Reach of Sibelius v. Hobby Lobby?

[Bricker]

@Buck_Godot

The difference is that Hobby Lobby has said that following the law like everyone else is too morally burdensome for them because of their religious beliefs. However they don’t see that the moral burden of owning stock is so onerous that they are willing to shift their assets away from companies that supply abortions.

Sure, because the percentage of their investment is so minuscule that it isn’t a real concern. I wouldn’t do business with a company that supported Hamas with contributions. But I would have an AT&T cellphone even if I learned that Hamas owned AT&T stock.

If they are unwilling to make any sacrifice for their own religious beliefs why should others be made to make sacrifices to accommodate them.

Because the Congress passed a law saying that religious beliefs are entitled to sacrifices, and didn’t pass a law saying they have to make sacrifices in order to gain that benefit.

It’s called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It’s been discussed at some length.

Did you read any of that discussion?

[Bricker]

@Hamlet

furt, pay the man.

Thanks – furt has been in touch.

Alito’s opinion is very well written (his style and rationality is 1000 times better than anything Scalia has written in a decade), but I just can’t get over his belief that somehow, in some unexplained way, the very logic he uses to find for-profit corporations can further their owner’s religious beliefs will only covers “closely held corporations” and not other for-profits. For all his haranguing of the dissent about the distinctions between for and non-profits, he’s incredibly hypocritical.

Kind of reminds me of Windsor’s claim that their logic did not reach state laws.

[Bricker]

@rsa

As a matter of law, HL is so far short of the legal bar for proving sincerity of belief that it is not even open to debate.

Can you briefly lay out what you believe the legal bar to be?

[Leaper]

Here’s a question: as far as I can tell (and correct me if I’m wrong), sincere belief is all that matters here, not scientific accuracy. So does this ruling basically say that as long as you sincerely believe it, you can make company policies that pretty much defy scientific truth?

@Bricker

It’s called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It’s been discussed at some length.

I’ve read discussion that speculates that the RFRA is itself unconstitutional, but it’ll practically never be struck down or repealed. Thoughts? And if it ever is found to be unconstitutional, could this current ruling be revisited? (I assume so.)

[Deeg]

@rsa

This argument is so full of bullshit. How much extra do they make by having customers who shop them exclusively for hobby supplies due to Hobby Lobby wearing its religion on its sleeve? If JesusLand was raking in more money than Disney resorts you’d be crying for the great sacrifice in giving up beer profits.

Time Magazine (which is no conservative rag) has an article on HL. The author claims (with no cite) that being closed on Sundays costs “hundreds of millions”. I heard him reiterate this on NPR this morning. I have no idea where/how he came up with this number but it sounds reasonable. $200m+ seems like a significant amount.

[ITR_champion]

@rsa

Huh? Having to pay for medical coverage that is provided to employees of most other companies is not a sacrifice?

Your argument is utterly absurd and specious.

There is no human being anywhere in the country who is being forced to work for Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, or any other private employer. Anybody who chooses to work for a private employer has freely chosen to do so. Thus, to state the obvious, any employee who chooses to work for employers that don’t offer coverage of every single form of contraception is clearly okay with that decision, or at the very least has decided that it doesn’t matter much.

All of the liberals running around like chickens with their heads cut off, shrieking about loss of “access” to contraception of whatnot, have somehow failed to grasp this point. The truth is that no one has found one single example of any employee anywhere in the country who’s dissatisfied with the coverage of contraceptives they get from Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood or any other such employer. So where’s the sacrifice?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@ITR_champion

YAll of the liberals running around like chickens with their heads cut off, shrieking about loss of “access” to contraception of whatnot, have somehow failed to grasp this point. The truth is that no one has found one single example of any employee anywhere in the country who’s dissatisfied with the coverage of contraceptives they get from Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood or any other such employer. So where’s the sacrifice?

I wasn’t aware that such a search was being conducted. Who is (or was?) conducting it and where can we see their methodology and results? :dubious:

[Iggy]

@Leaper

Here’s a question: as far as I can tell (and correct me if I’m wrong), sincere belief is all that matters here, not scientific accuracy. So does this ruling basically say that as long as you sincerely believe it, you can make company policies that pretty much defy scientific truth?..

