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 Buzzsaw wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Smug much?

Anyway, can you please tell me how creating a law explicitly enabling the goverment to impose substantial burdens on the exercise of religion does not violate the Establishment Clause? I've tried to answer every question you've put to me, so please answer me this.

... what?

I... what?

Okay, fair enough: if you think RFRA works that way, then you have no idea how RFRA works. I'm sorry, there is no simpler explanation then that. RFRA does not work the way you state.

You are evading my question. The law explicitly enables the goverment to impose substantial burdens on the exercise of religion under a set of circumstances. We can all read:

"Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person— (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."

Perhaps a rephrasing of the question is in order.

Can you please explain how this:

Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person— (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

does not violate this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Just a straight answer, if you please.





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 Buzzsaw wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
...
It seems to me, and correct me if 'm wrong, that your whole argument hinges on the fact that corporations are "persons" entitled to the same rights enumerated for actual persons. We won't see eye to eye on this issue, as IMO it is absurd and even pernicious on its face.

And again, while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, it one that is not widely shared by the legal profession, at least with regards to this jurisprudence.

For what its worth, I do know that corporations are considered persons legally. It is absurd, illogical, and pernicious that this is so, and I am in support of any legal or constitutional effort to separately enumerate the rights of corporations, so we are not left with the absurd notion that corporations are entitled to the same rights that the founders spelled out for citizens.

I have a serious question. When a corporations rights to speech, religion etc are infringed upon who's rights are beign infringed? Is it the stockholders, employees, executives, the board, exemp workers, non-exempt workers, community members, etc? That is what I don't understand about the Corporate personhood rulings.

In this case, the owners ( of a closely held corporation) seem to be the rights being infringed upon. However, by the ruling a closely held coroporation is 5 or less people owning more than 50% of the stock. So, those 5 peopels rights outweight everyone elses?

 Easy E wrote:
I have a serious question. When a corporations rights to speech, religion etc are infringed upon who's rights are beign infringed? Is it the stockholders, employees, executives, the board, exemp workers, non-exempt workers, community members, etc? That is what I don't understand about the Corporate personhood rulings.

In this case, the owners ( of a closely held corporation) seem to be the rights being infringed upon. However, by the ruling a closely held coroporation is 5 or less people owning more than 50% of the stock. So, those 5 peopels rights outweight everyone elses?

Yes. No one else has a right in the situation in the first place, appears to be the argument. As noted this was not even a requirement under the actual ACA law, but made up out of whole cloth by the Obama administration. HL isn't even required to provide healthcare at all.

EDIT: The simple answer of course is to go to a Canadian system. I call dibs on the maple donuts!

There seems to be some confusion about the RFRA here.

The act does not place a burden on anyone's free exercise of religion. Government has always been able to do that. The Court developed a pretty severe limit on it during the 1960s, however, requiring that the government show it has a compelling interest in doing so. The Court then narrowed this "compelling interest" test in 1990 by requiring that the law at issue target a particular religious practice. Congress was not persuaded this adequately protected free exercise and so passed the RFRA.

 Manchu wrote:
There seems to be some confusion about the RFRA here.

The act does not place a burden on anyone's free exercise of religion. Government has always been able to do that. The Court developed a pretty severe limit on it during the 1960s, however, requiring that the government show it has a compelling interest in doing so. The Court then narrowed this "compelling interest" test in 1990 by requiring that the law at issue target a particular religious practice. Congress was not persuaded this adequately protected free exercise and so passed the RFRA.

So do you not think that the following exerpt from the RFRA gives explicit license for the government to indeed place substantial burdens on a person's exercise of religion, so long as they meet the criteria for doing so? I'm not talking about design or intent, here, just the actual law itself.

Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person— (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Nothing about the RFRA licenses the government to burden free exercise. That license is already a given. For example, FLDS men are not allowed to marry more than one wife.

The RFRA sets higher standard (than the Supreme Court circa 1990) on what the government must show in order to burden free exercise.

OK, I understand your point.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I have a serious question. When a corporations rights to speech, religion etc are infringed upon who's rights are beign infringed? Is it the stockholders, employees, executives, the board, exemp workers, non-exempt workers, community members, etc? That is what I don't understand about the Corporate personhood rulings.

In this case, the owners ( of a closely held corporation) seem to be the rights being infringed upon. However, by the ruling a closely held coroporation is 5 or less people owning more than 50% of the stock. So, those 5 peopels rights outweight everyone elses?

Yes. No one else has a right in the situation in the first place, appears to be the argument. As noted this was not even a requirement under the actual ACA law, but made up out of whole cloth by the Obama administration. HL isn't even required to provide healthcare at all.

