isn’t a sin, it’s specifically the act of contracepted sex which is immoral. Still, these folks would prefer to be as little involved with providing contraception as possible, and it would be nice if we made more of an effort to respect their scruples.
It’s been stated in this thread that Catholics consider the use of artificial contraception “evil.” Is that actually correct? It is, currently, against Church policy, but does the Church consider it to be malum in se or malum prohibitorum?
That is, if the Pope decided to change this policy tomorrow, would it be more like changing the rules involving priestly celibacy, or more like declaring adultery is not a sin?
[QUOTE=Humanae Vitae 14]
the direct interruption of the generative process already begun…direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary…[and] any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means
[/QUOTE]