Are suggesting a person can claim a religious exemption from any law they don’t like?
This is not what Schumer said. You are very incorrect.
Nice try, Hannity. We’re on to you.
Well, take these guys. No question, their religious beliefs were not just infringed on, they were sent to prison.
Of course, two of their children died as a consequence of those beliefs.
Which illustrates the point that one’s right to practice one’s alleged religious beliefs isn’t unlimited, and when supposed beliefs conflict with the government’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its citizens, then damned straight the beliefs should lose.
That would even apply to some extent even to the adult practitioners of the religion in question. If a cult believes in human sacrifice, it’s out of bounds, even if there’s an 18 year old virgin who is willing and eager to give her life on the altar. If some obscure denomination’s members all want to have a hand and a foot amputated and an eye put out in a weird response to Mark 9:43-47, sorry, but they’re SOL.
So yeah, there are situations where the adherents of a religion would have to suck it up in the face of government infringement on those beliefs. We’ve established the principle; the only question is where the line should be drawn.
I realize that hyperbole is your schtick but this seems over-the-top, even for you. It’s belief in crap like this that puts you on the same level as a Creationist.
No. I’m suggesting that if a law forces someone to violate their religion, the law has to pass strict scrutiny.
Actually, I’m more than suggesting it. That’s the law.
Perhaps my position can be made more clear with this statement: I do not give two shits what invisible friend you think you have. I don’t give two shits what your religious conviction is. I could not care less if you think he’s whispering in your ear, telling you to murder that person who insulted your family. We have laws for a reason. I will say flat-out that a person’s religious conviction should have absolutely nothing to do with how a law is treated. There is exactly one reason religion should matter for a law, and that is when the sole or main purpose of the law is to fuck with religious beliefs.
Anything else though? If the law has a rational, secular component that can be defended on its own merits, then your claim that it “violates your beliefs” means about as much to me as your claim that the invisible leprechaun who lives in your head told you to burn down the orphanage. I don’t care what delusions you have, regardless of how earnest and well-meaning they may be. This is a secular democracy. There is a separation between the church and the state. If a law with a real secular purpose (in this case: mandating all companies to provide a baseline standard of healthcare for their employees, and this baseline standard contains birth control at the behest of numerous medical associations) intersects with your religion in a way you don’t like… Well, tough shit.
We’ve got 7 billion people on this rock, and all of them believe different things. We can’t mold our laws to accommodate everyone’s fantasies. What we can do is construct a legal framework in which all members of society benefit, and religions can exercise their beliefs. Where we recognize that while your religious belief may be earnest, it does not allow you to skirt the law. Or, you know, “You have to obey the precepts of that religion and the government gives you a wide penumbra”. Huh. Where’d I hear that before?
Well, I happen to think that the RFRA is a phenomenally dumb piece of work that has absolutely no business existing in a secular democracy. The law should not mold itself around the whims of a person’s faith, because what those whims are can be almost anything from person to person. Your religious freedom, like all freedoms, is curtailed by many things. It is not absolute, it is not perfect, it does not subvert everything else. If it is against the law to deny your child medical treatment, but your personal faith demands it of you, tough shit! The law exists for a reason, and the only time your religious exercise should be considered above the law is when the law is clearly designed to attack your religious exercise. Anything else, anything beyond that, I have absolutely no sympathy for you. None. Your delusion is not my problem.
So Congress can pass laws that force people to violate their religious beliefs, and they just have to suck it up.
Only if the law in question serves a compelling government interest and does so in the least restrictive means possible. That’s a pretty heavy duty standard to meet.
I’m not sure what’s so unreasonable about recognizing exceptions for laws in which there is no compelling interest at stake, or the government can fulfill the interest through means that don’t infringe.
The precedent. Also, the discrimination. I don’t believe in any god, but I have a strong personal conviction that I want to smoke a joint and not get hassled about it! It’s not about to get me (or my Rastafarian friends, who actually do have a religious justification for it) out of trouble. And I can actually back up my interest in that with more than “my psychosis told me so”. Also, if you’re going to bring up the hobby lobby case as an example where there’s “no compelling interest at stake”, just… no. No, there is a compelling interest at stake - the interest of the goddamn employees!
The court may have agreed with you on that(analysts differ), but the government has other means to fulfill that interest.
Secondly, there’s a world of difference between not allowing someone to do something their religion permits or encourages(but doesn’t require), and forcing someone to do something their religion prohibits. Contraception is a no-no among Catholics. this is not some surprising revelation that most people only just found out about. Abortion is an even bigger no-no to a wide variety of faiths. Again, not a surprise. This was a provocative regulation that was not actually required by law. It was akin to forcing Jewish business owners to buy their employees a free ham on Thanksgiving.
Finally, the administration recognized how provocative it was, since they issued exemptions from the start. Alito’s majority opinion pointed out that if there are already exceptions for religious faith, there’s a) no reason to treat organizations differently, and b) it’s obviously not going to do any harm. Do church employees need contraception less than Hobby Lobby employees? Once you start handing out exemptions, it’s hard to argue that the law is really so damn important. Truly important laws don’t have exemptions. No one is permitted to rape, murder, steal, perform surgery without a license, commit arson, or marry a 9-year old.
So the answer is yes.
The owner of my company (before it was bought up) is a Hindu. Would it have been okay for him to ban his employees from eating meat bought with money they had acquired from the company?
Eating meat is against his religion.
Shit Adahere, keep this up and you’re going to get this thread merged with the *other *one.
(Fortunately you’ve got that odd little backward-walking RedShirt chap to balance you out.)
Everywhere but Texas, where Bar-B-Q is considered a sacrament.
Visit Colorado. There are dozens of stores where you can walk in and, after proving you’re 21, choose from among 50 different strains of lovingly cultivated strains of weed while some enthusiastic stoner talks your ear off about the pros and cons of each one. Or pick out some pot-infused brownies, or some THC extract, or some hash oil, or some things you’ve never even heard of and would never think of doing with pot. They’ll even roll the joints right there for you. As long as you don’t spark up in the bank lobby right before you go for a drive, it is A-OK with the authorities.
But be warned: pot makes you boring, and there is no rebellion in it when it is legal. You’re probably better off being square.
This really isn’t analogous to the current situation. Hobby Lobby isn’t preventing anyone from purchasing contraception. If your question were rephrased to “Could the government require him to provide his employees with meat?”, I would think that the answer would be no.
The problem with Hobby Lobby is that it tries to restrict the scope in way that is not logically defensible. The decision explicitly says the undue burden only exists in the case of birth control that someone sincerely (but wrongly) believes to cause abortions, not blood transfusions, or general medical care. The SC has privilege religious objections to abortion (real or imaginary) above all other religious consideration. Funny coincidence, all of the majority belong to a relegion that objects to both abortions and birth control.
The only other way I can figure it is almost Der Trihsian: Women’s issue rate so low for them that they place one man’s confused discomfort above the health of hundreds of women.
Imma give it a 7/10.
But my employer compensates me with a paycheck, which I choose to use to purchase something that violates his religion.
Hobby Lobby compensates their employees with medical insurance which the employees may not use to purchase something that violates Hobby Lobby’s owners’ religion.
Why the difference? In neither case is the religious person being asked to violate their own beliefs.