EDIT: The simple answer of course is to go to a Canadian system. I call dibs on the maple donuts!

Okay. Seems wierd but our system does try to protect the minority opinion from that of the majority opinion.

Also, I see you also agree that this ruling brings us closer to a single-payer system.

Yep

 Manchu wrote:
Nothing about the RFRA licenses the government to burden free exercise. That license is already a given. For example, FLDS men are not allowed to marry more than one wife.

The RFRA sets higher standard (than the Supreme Court circa 1990) on what the government must show in order to burden free exercise.

Which just seems weird to me.

We went from the Supreme Court saying "nobody is discriminating against you, it applies to anybody equally so deal with it" which sounds like it should have just nipped that law in the butt once it made it to the Supreme Court the first time. But go figure.


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 Frazzled wrote:
Yep

And also one of the few areas we agree on.

I think it will probably bring us to a single-payer system via the public option.

Step one: "Don't want to provide stuff? I guess we will make a Government health insurance plan that provides it instead."
Step two: "Oh look, we can subsidize this plan with some taxes and base it on a sliding scale. I guess we are going to be a lot cheaper than all those other plans out there..."
Step three: "All the other plans are broke and no longer on the market? I guess we are the only one left. Might as well keep it that way..."

Going back to the OP: the Hobby Lobby ruling doesn't affect, of all things, sterilization or all uses of the most common EC (levonorgestrel); which renders the majority dissent impotent at best.

 Easy E wrote:

Also, I see you also agree that this ruling brings us closer to a single-payer system.

How such a system will be administered remains to be seen, particularly given the conservative resistance to legalized abortion and gay marriage.

<deleted - misunderstood earlier post>

 dogma wrote:
Going back to the OP: the Hobby Lobby ruling doesn't affect, of all things, sterilization or all uses of the most common BC (levonorgestrel); which renders the majority dissent impotent at best.

It actually covers all forms of birth control.

Edit:

After all the justifications in the majority opinion and all the legal talk, the actual ruling is just three sentences long. Specifically:

The contraceptive mandate, as applied to closely held
corporations, violates RFRA.

Which means that this ruling does not just cover the four items that were specifically addressed, but all forms of birth control. This was even mentioned during oral arguments.

 whembly wrote:
Are you seriously taking the position that women are incapable of buying their own BC?

Are you seriously arguing that an employer should get to decide what goods and services an employee may spend their remuneration on?

Simple reality is, the employer provides cash to the employee. This may be spent on all kinds of things the employer finds immoral. The employer just has to deal with that. That really doesn't change when the employer is providing health insurance as well as cash.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
As someone researching his pension options because of an employer lead change this is very true

Yep. And a basic of life is that we do what we can to negate that, but ultimately we are very limited in how much we can control our money and understand what that money does once we put it out there in the world.

Unless, of course, that money is spent on insurance for our employees. Then apparently we have a direct moral responsibility for what insurance services those employees access, and that moral responsibility is so strong it can be supported by the Supreme Court.

This is a very scary decision, and if I was in the US I'd be very worried.
Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.
Diabetic? Sorry, that insulin comes from pigs, that's against Islam.
Need a blood transfusion? Sorry, not if your employer is a JW.
It's a slippery slope.

 marv335 wrote:
This is a very scary decision, and if I was in the US I'd be very worried.
Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.
Diabetic? Sorry, that insulin comes from pigs, that's against Islam.
Need a blood transfusion? Sorry, not if your employer is a JW.
It's a slippery slope.

Don't worry, the ruling explicitly states that only things that "mainstream" conservative Christians hate can be excluded.

 marv335 wrote:
This is a very scary decision, and if I was in the US I'd be very worried.
Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.
Diabetic? Sorry, that insulin comes from pigs, that's against Islam.
Need a blood transfusion? Sorry, not if your employer is a JW.
It's a slippery slope.

Even more scary...your employer doesn't have to provide insurance.

In five years it won't.

 Frazzled wrote:

 marv335 wrote:
This is a very scary decision, and if I was in the US I'd be very worried.
Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.
Diabetic? Sorry, that insulin comes from pigs, that's against Islam.
Need a blood transfusion? Sorry, not if your employer is a JW.
It's a slippery slope.

Even more scary...your employer doesn't have to provide insurance.

In five years it won't.

Which is a good thing.

Good companies will continue to provide good benefits to keep good people, regardless of government mandate (of which there should be none.)

 marv335 wrote:

Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.

