Are Laws that Favor One Religion over Another a Violation of the First Amendment?

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: butcherguy

The Supreme court granted an exemption to the contraceptive mandate.

Most contraceptives in the Hobby Lobby case will still be provided by Hobby Lobby and are therefore not affected. That's what USA today is saying.

From the Decision

Held: As applied to closely held corporations, the HHS regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate RFRA. Pp. 16–49.
...
)
HHS’s contraceptive mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion. Pp. 31–38
...
The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga . . . would deny [their employees] access to contraceptive
coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure”)

The SCOTUS ruled on what the plaintiff brought forward, nothing else.

If some other company wants to be exempted for something other than the four in the suit, they need to bring it up through the courts in another suit.... unless of course Emperor Obama decides to change the law... which he likes to do.

originally posted by: ABNARTY
With corporations are people and money is free speech, expect nothing but more of the same as this is the insanity this road produces. The 1st Amendment becomes jibberish.

I completely agree. The slippery slope has turned into the edge of a cliff and we are on our way down.

originally posted by: butcherguy
The SCOTUS ruled on what the plaintiff brought forward, nothing else.

It would be nice if you could back that up by finding it in the decision.

I think we might be in danger of going down a road where the gov't or courts will be deciding weather the merit of any belief is worthy of being protected.
One places birth control on a higher pedestal than something else but well how can anyone determine the order a person's belief would fall outside of the person themselves?
So yes I think in the end we just might end up propping up some relilgions and beliefs above others.

And one needs to consider now.
ACA still requires YOU to obtain insurance that contains birth control regardless of your beliefs. Unless you are a lucky business owner or is employed by one your beliefs still aren't protect.

a reply to: butcherguy

The SCOTUS ruling did not affect all contraceptive measures.

Of course it did. There are already exemptions in place for Catholic non-profits, for example, that allow for them to deny any and all contraception, written into the ACA. What happened yesterday, was an extension of those pre-written religious exemptions, already afforded to non profit churches and religious entities, to for profit corporation with religious views.

The court ruled, that like the employees of those religious non-profits, Hobby Lobby's et al, employees can use Title X, (Planned Parenthood) to procure the contraception that Hobby Lobby won't. They ruled that the exemptions and the path to access was already in place and the same remedy could be used to accommodate Hobby Lobby's, et al, disenfranchised employees.

The court in no way discriminated against Catholic employers who can now and will continue to deny ALL contraception coverage.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: butcherguy

The Supreme court granted an exemption to the contraceptive mandate.

Most contraceptives in the Hobby Lobby case will still be provided by Hobby Lobby and are therefore not affected. That's what USA today is saying.

From the Decision

Held: As applied to closely held corporations, the HHS regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate RFRA. Pp. 16–49.
...
)
HHS’s contraceptive mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion. Pp. 31–38
...
The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga . . . would deny [their employees] access to contraceptive
coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure”)

I think that a couple of people here should read the opinion of the majority in this decision. Repeatedly, the issue of what the plaintiffs want is mentioned. The subject is listed over and over, if you read it. It is the FOUR different contraceptive methods that prevent a fertilized egg from implantation in the womb.
The court did not go anywhere past that point in giving companies a reason to be exempted. I would like someone to show me where they did that, if they did.

PERSON

Something in the case refers to something called the Dictionary Act.

As we noted above, RFRA applies to "a person's" exercise of religion, 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb-1(a) , (b) , and RFRA itself does not define the term "person." We therefore look to the Dictionary Act, which we must consult "[i ]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise." 1 U.S.C. §1 .

Under the Dictionary Act, "the wor[d] 'person' . . . include[s] corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals." Ibid .; see FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U.S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 6) ("We have no doubt that 'person,' in a legal setting, often refers to artificial entities. The Dictionary Act makes that clear"). Thus, unless there is something about the RFRA context that "indicates otherwise," the Dictionary Act provides a quick, clear, and affirmative answer to the question whether the companies involved in these cases may be heard.

