Hobby Lobby Triumphs over its minion workers

[Azale]

Just abolish the stupid institution already.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Nice.
What's next ? Will not converting to the emploers religion be grounds for immediate termination ? Will muslims be able to forbid their employees from eatig pork ?

 

[Tahuti]

Nice.
What's next ? Will not converting to the emploers religion be grounds for immediate termination ? Will muslims be able to forbid their employees from eatig pork ?

Do not work there if you don't like stuff such as that. If you disagree with the corporate culture of the company you work for as to render it an unsurmountable obstacle wanting to work for it, go work somewhere else or found your own company. If I were going to work to work for a company with an Islamic management operating on Islamic principles (something I would not have much problem with) I would be perfectly fine with abstaining from pork on the job.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Not just on the job. At all. In this scenario you work for a muslim and since he pays you he is paying for everything you buy. He doesn't want to pay for pork, therefore it's banned for you even in your private life.

When did the US constitution get reinterpreted as "everybody but the government can walk all over your rights" ? Or was it always like that ?

 

[Tahuti]

Maybe I would do that if the job was that good. Again, you are responsible for whom you are going to work for (or not).

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Maybe I would do that if the job was that good. Again, you are responsible for whom you are going to work for (or not).

That's where I fundamentally disagree.
If we lived in a world where you can easily pick and change jobs I would agree with you, but we don't. And since workers are dependant on their employers that power discrepancy has to be mitigated in some way. Interfering in the employees private lfe where it doesn't affect their job performance crosses the line.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

If only Al Queda had incorporated - the Court could have granted them a religious exemption from the law banning the crashing of planes into buildings.

The snark is strong with this one.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm forced to pay taxes for all sorts of stuff that violates my religious beliefs.

I'm forced to pay taxes for all sorts of stuff that violates my lack of religious beliefs.

 

[JollyRoger]

Do not work there if you don't like stuff such as that.

The Supreme Court shot down the argument that a person could choose not to incorporate if they wanted to avoid things that offended the religious sensibilities. They basically claimed it was an unfair choice between their religion and their freedom of choice in earning money. Why shouldn't that same logic apply to employees?

 

[IglooDame]

Has the Supreme Court informed God that he has to let corporations into heaven?

Well, Justice Bader-Ginsburg was certainly shouting to high heaven about it.

 

[Antilogic]

Fairly narrow ruling - pretty much a one day ticket for closely held companies to be religious bigots.

Is this a recent trend, or has the Court historically made several narrow rulings like it has been doing in the last decade or so? The whole "this is not a precedent" shtick seems to defeat the purpose of the court.

We wouldn't have this problem with a proper single payer system.

Really putting this into the hands of corporations just begs for these kind of chip to be taken out by corporations, and even then while this ruling will obviously be bad for society it's hard to say that it is wrong per se. After all why should they be forced to pay for something they don't believe in? Really we should have had single payer and kept the companies out of the process, but with the ACA we explicitly included companies in everyone's healthcare, and now we pretend to be offended when they start mucking it up?

Nah, that would make too much sense.

We should continue to subsidize the health insurance companies and maybe repeal that onerous medical device tax because trolololo. Because we hate ourselves or some such garbage.

That's where I fundamentally disagree.
If we lived in a world where you can easily pick and change jobs I would agree with you, but we don't. And since workers are dependant on their employers that power discrepancy has to be mitigated in some way. Interfering in the employees private lfe where it doesn't affect their job performance crosses the line.

I agree with you here, but you don't have to worry because the good Christians will promptly sue any "Sharia corporation" for violating their rights. Oh, and Alito wrote their decision only covers certain contraceptives with a "no backsies" provision.

 

[peter grimes]

From le Reddit:

Hi there! Since there seems to be a bit of confusion about this case, I'm going to take a bit of time (and inspiration from /u/Unidan[1] is a biologist! ) and act as the excited lawyer to explain some of the finer details of this case so that at the very least people are mad for the right reasons.

(1). This decision had nothing to do with the First Amendment.
I know it's kind of weird, because everyone is talking about it in terms of "religious freedom", but it's important that this is a case of statutory interpretation, not constitutional law. Let me give some background.
The first thing you need to know is the term "strict scrutiny." It's the analysis that the courts use when a law restricts or infringes on a constitutional right. So, a law which limits free speech can still be constitutional if it meets three tests:
First, it has to be furthering a compelling government interest. Second, it has to be narrowly tailored to serve that interest. Third, it has to be the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.
In Employment Division v. Smith in 1990, the Supreme Court held that a generally applicable law (basically, a law that applies to everyone) which happens to impede on religious practice is not held to strict scrutiny. This overturned an earlier case (Sherbert) which held that even if the law isn't meant to restrict freedom of religion, if it does, it must meet strict scrutiny to be applied to that religious group.
So, Congress decided it didn't like the result in Smith and passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which basically said "we're bringing back the Sherbert test, but as part of federal statute."
The ruling in this case was solely under the RFRA, not under any part of the First Amendment. That's good, because it means:

(2). This decision does not prevent any states from passing similar laws.
The RFRA, unlike the First Amendment, does not apply to state law. So, where this result under the First Amendment would prohibit Colorado from passing a law requiring Hobby Lobby provide these forms of birth control, this decision does not.