Basically true. Courts will not review the scientific truth of a religious claim. They can and have reviewed whether a religious belief is sincerely held.
But before anyone tries to hang a serious argument on how a particular contraceptive drug works you should first remember this. Companies do NOT have to prove the mechanism of action of a drug in humans to get it approved by the FDA. The manufacturer must prove the drug is safe and effective and that the benefits outweigh the known risks.

So for Watson Pharmaceuticals to market Ella as a morning after contraceptive in the United States they had to prove it worked for that purpose. They did not have to prove whether or not it caused termination of an already implanted fertilized egg in humans (it did in animal trials).

[Bricker]

@Leaper

Here’s a question: as far as I can tell (and correct me if I’m wrong), sincere belief is all that matters here, not scientific accuracy. So does this ruling basically say that as long as you sincerely believe it, you can make company policies that pretty much defy scientific truth?

I don’t agree that Hobby Lobby’s policies defy scientific truth, but I suppose you could imagine a company whose policy was the truth of Young Earth Creationism, and such a policy would be probably be protected under the RFRA. Of course, the question has to be settled of what the government interest is that runs counter to that company policy, is that interest a compelling one, etc etc.

I’ve read discussion that speculates that the RFRA is itself unconstitutional, but it’ll practically never be struck down or repealed. Thoughts? And if it ever is found to be unconstitutional, could this current ruling be revisited? (I assume so.)

The Supreme Court found the RFRA constitutional in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal. (It did strike down the RFRA to the extent it bound the states, in 1997’s City of Boerne v. Flores. So the Court has said that while it exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers to force the states to conform to the RFRA, it’s perfectly sound that Congress forces the federal government to do so.)

If a future Court found the RFRA unconstitutional for some reason, then that would certainly vitiate the current Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

[2ManyTacos]

Like I said up thread, my central beef with this ruling is the precedent that it sets in how corporations can now exert religious rights and beliefs, which, as a statement of the English f’n language, just resolutely confounds common sense. It’s pure, unadulterated absurdity.

[Bricker]

@2ManyTacos

Like I said up thread, my central beef with this ruling is the precedent that it sets in how corporations can now exert religious rights and beliefs, which, as a statement of the English f’n language, just resolutely confounds common sense. It’s pure, unadulterated absurdity.

Do you understand that when we say a corporation has rights to religious exercise, we mean that the rights extended to corporations are intended to protect the rights of people associated with the corporation, including shareholders, officers, and employees and that protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them?

You keep focusing on the idea that a paper entity can have religious beliefs. Fine – let’s say it can’t. Of course, it can’t do anything – own property, spend money, produce a TV show, conceive and patent a new idea. All of those things are done by corporations, but they are really done by the shareholders, officers, or employees of the corporation. Right?

Do you get that?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Deeg

Time Magazine (which is no conservative rag) has an article on HL. The author claims (with no cite) that being closed on Sundays costs “hundreds of millions”. I heard him reiterate this on NPR this morning. I have no idea where/how he came up with this number but it sounds reasonable. $200m+ seems like a significant amount.

I have not seen the numbers for Hobby Lobby but this sounds to me like the music industry saying piracy costs them $1 billion (or whatever it is). They assume every song pirated = a sale lost which is just not true.

For Hobby Lobby you cannot merely say, “They make an average of $4 million/day so closing on a Sunday means they lose $4 million.” Most people who shop at Hobby Lobby know it is closed on Sundays and merely re-arrange their shopping times to when it is open. Hobby Lobby only loses a sale when someone, foiled at Hobby Lobby being closed on a Sunday, go somewhere else to make their purchase.

No doubt there is some lost revenue but it is difficult to quantify. There is no good way to know how many people make their purchases elsewhere because Hobby Lobby is closed on Sundays. Doubtless there are some but I would be surprised if it is a lot.

[Deeg]

@Whack-a-Mole

I have not seen the numbers for Hobby Lobby but this sounds to me like the music industry saying piracy costs them $1 billion (or whatever it is). They assume every song pirated = a sale lost which is just not true.