We see nothing in RFRA that suggests a congressional intent to depart from the Dictionary Act definition, and HHS makes little effort to argue otherwise. We have entertained RFRA and free-exercise claims brought by nonprofit corporations, see Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficiente União do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006) (RFRA); Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. ___ (2012) (Free Exercise); Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520 (1993) (Free Exercise), and HHS concedes that a nonprofit corporation can be a "person" within the meaning of RFRA. See Brief for HHS in No. 13-354, at 17; Reply Brief in No. 13-354, at 7-8. 19

This concession effectively dispatches any argument that the term "person" as used in RFRA does not reach the closely held corporations involved in these cases. No known understanding of the term "person" includes some but not all corporations. The term "person" sometimes encompasses artificial persons (as the Dictionary Act instructs), and it sometimes is limited to natural persons. But no conceivable definition of the term includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations. 20 Cf. Clark v. Martinez, 543 U. S. 371 , 378 (2005) ("To give th[e] same words a different meaning for each category would be to invent a statute rather than interpret one").

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

a reply to: butcherguy

So, you're saying the court ruled on specific contraceptives and NOT the contraceptive mandate?

I say, "Keep telling yourself that".

a reply to: butcherguy

I am not sure if it does or doesn't but
what makes the belief that these few drugs is more worthy of protection than the belief that all birth control is
or for that matter the belief that a women should be support by their husbands and therefore should be relying on his insurance to cover her? or maybe even that she shouldn't be in the workforce at all unless of course her husband believes she should be!

They are beliefs that are held by mainstream religions!
If religious beliefs should be protected well shouldn't they all?

The Obama administration ACA should not have improperly classified abortion pills as contraceptives to begin with.

Abortion pills are not contraceptives.

Hobby Lobby's plan still offers many forms of contraceptives, free with no co-pay.

The ACA does not cover abortions so why no faux outrage over that? Why no boycott of obamacare for not covering abortions, hypocrites?

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: butcherguy

So, you're saying the court ruled on specific contraceptives and NOT the contraceptive mandate?

I say, "Keep telling yourself that".

If the SCOTUS rules on a murder case where the former conviction is overturned, do all murderers get to go free?

The case is specific to the plaintiffs complaints.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Here's a question for you:

Why are so eager to let society into your bedroom and uterus? I thought you wanted us out of it. If that's really what you want, then you wouldn't be so eager to demand that we spend our money to pay for what you do in it and with it.

a reply to: Deny Arrogance

would you like me to gripe about the whole picture?

women are being charge for manslaughter for having miscarriages

churches teaching women that God is commanding them to be obedient in all things
partners who feel that a marriage license means on demand sex!
a man needs a job the women has a husband to support her or danged well should have!

and birth control is more an elective thing not worthy of insurance coverage the women can purchase it if she wants it

and well we won't discuss the small young girl from
Brazil who ended up pregnant from I beieve it was her fathers fondness of her
heck a whole team of physicians were trying to get permission to give the girl an abortion on the basis it was a great risk to the girl and many on this forum still claimed that she should be denied the doctors could easily be lying and there was a small chance that she could deliver the baby!!!

not everyone will agree with all these ideas but I believe that more than a few who are dead set against the birth control mandate accepts most of them also.
Welll add them all together and what do you get??
Women shouldn't have any say on just how many kids they have? The man can have but not the women!
I believe that is the goal of the spirit behind the right to life crowd

a reply to: ketsuko

I think you have it wrong. It was Hobby Lobby that was worried that their employees would make the wrong choice. They were the ones hanging out in their employees bedrooms, making sure that no pseudo "abortions" were taking place, on their behalf.

Hobby Lobby didn't trust their employees to make decisions on their own, and felt the need to interject and limit their choice. They were the ones that went crying to the Supreme Court to make sure that they could limit their untrustworthy employees' choices.