Not true at all. As long as ACA is on the books, this means that, as long as employers must provide, or have some arrangement that gets you health insurance coverage, that there are certain things that must be covered in order to meet the "ACA requirements"

If you look very closely at a current Metal plan from an ACA provider, you'll see some pretty major fething gaps in the coverage.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Are you seriously taking the position that women are incapable of buying their own BC?

Are you seriously arguing that an employer should get to decide what goods and services an employee may spend their remuneration on?

Simple reality is, the employer provides cash to the employee. This may be spent on all kinds of things the employer finds immoral. The employer just has to deal with that. That really doesn't change when the employer is providing health insurance as well as cash.

Isn't it past time for us to bring back the Company Store and Company Script?

 Easy E wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Are you seriously taking the position that women are incapable of buying their own BC?

Are you seriously arguing that an employer should get to decide what goods and services an employee may spend their remuneration on?

Simple reality is, the employer provides cash to the employee. This may be spent on all kinds of things the employer finds immoral. The employer just has to deal with that. That really doesn't change when the employer is providing health insurance as well as cash.

Isn't it past time for us to bring back the Company Store and Company Script?

I think there's a narrow strip of ground when it comes to non-cash benefits that are mandated. I'm sure companies would try to restrict how their employees spend their paychecks if they could.

But there's at least something to the idea that the government shouldn't force somebody to buy something they find immoral. I don't find it super compelling, but it's a legit debate for me.

 Frazzled wrote:

 marv335 wrote:
This is a very scary decision, and if I was in the US I'd be very worried.
Setting aside the contraception issue, what it boils down to is that if your employer's religion doesn't like a treatment, you (potentially) can't have it on your insurance.
Diabetic? Sorry, that insulin comes from pigs, that's against Islam.
Need a blood transfusion? Sorry, not if your employer is a JW.
It's a slippery slope.

Even more scary...your employer doesn't have to provide insurance.

In five years it won't.

Why in five years?

I'm an optimist. 2 years?

No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

He reckons that's how long ACA/ "Obamacare" will last... after 5 years, the law will be replaced or gotten rid of, so employers will no longer be required to offer health plans.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

He reckons that's how long ACA/ "Obamacare" will last... after 5 years, the law will be replaced or gotten rid of, so employers will no longer be required to offer health plans.

No way Jose... no Republican will be able to overcome Hillary Clinton. She's running bro and she ain't signing off any PPACA repeal.

 whembly wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

He reckons that's how long ACA/ "Obamacare" will last... after 5 years, the law will be replaced or gotten rid of, so employers will no longer be required to offer health plans.

No way Jose... no Republican will be able to overcome Hillary Clinton. She's running bro and she ain't signing off any PPACA repeal.

In order to repeal the ACA, Republicans will actually have to win the White House. They've so alienated themselves from so much of the population, its hard to imagine this happening anytime soon without a sincere rehabilitation of their platform.

They may be able to change parts of the law they don't like, but they'll have to actually work with the opposition to do so.

 jasper76 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

He reckons that's how long ACA/ "Obamacare" will last... after 5 years, the law will be replaced or gotten rid of, so employers will no longer be required to offer health plans.

No way Jose... no Republican will be able to overcome Hillary Clinton. She's running bro and she ain't signing off any PPACA repeal.

In order to repeal the ACA, Republicans will actually have to win the White House. They've so alienated themselves from so much of the population, its hard to imagine this happening anytime soon without a sincere rehabilitation of their platform.

They may be able to change parts of the law they don't like, but they'll have to actually work with the opposition to do so.

The ACA of today will not be the same as the ACA in the future. Even both sides admit its a work in progress. Then there's the issue of the non Dem/Rep IG report, and parts of the Law not in effect yet but are coming. Right after Mid Term

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
No, I mean, why would they have to stop providing insurance in five years?

He reckons that's how long ACA/ "Obamacare" will last... after 5 years, the law will be replaced or gotten rid of, so employers will no longer be required to offer health plans.

Actually no thats how long I figure most companies will have plans and not just punt off the plans to the exchanges. That was one likely impact of the ACA, per that weird guy who helped write it.

 skyth wrote:
It's really sad that 'Freedom of Religion' is now defined as being able to force other people to follow the dictates of your religion.

No ones forcing religon on anyone, 16 out the 20 contraceptives are provided, only ones the owners deemed as being abortions did they morally object to and said we wont pay for those we cant morally do it. Its not like the workers of hobbly lobby cant pay for the stuff themselves(gasp!!!!! people paying for their own stuff), its just the owners didnt want their money being used to pay for things that they have a moral objection to.


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Also on getting a right wing person in the white house, ben carson.