You’re looking at it from the wrong perspective. Making 20 choices available to a doctor leaves the medical decision in the doctor’s hands. To limit it to fewer choices would be to preempt that medical decision.
No, it isn’t. For goodness sake, we are talking about the RFRA and the Dictionary Act. The Dictionary Act is not a judicial invention. The organization of corporations is a complete creation of state law. Corporate personhood arises from corporate existence at state law.
This is an argument that needs to be buried, never to be seen again. Madison would have looked at you like you were insane if you mentioned the Civil Rights Act(s) or SSM or even the 13th Amendment.
OK. Hobby Lobby shouldn’t rely on the FDA. And of course, if the positions were reversed, and the FDA’s position hurt Hobby Lobby, you’d still say that.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, hilarious. You’d trot out the FDA label as a presumption of accuracy, and say that Hobby Lobby had no business second-guessing the FDA.
In short, you’ll readily, and fluidly, adopt any standard which helps your current position.
A happy coincidence that the plain text of the law they were interpreting ran in precisely the same direction as the majority opinion, then.
What is the remedy for the Hobby Lobby decision? Easy. Amend or repeal The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That’s certainly a more defensible attack against the RFRA than any that have been offered up previously in this thread. People can contort themselves into weird shapes arguing that the law which makes no textual distinction between non-profit and for-profit corporations nonetheless absolutely mandates such a distinction.
But all those arguments are simply a wish that the Court super-legislates to arrives at a preferred policy goal.
Your point is more… meta.
The RFRA arguably does “establish” religion, by elevating it to a area which the lawmakers are required to show great deference.
But of course, that’s what the law did before the RFRA was passed, anyway. (And before the Court decided Employment Division v. Smith.) The RFRA only rec-creates the same analytical framework that existed prior to Employment Division.
So at one time, the Court decided that the First Amendment provided RFRA-type protections. Then it decided that it didn’t – in an opinion by Scalia, I might add. In response, Congress passed the RFRA.
So here’s my question: are you saying the RFRA amounts to an establishment of religion because you think that’s what First Amendment caselaw supports, or just because you’d like to get rid of the RFRA and that seems like a vulnerable attack spot?
Projection by the guy quoting prolife talking points.
But you wanted them to pencil in a clause to the RFRA that says, “…for corporations, this applies only to non-profit corporations, not all corporations.” That line isn’t anywhere in the actual written law. What does “create law” mean, if not that?
My job was at one time to defend, among others, factually guilty people – to ensure that they escaped punishment if the Commonwealth couldn’t prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt; to argue to a judge or jury that they shouldn’t trust evidence that tended to show guilt, regardless of my feelings about the truth of the matter.
Can you explain how you envision that job being done under the rule you propose?
No, I’ll take your word for it. You’re telling me that if the positions were reversed, and the FDA’s position hurt Hobby Lobby, you would NOT valorize their position as the nation’s drug information gatekeeper and argue that Hobby Lobby had no business disregarding them?
Whose freedom of religion is being protected here?
This decision says that my employer can deduct my money from my paycheck and use it to fund health care according to their religion. What happened to my religious rights? What does this do to my freedom of religion? Or is mine so much less important than the corporation’s?
I think it’s safe to assume that depends on the merits of the FDA’s position. The approval process for Plan B and similar drugs was heavily politicized. Heck, we discussed it here at length.
So it’s safe to assume that the process would still be heavily politicized. Let’s assume the process was still heavily politicized, but the FDA decision went the other way.
Do you use that FDA decision in support of your argument?
Honestly?
I don’t think the FDA’s label for Plan B has anything to do with the current weight of evidence regarding Plan B because I understand how FDA labeling works. I also understand that the decision in Hobby Lobby–which I think was probably correct!–has nothing to do with science. You’re the one with a political axe to grind here. I’ve spent the day telling my liberal friends why they are wrong. Your suggestion that I’m some kind of anti-Hobby Lobby crusader is so far off the mark as to be laughable.
Have you bothered to read that NYTimes report yet? If so, what did you think? Did it change your opinion at all about whether Plan B prevents implantation?
No one has legally obligated you to pay for anything you find religiously objectionable. Prior to the SCOTUS ruling, the ACA did create such an obligation for Hobby Lobby. See the difference?
Roll it into Medicaid. How complicated is that? Actually, I wonder if that’s already done.
Wait. Aren’t you the guy who would have ruled the exact same way if there wasn’t a RFRA and instead this case was brought up under the First Amendment?
Sounds like an excellent topic for Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog.
The happy coincidence is that the Supreme Court happened to agree with the “religious freedom” argument offered in this case. They said in Boerne that they don’t feel bound by the RFRA. So I guess they abide by the law when they feel like it and ignore it when they don’t.
I can’t imagine how anyone would feel there’s any arbitrariness in such a policy.
Now go get a shovel and dig it back up. The Civil Rights Amendments were enacted long after Madison was dead.
But the First Amendment? He wrote that. So the only two people who know the original meaning of freedom of religion are James Madison and Antonin Scalia.