The ACA doesn't mandate anyone use contraception. just that all FDA approved methods are available.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: ketsuko

I think you have it wrong. It was Hobby Lobby that was worried that their employees would make the wrong choice. They were the ones hanging out in their employees bedrooms, making sure that no pseudo "abortions" were taking place, on their behalf.

Hobby Lobby didn't trust their employees to make decisions on their own, and felt the need to interject and limit their choice. They were the ones that went crying to the Supreme Court to make sure that they could limit their untrustworthy employees' choices.

The ACA doesn't mandate anyone use contraception. just that all FDA approved methods are available.

No, they weren't. If they were doing that, they would have said, "If you do this, we won't employ you anymore." And they would have been wrong. Instead, they were saying, "We will pay for insurance that covers A-P, but if you choose to opt for Q-T, you will do that on your own."

Now, you can say they were "choosing" for the employee, but options A-P are 16 alternatives to Q-T, and Q-T are available but the employee's sole responsibility. However, if you don't like it, then you should be willing to pony up and pay for all of your care for yourself, and the health care costs in this country should NEVER have changed, but thanks to Democrat instituted wage controls back in the day, employers started offering insurance as a perk to lure in better talent. Now, everyone expects that someone else will pay, and when you expect someone else to pay, you give them control in the decision.

When you were growing up, did your parents give you power of the purse or did they control the spending? Making the system ever more centralized will only make this worse, not better, because you will only be adding more people into the system who will disagree even more with different aspects of how the money is being spent, on whom, and why.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

I wont get in to the religion/BC issue. It appears you are handling that well enough on your own, but I would like to comment on this:

And finally, is it all right with you that a billion-dollar corporation is considered a "person"?

Absolutely not.

Our founding fathers were very, very leery of corporations considering their fight against the corporations of England. That is why we fought the revolution.

There were rules put in place to keep corporations in check. For example: The corporation had to exist to make a product or service that served the public good. The head of the corporation was personally liable for any misdeeds of the corporation. It was not allowed to spend money to influence laws or politics in any way and if the corporation stepped out of line just a little bit, they faced having their charter pulled and the corp shut down.

For a long time after the revolution, a corporate charter was very hard to get because the people still had a bad taste in their mouths from the English corporations.

But it appears that we have failed once again to learn from the past and we have let the US corporations become more important than the individual. We are right back where we started.

a reply to: sheepslayer247

and at the moment the religious beliefs of these corps are superceeding the individuals when it comes to protection!

Ok, I see all this whining about losing your rights as an individual, but what you are all losing sight of is that in order to have your rights as an individual, you have to take full responsibility for yourself as an individual. If you try to foist on off, then you will necessarily lose the other. When you demand that someone else take responsibility for you by paying your way, then you will lose your rights. It's unavoidable. Why do you think so many of us fight to hard against losing the right to pay our own way? Do you think we like that extra bill every month? Do you think we like the reality that some can't pay?

NO.

We merely understand that the only way to secure your rights as an individual is to take full responsibility for yourself as an individual.

But now, you've made sure we've lost that, all of us.

BH...my wife was cussing like a sailor when she heard what the court did...and of course being a smartass husband, I said, "when are you women going to do something about it"...I'm in the doghouse.......again

a reply to: ketsuko
maybe you should find the battlefield somewhere outside of the birth control that is being covered by insurance then??
you are attacking those who are being as responsible as they can be and throwing obsticles into their path
screaming about responsibility and how we all should be carrying our own weight
and doing very little about the fact that more and more people are finding themselves in the position of having very little choice but to allow someone to share responsibiility
and when it comes to religion and women I would like to point out that the religion is the one with the doctrines that place men as responsible for the women!

"When you demand that someone else take responsibility for you by paying your way,"

when it comes to healthcare isn't this the very basis of insurance??? you pay them a small amount of money and they pay much more if you happen to get sick enough and start stacking up the bills?
if you got seriously ill could you "pay your own way"??