Let me reiterate that this was not a value produced strictly by HL but one reported in Time magazine and (presumably) vetted by the author/editor. We can speculate all we want but until a better source comes along I think $200M+ is a reasonable start.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Deeg

Let me reiterate that this was not a value produced strictly by HL but one reported in Time magazine and (presumably) vetted by the author/editor. We can speculate all we want but until a better source comes along I think $200M+ is a reasonable start.

It should (I hope) come as no surprise to you that media sources are not especially reliable…especially these days. If they give no more than an assertion with no backup it doesn’t hurt to give the claims a closer look.

Of course there is a lot that goes in to judging a source and I am making no claims about this source one way or another beyond saying, without details, the numbers seem hard to reconcile.

So, consider that the most recent numbers say that Hobby Lobby had $3.3 billion in revenue in 2013.

$3.3 billion / 313 (365 - 52 Sundays) = $10,543,130/day

So so at that rate they’d be losing $548,242,760 in revenue staying closed on Sundays. This assumes they maintain the same daily average because no one waits to shop with them when they are open other days.

Note revenue and profit are two very different things and I would be shocked if $548 million in revenue came close to being $200 million in profits. If they can maintain profit margins like that (36% on average) they are freaking geniuses (I mean that).

U.S. corporations, on average, currently report a profit of 9.3 cents for every dollar of sales, according to U.S. Commerce Department data — a profit margin of 9.3%. It has gotten only slightly higher than this over the past six decades: In the fourth quarter of 2011, it was 10%. The average since 1952 is 5.9%.

SOURCE: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/high-profit-margins-hint-at-pain-to-come-2013-08-23

So let’s try a 10% profit margin (which as noted is unusually high).

$10,543,130/day revenue = $1,054,313/day profit.

That would be $54,824,276 profit lost staying closed on Sundays.

That is a lot of money by even rich people standards. No doubt about it and a significant hit to the owners of the company. Not killer (considering overall profit) but something they’d definitely feel.

It is not $200 million though (nearly 4x as much).

I’d like to know where that $200 million number came from.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Whack-a-Mole

I’d like to know where that $200 million number came from.

It occurs to me that one way to parse the $200 million number is to say that yes, some people denied shopping on Sunday will come back on Monday (or whenever) and so the $548 million in revenue is estimated to be $200 million in revenue lost over the course of a year.

I can probably go with that.

Of course a loss of $200 million in revenue is $20 million or less in profits.

That is a lot but it is saying they made $330 million instead of $350 million. About a 6% difference in profit. Noticeable but not horrible.

[doorhinge]

@Leaper

…I’ve read discussion that speculates that the RFRA is itself unconstitutional, but it’ll practically never be struck down or repealed. Thoughts? And if it ever is found to be unconstitutional, could this current ruling be revisited? (I assume so.)

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was enacted in, well…, 1993. It hasn’t been found to be unconstitutional, yet. Congress could easily pass another law that modifies or removes the RFRA. Not this Congress, of course, but some future Congress. Or not.

[Antinor01]

@2ManyTacos

Like I said up thread, my central beef with this ruling is the precedent that it sets in how corporations can now exert religious rights and beliefs, which, as a statement of the English f’n language, just resolutely confounds common sense. It’s pure, unadulterated absurdity.

Like how there are companies now that want to be exempt from LGBT discrimination rules and are already requesting such.

[rsa]

@Bricker

Can you briefly lay out what you believe the legal bar to be?

That was sarcasm as counterpoint to furt’s opinion stated as fact. Perhaps we are referring to sincerity in regards to different things.

In any case, I said above that I did not question their sincerity of personal belief. Is anyone here arguing that HL’s Christian orientation is a sham? I don’t think so, so why all this discussion of the straw men of stipulations and cost of being closed on Sundays? The only lack of sincerity I alleged was their new found concern about their employees personal medical decisions.

[rsa]

@ITR_champion

Your argument is utterly absurd and specious.

