Both. We rely on the text, but we look at the legislative history to determine if a particular application is at least plausible.
I haven’t seen him around. While it depends based on state, the Supreme Court has not recognized that sexual preference is a suspect class.
Sure, as a general rule of statutory construction, the text is always the first, and most often most important, thing to consider.
But it isn’t by any stretch the last thing to consider either. Which is why the Dictionary Act specifically says that the context of an undefined term needs to be considered also. And, in this case, it’s pretty clear that the context shows that the legislation was never intended to extend rights to the free exercise of religion to for-profit corporations.
So, the question becomes, does blind adherence to textualism trump the intent of the legislation? I don’t believe so. But others, others who may very well scream about “the will of the people!!!” in other contexts are more than happy to ignore that very will in favor for the simplistic textual definition.
Quite the hypothetical there. My response would be that these self-aware robots don’t meet the definition of persons, thus they don’t have the right to be charged, to trial, or anything else that would require the need for a murder statute. So law enforcement could simply shoot, or seize, or destroy them without concern for charging them with murder. So I’m not sure that’s the best hypothetical to go with.
Dial back the hate.
nm
I also think quite a few minority women would be more than a little taken aback by the suggestion that men of color are less sexist and less eager to control women than white men.
Granted Honesty has also stated he thinks black women would be better off in Iran, where women who’ve given birth out of wedlock face execution.
I’m not sure how much logic backs up his arguments.
Guess what $73 million dollars worth of Hobby Lobby’s mutual funds for retirement is invested in?
Companies that make emergency contraception, including day after, IUD’s, and other objects they object to in their lawsuit.
I suppose it’s OK to give money to companies to use to create contraceptives, but not to give money to insurance companies that might be used to use contraceptives.
Fucking hypocrites.
What’s the point of being morally superior if you can’t use it as a cudgel to control the behavior of others?
Come on, that’s weak sauce.
I dunno, if you’re going to be upstanding and moral enough to prevent your employees from having insurance paid birth control, perhaps you should apply that ideal to your own money first.
You know, something that Jesus guy said about a plank in the eye, or something like that.
Yeah, but they have no control over their mutual funds.
No.
The question of how many steps removed you must be to purge the taint of a sinful association is one that all systems must address. They object to paying for insurance (one step) that is used to fund abortion or abortion-like therapies (two steps).
But they don’t object to paying into a retirement fund (one step) that buys mutual funds (two steps) administered by people outside the retirement funds’ control and the companies’ control, which invest in many hundreds of companies, some few of which (three steps), make, among many other things, some of those products (four steps).
Your objection is a strawman characterization of Hobby Lobby’s position if you believe it is hypocritical.
Yes, they do. They can choose not to use the ones that invest in companies that make contraception. There are mutual funds specifically designed for the religious out there.
But it wasn’t important enough for Hobby Lobby to actually be concerned about it.
Let’s hear about that “sincerely held” religious belief again.
OOOOOooo, I wanna play.
Hobby Lobby (step 1) makes a promise to pay an insurance company (step 2), to provide health care for their workers. The bank (step 3) pays the insurance company, who puts the money into a gigantic fund (step 4), from which they pay money (step 5) to a contraceptive dispenser (step 6), for workers who actually go to the doctor (step 7) to get contraception, and then they use it (step 8).
Or
Hobby Lobby puts money in a retirement fund (step 1) which gives money to companies that make contraception (step 2).
8 steps to 2. I win.
Bullshit. Giving money to firms that make contraception is no different than giving money to an insurance company that may pay for contraception. Your steps are silly rationalizations that let Hobby Lobby raise objections to the law in one case, all the while doing the same thing in another.
Ok. I don’t see either of us budging.
I’ll let the Glenfiddich decide.
I don’t either. Of course I didn’t see a moral difference between “I give money to A who buys contraception”, and “I give money to B who gives money to C, who gives contraception to A”, so I find the whole thing, including your steps, to be an exercise in rationalizations.
Yes, because however the Supreme Court rules will decide the moral issue too. :rolleyes:
No, but you have no more claim than I to assert a moral rule that we must both accept.
So I will settle for a clarified legal rule that the RFRA is available to for-profit corporations.
Fortunately for me, a the first Chick Fil A in town is opening near the newish Hobby Lobby, so a single obscenity laden tirade against their collective corporate jackassdom will reach both sites.
Yet Hobby Lobby would have their moral rule (one they don’t actually conform to unless they happen to want to file suit) be accepted by the Supreme Court. I’m simply pointing out the failings and hypocrisy of said rule.
Did you read the whole article? It makes it clear that the Greens could have chosen a mutual fund tailored to their religious sensitivities, but they clearly have chosen not to do so.