Contraception should never have been part of the mandate in the first place - not because of religious opposition, but because it is completely at odds with the purpose of health insurance. Contraception is cheap, and it’s used in response to a predictable and optional need. If you want to make it easier for people to get contraception, it would make far more sense to just subsidise it directly, instead of the idiocy of requiring all Americans to buy contraception derivatives from a third party known for ripping people off.
There are two ideas of what Health Insurance should cover. The minimalist view is that it should only cover medical care when something bad has happened. The more expansive, forward thinking view is that if you cover preventative care (and Contraceptives fall under this category), then you prevent bad things from happening and ultimately reduce the amount of money that needs to be spent on medical care. You also greatly increase quality of life by dealing with the little things before they become big things.
Paying for contraceptives is ultimately cheaper than the medical cost of having and caring for that baby and it’s mother. Just as routine screenings for cancer greatly reduce both deaths and costs from cancer treatment.
Well, I think it’s just called “malpractice,” in the purely civil realm.
But you’re right: it would be foolish to discard the Free Exercise claim.
And they did not. They argued it below. So, my supposition was in error: they did argue it.
The Tenth Circuit did not reach the constitutional merits, though, resolving it on the RFRA, with only one judge writing separately to say he would reach the Free Exercise question and decide against Hobby Lobby.
The Supremes only accepted the RFRA question for cert.
That doesn’t seem to be settled law anywhere, other than in the Hamlet Circuit.
I would think that once a protected class is established, the government has a compelling and direct interest in protecting that class from discrimination. So no, in my view, if a state establishes a protected class, I don’t believe a corporation has the right to disregard that law because of religion.
Out of curiosity, what’s your reasoning there? Do you believe every treatment is equally protected by law?
I think it’s silly, but it seems that Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America crowd probably had this intended when they wrote the law. ETA: have no idea why so many Dems voted for it.
Ask Bricker if sexual preference is a protected class.
I’m not sure I understand your question.
More importantly, I don’t think the founders intended that for-profit corporations would be protected by the Free Exercise Clause. Hell, I don’t think they believed it was even possible for a for-profit corporation to have a soul, have religious duties, or have a religion to exercise.
As to the RFRA, I don’t think it was a case of amazing stealth lawmaking, where no one actually mentions their intent to extend free exercise to for-profit corporation in the three years it took to pass the RFRA and it doesn’t get mentioned in the legislative history. I think the bi-partisan support clearly indicates it was written and enacted for the very purpose it stated: “to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened;” Not a mention of for profit corporations anywhere in there.
Why are you making a distinction between for profit and not for profit corporations? The writers of RFRA didn’t.
The express purpose of the RFRA was “(1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened; and (2) to provide a claim or defense to persons whose religious exercise is substantially burdened by government.”
Neither Sherbert nor Yoder involved a corporate plaintiff. I am looking for a case that applied their holdings to one.
It was introduced and passed in response to weak enforcement of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and specific disputes over protection of tribal lands and peyote use.
The only cases I can find which involved corporate plaintiffs and were decided under Yoder, Swaggart and Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, involved churches.
After reading this thread, I can clearly see why women turn to lesbianism. You guys are off the chain. I’ll never understand why white men won’t mind their god damned business: all up in a woman’s pussy like a pap smear yet you don’t contribute anything except 23 chromosomes and a marginal amount of electrolytes and fructose. That’s it. That is all you contribute to the conception of a human being, kind sirs. Men have NO right to tell a woman what she can do with her body especially old, decrepit men from SCOTUS. Period. You, as men, should be worried about more pressing matters such as American economy, funding your broken ass, crumbling roads and briges, ensuring your sons and daughters have a quality education, and not masturbating to the panoply of pornographic websites which - surprise, surprise - objectifies women that ya’ll men claim to love so much. Just drop the farce, grab a penis, and stuff it in your mouth; it is clear ya’ll have more respect for a penis than an actual woman and her right to choose what grows in her uterus.
- Honesty
bridges rather
Churches are not persons.
No, but churches clearly fall within the ambit of the First Amendment.
Not if you interpret it to apply only to persons. Once you concede that organizations have 1st amendment rights, they all do.
Sure they did. They mentioned non-profit, religious organizations all over the legislative history. What they didn’t mention was for-profit corporations.
That’s simply not true. The Supreme Court has long recognized some religious organizations can have the right to free expression. What they specifically haven’t done is find that for profit corporations can.
I’m not a white man.
Congrats?!?
Wait, was that post supposed to be in this thread?
Thank you.
(It seemed important to his thesis that the group in error was “you guys,” later defined as “white men.” I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t confused with the oppressive, insensitive group of white men.)
I’m too lazy. Can you ask him for me?
But surely we agree that what is actually written in law may have implications beyond what the Framers or the authors of the law intended, n’est pas? And are we, as a general rule, to exclude application of the text of a law beyond the precise situation for which it was intended to address? I think, as a general proposal, that courts are better off reading the text of the law rather than trying to interpret silence (on the part of the Framers or the authors of a particular bill) as meaning that a law does not apply in a particular situation.
For example, the drafters of murder statutes surely intended the law to apply to humans, regardless of how it was written, and never imagined that someday intelligent, self-aware robots might take a human life by their own initiative. Shall we interpret the silence in the legislative record to mean that the law does not apply to robots? Or shall we just read the text of the murder statute and let the chips fall where they may?