The Hobby Lobby Decision Inspired Religious Groups To Ask For An Exemption From A Gay-Rights Order

The Hobby Lobby Decision Inspired Religious Groups To Ask For An Exemption From A Gay-Rights Order

This was the sort of thing about the supreme court decision that concerned me.

This week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of contraception. That decision is beginning to reverberate: A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action.

The letter can be viewed here.
Letter

Basically it's asking for a religious exemption to the upcoming Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Which if approved gives way to an ability to discriminate based on your faith. I find that disturbing and unacceptable. But, on the flip side of that, since a corporation is viewed as a person and protected by the same rights as an actual person do they, and will they have that right?


***Note***The context of the letter does seem to stress "religious organizations" throughout it's reference to said exemption.

a reply to: drivers1492

"they all just kept piling up the tinder.... we stood there and watch this pile just get high and higher, then it ALL went up in flames"

-Survivor, Circa 2050


my mind couldnt even wrap around the whole corporations are people too thing to be able to see these issues... gonna be a wild ride if "religious organizations" and there ability to do what they please becomes a more day to day thing...

how do you hold on to logic when the majority deny it outright?!?! no matter how logical and imperative something is, someone else's "cause my book tells me so" can just as easily be what gets held up as truth/right...
ugh i need some coffee..

I think it's time religion was just banned. Send those weird cults underground where they belong.

a reply to: mindseye1609

I do think the courts are going to have to deal with a surge of cases dealing with exemptions of various types based on belief. It will be interesting how it's dealt with for sure. It's difficult for me since I do support freedom of religion even though I have none personally to work out honest motivations in some cases.

a reply to: BasementWarriorKryptonite

I personally couldn't support something like that. Faith and religions are to ingrained into the worlds culture to think it would have any sort of positive outcome. I do feel there needs to be distinction between corporations operating in the public sector and the rights they have concerning the faith of the owners. While many disagree, in my opinion, once you step away from a purely religious entity and enter the public sector as a operating business you should be required to function without exception the laws attributed to all business.

Gosh! What a shock! I didn't see this coming!

:rolleyes:

originally posted by: BasementWarriorKryptonite
I think it's time religion was just banned. Send those weird cults underground where they belong.

There's nothing wrong with religion. If they would just mind their own business and not try to force others to behave according to their beliefs, we'd be fine.

Keep religion out of government! Oops! Too late!

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic

originally posted by: BasementWarriorKryptonite
I think it's time religion was just banned. Send those weird cults underground where they belong.

There's nothing wrong with religion. If they would just mind their own business and not try to force others to behave according to their beliefs, we'd be fine.

Keep religion out of government! Oops! Too late!

The same can be said about the LGBT community.

Why would a gay person want to work for someone who they don't agree with?

originally posted by: thesaneone

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
There's nothing wrong with religion. If they would just mind their own business and not try to force others to behave according to their beliefs, we'd be fine.

The same can be said about the LGBT community.

No. Gay people aren't trying to force others to behave as if they're gay.

This is what bother me here. The letter, not so much. One could expect something like this is the aftermath of of the SCOTUS decision.

In the letter to President Obama, it is stated that the authors object to

your planned executive order disqualifying organizations that do not hire LGBT Americans from receiving federal contracts.

(emphasis added)

Since when on a job application does it ever ask you to disclose your sexual preference or identity. I've never seen one. In fact it seems to me like it is some sort violation of civil rights for those who may still be in the closet to be forced to disclose.

So the government is planning to make this disclosure mandatory in order to grant contracts? Would companies that are looking for a federal contract be ok with asking this of the employees and applicants? Will there have to be at least one token LGBT employee in every workplace?

Thats when I started looking for a conspiracy here. Whose hands are involved?

According to the source,

It comes from a group of faith leaders who are generally friendly to the administration, many of whom have closely advised the White House on issues like immigration reform. The letter was organized by Michael Wear, who worked in the Obama White House and directed faith outreach for the president's 2012 campaign. Signers include two members of Catholics for Obama and three former members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Obama friendly source here to say the least.

