I’m sorry, Lobohan, but you are not the person that gets to decide that.
I’m sorry Bricker, you’re not the one who gets to argue his position from an ivory tower.
I’m arguing what is, not what a court will decide. Factually, intelligently and in accordance with reality, the Jewish person in the above example does not have his religious liberties imposed upon.
The fact that you are unable to argue against that, and instead rely on nonsense, such as you posted, I think shows that you’ve really got nothing.
In other words, come back when you can defend your position. <3
The question of where religious liberties end is not a question upon which one can point to an objective measurement and declare that their position is thus proved, Lobohan.
Factually, intellectually, and in accordance with reality, no religious belief can be shown to be true. But that isn’t the standard by which this country judges infringement on religious liberty.
So if you would merely like to state that factually, intellectually, and in accordance with reality, religious liberty as asserted by Hobby Lobby is untenable, go right ahead.
However, that assertion is isn’t going to compel Hobby Lobby to fund insurance requirements to which they hold religious objections.
So which is this thread about? Your view of religious liberties? Or what Hobby Lobby will be permitted to actually do?
I’m arguing what the law should be. Not what it will be once the SCOTUS has its say.
Betting on what a partisan court will do isn’t of value. As I’ve said before, SCOTUS isn’t necessarily correct, they’re final. There is a difference.
As I asked before, please address my actual argument, which is, that allowing a business owner who provides health insurance, as a benefit, to ignore the regulations that govern health insurance based on nothing more than his personal religion, is asinine.
Do you support Jehova’s Witnesses not allowing blood transfusions?
Do you support Jews not allowing bacon cheeseburgers to be purchased as food during hospital stays?
Do you support Christian Scientists not allowing anything but prayer services?
Do you support New Age Dipshits only paying for Crystal Therapies?
Do you support Muslims not allowing cross-gender doctors?
Do you support Scientologists not allowing psychiatry?
Do you support Catholics not allowing IVF?
You support this idea because you want Christians to have the right to dictate what others do. And that idea, is utter horseshit.
If it ends up that the five conservatives in black decide it’s okay, that doesn’t mean it is good policy, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, it doesn’t mean that Hobby Lobby is correct. All it means is that a partisan court sided with Jeebus.
Bad example. Judaism has no problem with non-Jews eating pork or mixing beef and cheese.
Well, this individual Jewish person in the example does.
Is he having his religious beliefs trod upon?
Also, what of the other examples?
You can fantasize, but that’s not a reality.
That’s not a religious belief from any recognized religion.
Example: Judaism considers it a no-no for anyone, not just Jews, to eat a limb of a living creature. So - yes, if the government mandated that that Jew’s money that he was paying for benefits must be spent on that kind of activity, I would say that’s having religious beliefs trod upon.
Ok. Well, the thread is about the reach of the court case. But sure, jump in with your view on the “should.”
No it’s not.
Each use of “not allowing,” above, refers to the same general behavior at issue in the court case, yes? Not funding it through your workplace insurance?
Then, “Yes,” to each and every question.
Yes, yes, and yes.
I disagree that Hobby Lobby is “inflicting” a religious belief on its employees. It is simply refusing to offer as compensation a direct payment for something that violates its religious belief. The employees can take their paychecks and use them for gambling, abortions, contraception, liquor, or strip clubs.
I would LOVE to divorce health care from employment. It’s an accident of history and would solve this problem. The ACA cements it into place.
In no way does Hobby Lobby “force” its employees to live by its religious beliefs.
Okay, now that we’ve established that you support a completely goofy position, I think we can get somewhere.
I think your position can be summed up as, “A business owner shouldn’t be forced to pay for something they find objectionable because of their religion.”
- The health insurance plans purchased aren’t paying for abortion or birth control directly. They are offering a panoply of different services and among them, birth control and abortion. If you give me a coupon for a free meal at the buffet, you aren’t meaningfully being slighted if I eat porkchops and your religion requires vegetarianism.
I have yet to see a coherent explanation for the sense of outrage other than, “This is an outrage!”
Aren’t the taxes these people pay also doing similar things? You pay $X in taxes and some slice of X is being used to bomb people, or do other things that some religious types find objectionable. If paying for health insurance is against their religion, shouldn’t paying for taxes be as well? Money is fungible and you never know where YOUR dollar goes!!111
- Doesn’t the government have a reasonable interest in seeing the insurance standards it set by law are met? If what you are advocating is true, then there will be thousands of different insurance standards, with cutouts and specific treatments not covered. Based on a specific individual business owner’s ideas and interpretations about their religion. If some chucklefuck from God’s Armpit Tennessee decides that Flu Vaccines are a plot by scientists to pretend evolution is real, BAM, no vaccines for the guys he employs.
The world you’re painting is clumsy, and dangerous and there is a strong government interest that outweighs the specific mock-outrage Hobby Lobby and the politically religious types are pantomiming.
As an aside, would companies need to post what religion they are in the break room, so that someone interviewing would know which health care they could expect to not get based on the specifics of that individual business owner’s religious beliefs? Do the workers get a memo when the owner gets his life together and finds Jesus?
“Dear Employees, Mr. Baumgarder, your boss, has converted to Christian Science. Effective immediately, there will only be insurance coverage for prayer rooms, and in home prayer leaders. God have mercy on you diabetics. Lulz!”
I grant that it is your right to believe silly things.
Again, it’s not a direct payment. The insurance covers many things. It covers chemo, even if you never get cancer. It covers psychiatry (unless Hobby Lobby gets its way, and your boss is a Scientologist), even if you never get emotionally troubled.
Hobby Lobby is paying for a service, that the government has regulated. If they don’t like the regulations, that isn’t the same thing as being oppressed.