There is no human being anywhere in the country who is being forced to work for Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, or any other private employer. Anybody who chooses to work for a private employer has freely chosen to do so. Thus, to state the obvious, any employee who chooses to work for employers that don’t offer coverage of every single form of contraception is clearly okay with that decision, or at the very least has decided that it doesn’t matter much.

How could employees be “clearly OK” with a policy that didn’t exist when they were hired? Hobby Lobby employees were covered for two of the four so-called abortifacients until the ACA came along and the HL owners got (more) religion.

All of the liberals running around like chickens with their heads cut off, shrieking about loss of “access” to contraception of whatnot, have somehow failed to grasp this point. The truth is that no one has found one single example of any employee anywhere in the country who’s dissatisfied with the coverage of contraceptives they get from Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood or any other such employer. So where’s the sacrifice?

I’m not all that worked up about the decision, especially after the Court gave additional instruction to lower courts on Tuesday to reconsider similar cases involving any type of contraception. Considering that a recent Gallup poll showed that 88% of Republicans view birth control as morally acceptable (only 5 point less than Dems) it seems like the Hobby Lobby case isn’t going to win them any new votes in a general election.

[rsa]

@rsa

Do you mean these?:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Bricker View Post
[snip]
Do you understand the RFRA’s analysis steps?

Do you mean these?:

a) Can a corporation be a “person” within the meaning of RFRA?
b) Does the birth control mandate place a “substantial burden” on Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs?
c) Does the birth control mandate meet the two-pronged strict scrutiny test (compelling interest + least restrictive means)?

WRT a), That can be argued but is clearly at odds with the “original intent” and the “original meaning”. I thought that was very importatant for the conservative Justices.

WRT b), Well, I am not a lawyer, but I hope that I am a reasonable person. As such, it is clear to me that the answer to b) is NO.

The Hobby Lobby Decision: A Summary & Explanation:

Quote:

…the majority says that the birth control mandate does place a “substantial burden” on Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs. And this sentence is crucial: “The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients.”

Note how carefully Alito worded that sentence, “according to their religious beliefs” these items are abortifacients. He had to word it this carefully because the four contraceptives at issue (Mirena, Paragard, Plan B, and Ella) are NOT, in fact, abortifacients according to the FDA. This is really crucial. The majority allowed Hobby Lobby to define for itself what in fact causes an abortion. There is a difference, you see, between saying “my religious belief is that abortion is immoral” [the religious belief Hobby Lobby has really pushed hard in all its filings] and saying “my religious belief is that Mirena causes abortion.” The first cannot and should not be challenged by a court, if that’s your belief, that’s your belief. The second is a question of fact, which can be proved or disproved via science. Individuals should not be able to declare that anything they dislike causes abortion and therefore avoid any laws relating to that item. Because there is no steady, safe line to draw between those who think IUDs cause abortions and those who think Tylenol causes abortion. Both are scientifically incorrect statements. For a court to accept the first and throw out the second because it’s “ludicrous” is picking and choosing favorites among religious beliefs, an extremely dangerous path.

And summarizing:

Quote:

Substantial burden analysis is empty. Just claim that something burdens your religion, and the Court is fine with you relying on blatantly false statements (x pill is an abortifacient) and does not care if you rely on illogical leaps (an employee using an insurance card I gave them to purchase birth control affects my religious beliefs but an employee using the paycheck I gave them to purchase birth control does not) or attenuated connections (even if I never know whether an employee ever uses their health insurance to use this particular contraceptive, my religious beliefs are still burdened).

WRT c), That’s above my pay grade.

Sorry for reposting my entire post #708, but I never saw any response or comment on any of what I posted.

I would still like to know why conservatives can pick and choose when to consider original meaning and intent. The RFRA was clearly not intended to include corporations as being protected from restrictions on religious freedom. I thought conservatives were opposed to an activist court expanding the original reach of a law.

I am also waiting on some kind of response to the text I quoted regarding “substantial burden”.

You asked me if I understood the the RFRA’s analysis steps. I looked into that and responded as best I could.

I won’t be surprised if any responses continue the trend in this thread toward evasion, deception, and obfuscation.