Could this letter just be a method of trying to knock down the SCOTUS ruling? Could it have been publishedjust to play devil's advocate to the American people showing the possible other side of the coin?

Either way. Forcing a company to ask applicants to disclose their sexual preference just for federal contract, you'd think those [sarcasm] crazy bible thumping RightWIngNuts[/sarcasm] would have been the first to try this one.

a reply to: youdidntseeme

way to watch the other hand brother..

bravo

a reply to: youdidntseeme

I saw that part you quoted as well. A corp. should never be allowed to concern themselves with the sexuality of an applicant. Nor should anyone for that matter unless the individual feels it's something they wish to share.

a reply to: drivers1492

This is true, but we have laws that prevent hiring on the basis of religion, race and nationality as well and these aren't readily apparent, either, nor are they questions on applications. I think it's going to have to come down to employees saying, "I didn't hire him because he's gay" instead of actually asking on an application, to have any real meaning. It seems this executive order is going to be more for show - going into the 2014 elections - than having any real result.

I can just imagine Obama and Holder right now...

"Dude, just what in the hell is it going to take to make these crakas start shooting one another? We've tried everything, but nothing seems to work."

"I think we might have used too much fluoride boss."

If women can't get contraception under this decision then bakers don't have to serve gays. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

originally posted by: Restricted
If women can't get contraception under this decision then bakers don't have to serve gays. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

That right there is what I'm waiting to hit the courts for argument.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic

originally posted by: BasementWarriorKryptonite
I think it's time religion was just banned. Send those weird cults underground where they belong.

There's nothing wrong with religion. If they would just mind their own business and not try to force others to behave according to their beliefs, we'd be fine.

That door swings both ways ya know?

a reply to: Bone75

irony at its finest...

OK, I realize that legal decisions can be tricky to understand. Sometimes I think they're written that way intentionally. This one (Hobby Lobby) isn't that tough.

Hobby Lobby objected to covering 4 of the 20 forms of birth control the mandate ordered them to cover. The Supreme Court said "Well, what do you know? Here's a law that deals with this very question. An Act by Congress says that the government can burden religious practices IF they show that the Government has a compelling interest, and IF they serve that interest in the least restrictive way possible." The Court accepted, without any discussion, the idea that the government had a compelling interest.

The Act, RFRA, was passed by a unanimous House and there were only three "no" votes in the Senate. Clinton signed it in 1993. This is not a Republican law.

The Court said that HHS had a less restrictive alternative already in place, in fact many organizations were signed up for it. Since that was the case, forcing Hobby Lobby into the more restrictive alternative violated RFRA and was illegal.

There was no great Constitutional fight or weighing religious rights against anything else. It was simply that HHS broke the law and so, they couldn't enforce the mandate.

And no, the Court didn't say that that the entire mandate for birth control was invalid, they only returned the cases involving the complete birth control mandate to lower courts for reconsideration based on the ruling in this case.

www.scotusblog.com...

All these letter writers are asking for is a conscience exception in the law telling religious groups who they can hire. If they don't get it, I can't wait until someone from Westboro Baptist demands to be hired by a mosque.

originally posted by: drivers1492
a reply to: BasementWarriorKryptonite

I personally couldn't support something like that. Faith and religions are to ingrained into the worlds culture to think it would have any sort of positive outcome. I do feel there needs to be distinction between corporations operating in the public sector and the rights they have concerning the faith of the owners. While many disagree, in my opinion, once you step away from a purely religious entity and enter the public sector as a operating business you should be required to function without exception the laws attributed to all business.

What you say only makes sense to people who are rational. Please remember that we are dealing with illiogical and irrational control freaks that either want us to follow them or burn.

Religion may be ingrained in society, but it is so destructive that all you have to do is look around you to be so utterly appalled at the state of the world because of it, it leaves you with truly only one option.

They have had their thousands of years and fked it up immesurably.