If even one Republican would have put their country ahead of their fear of the Tea Party (by breaking the filibuster), we could have had any number of good things in the law. But the fact is, what we got was amenable to the most conservative Democrat, since the exact number of votes needed were had. So, blame the GOP if you don’t like the framework.
Employee: "I would like to get some hormonal birth control. "
Hobby Lobby: “Full price, slut!”
Not quite.
My position is: Since Congress passed the RFRA, a business owner can’t be forced to pay for something they find objectionable because of their religion.
If I know the buffet offers porkchops, I won’t give you that coupon.
Yes, taxes do the same thing, albeit with a slightly more attenuated line of connection.
But paying taxes does come within the reach of the RFRA.
Sure, the government has a reasonable interest there. They absolutely have the power to amend the RFRA to exclude this situation. This is not a matter of constitutional dimension.
Then all the government has to do to assert that interest is amend the RFRA.
I imagine that would get handled the same way as any business-based decision to modify insurance benefits.
Hobby Lobby would then, I suppose, suffer the loss of some employees who didn’t wish to be treated that way.
The words are, I think, substantial burden, right. There is simply no burden whatsoever.
Health insurance is a type of wages, I think that’s stupid beyond reason by the way to do that, but it’s the Frankensystem we’ve cobbled together.
Just as wages can be spent on hookers and blow, insurance can be spent on medical treatments that upset religious people.
Your right to worship has nothing whatsoever to do with what someone does with what you give them. You’re asking for an absurd level of power.
Sorry, the government has decided that pork chop availability is necessary for all buffets. But, your beliefs aren’t in the least impacted, because you don’t have to eat them. Praise be to Allah McJesus.
I’m not a lawyer, so maybe you can point some light here (emphasis mine):
Would the compelling government interest above apply to:
If the government has a compelling government interest in regulating insurance, would that suffice? I think avoiding the patchwork nightmare I mentioned above is a compelling interest, since the government has decided the specifics that health insurance should cover. But then, I’m one of those liberal types.
Why he could change it every week if he wanted to. Praise be Xenu!
Ah, the libertarian in you turtle-heads out.
Don’t like working for $2 an hour? Work somewhere else!
Unfortunately, again, for your position, you are not the person that determines how to analyze and apply the term “substantial burden.”
So perhaps the dialog you should be having with yourself is not, “Self, do i think there is a substantial burden involved here?”
Perhaps instead you should ask yourself, “Self, is there a substantial burden here as that term is used in the RFRA and associated case law, and has the government’s scheme to accomplish their compelling interest been narrowly tailored towards that interest?”
No, that’s simply a statement of what result you’d like the analysis to produce.
Nope. The government’s scheme also has to be narrowly tailored to accomplish that government interest.
It would be absurd to think that a substantial burden would include having something you pay someone being used in a way you don’t like.
The burden is based on keeping them from practicing their religion, right? No one is keeping them from doing a damn thing. Substantial burden, according to your stance includes feeling shitty because someone is doing something you don’t agree with with the compensation you gave them.
I think if you were serious you’d make the case, since you don’t, I assume you’re just throwing smoke.
Well, seeing as there is no burden by any sane measure, and I’d say that the compelling interest is plenty narrow.
It’s not like they’re keeping them from peyote, or taxing communion crackers here. They’re enforcing a regulation that these particular Christians don’t like. Boo-fucking-hoo.
It’s a reasoned statement based on me looking at the issue. If you want to conjure a substantial burden, feel free. Make with the magic.
As I said above, the scheme is narrowly tailored, because it doesn’t in actuality impact the practice of their religion in the least. They aren’t being stopped from doing anything. And they aren’t being compelled to do anything their religion is against. They are paying for a service, and the end-user can use that service for things they don’t like.
Christians used to be fed to lions. Now they are being told they can’t dictate what non-Christians can do, and they’re bleating about persecution.
As an aside:
Also, it’s weird that to you putting five or more hours at the DMV for voting isn’t a substantial burden, but saying you have to comply with some regulations you don’t like is.
An amazing thing the law.
Again you try to use your personal idea of a “substantial burden” instead of what the caselaw mandates.
Why?
BWAHAHAHAHA!!
OK. Sure.
The Supreme Court in Thomas v. Review Board, 450 U.S. 707 (1981), and US v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982), laid out the test for a substantial religious burden. Shockingly, it does not track with your proposed analytical framework. Instead, it mandates a reviewing court must:
[ol]
[li]identify the religious belief in question[/li][li]determine whether the belief is sincere[/li][li]determine whether the government places substantial pressure on the religious believer to act in any fashion that runs contrary to those beliefs[/li][/ol]
In this case, Hobby Lobby has averred that by providing insurance coverage for contraceptives that could prevent a human embryo from implanting in the uterus, their religion says that they themselves would be morally complicit in the death of a fertilized embryo. The government did not contest the existence of that religious belief, nor did the government question the sincerity of that belief. Finally, by observing that the choice Hobby Lobby faced was acting in opposition to their belief or incurring liability in the neighborhood of $26 million and dropping healthcare (or paying penalties of $475 million), the court found that the pressure qualified as “substantial.”
If Hobby Lobby’s penalty was to spend five or six hours at the DMV, I would agree their burden was not substantial, because the third prong – government pressure – would not qualify as substantial.
And if someone were told that they had to pay $26 million to vote, I would agree their burden was substantial.
Hobby Lobby provides birth control for its employees as a part of its insurance coverage but don’t let that get in the way of your faux outrage.
I think Hobby Lobby has a substantial burden to prove that they’re a “Christian” company that follows those tenets.
Hobby Lobby settles New York suit that accused it of false advertising