(3). It doesn't mean that any religious belief is going to overrule the law.
Remember that bit about strict scrutiny above? Well, what the Supreme Court here is telling us is that the RFRA applies to closely-held corporations, and that the RFRA puts us back into strict scrutiny territory.
But, while the Court did not find the government's interest in these four forms of birth control to be compelling, or that it was narrowly tailored, that is not necessarily true for any and all religious beliefs. The people saying "I'm suddenly religiously opposed to taxes and laws against insider trading" are simply misunderstanding (or misrepresenting) what was at issue here. This article, in particular, takes that wrongness and runs full speed with it, expanding the scope of this ruling to mean that any employer can do anything it wants as long as it says "religious belief" like a magic word. That simply is not the case.

(4). This case was not about contraceptives generally.
We can speculate about how a case seeking to avoid paying for any contraceptives would play out, but this case was never about whether Hobby Lobby could deny contraceptives generally. It was about four specific forms of contraception that Hobby Lobby objected to as being abortifacients (basically, drugs which prevent the implantation of an already-fertilized egg).
On that note, there has been a lot of discussion about whether Hobby Lobby is correct in that belief. But for the Supreme Court to analyze the "correctness" of a belief would move us into really bad territory.
(5). So, what can I do if I'm still mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?
The simplest thing would be to lobby your state government to craft a similar contraceptive law at the state level (which would not be governed by the RFRA). A harder, but still viable option would be to agitate for the wholesale repeal of the RFRA itself. As a creature of statutory law, it's a lot easier to change than the constitution.

If this analysis is correct, then we all need to contact our state lawmakers (not the reps and sens in DC) and urge them to pass legislation that would counteract this ruling, since it was narrowly applied to only the federal law RFRA.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Fairly narrow ruling - pretty much a one day ticket for closely held companies to be religious bigots.

Yep. Yet another 5-4 ruling with the reactionaries getting their way under the patently absurd guise of religious freedom.

What is interesting though is that they are apparently limited to excluding birth control that is effective after the egg is fertilized, i.e. morning after pills and IUDs. They must still provide conventional birth control, as Peter Grimes' article above discusses.

 

[Antilogic]

I disagree with point (4) in that quote, at least in part. If the Supreme Court is not going to analyze whether the belief is correct or not, what is to stop a party from claiming all forms of contraceptives are abortifacients and therefore they can remove coverage of all contraceptives from their healthcare plans? Does anyone seriously think the same court will apply the provisions in (3) to uphold at least partial contraception coverage?

Seriously, some of those guys talk like that already. It's not a stretch of the imagination by any means.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I think they are going to have a difficult time these days even convincing the reactionaries on the Supreme Court that birth occurs prior to fertilization of the egg.

 

[Antilogic]

They don't have to, because their religious belief is not being questioned by the Court. So long as it is sincerely held.

 

[Light Cleric]

Is this a recent trend, or has the Court historically made several narrow rulings like it has been doing in the last decade or so? The whole "this is not a precedent" shtick seems to defeat the purpose of the court.

I was going to ask the same thing, it seems like the Supreme Court has done a lot of "punting" for lack of a better word, even with Rehnquist iirc

I guess whether this is good or bad or not is in the eye of the beholder

 

[ParkCungHee]

Here's what I don't get:

The federal government has admitted itself that it's incompetent to provide health services, and is itself unwilling to provide abortificents, or birth control or even aspirin.

So I don't see how the federal government can legitimately contest Hobby Lobby's expertise in providing healthcare, after it specifically sought them out.

Will not converting to the emploers religion be grounds for immediate termination ? Will muslims be able to forbid their employees from eatig pork ?

The law that's been cited specifically is designed to prevent such situations. The RFRA was passed to prevent people from being fired for practicing traditional Native American religious practices off work, even though it violated the owner's (secular) moral sentiments. An overturning of the RFRA would make that sort of thing MORE legally defensible.

 

[Traitorfish]

Do not work there if you don't like stuff such as that. If you disagree with the corporate culture of the company you work for as to render it an unsurmountable obstacle wanting to work for it, go work somewhere else or found your own company. If I were going to work to work for a company with an Islamic management operating on Islamic principles (something I would not have much problem with) I would be perfectly fine with abstaining from pork on the job.

I would have thought that a Christ-killer would have a more sceptical attitude towards arbitrary discrimination.

 

[Antilogic]

I was going to ask the same thing, it seems like the Supreme Court has done a lot of "punting" for lack of a better word, even with Rehnquist iirc

I guess whether this is good or bad or not is in the eye of the beholder

I'm certain there were limited rulings in the past that we just don't care about because of how limited they were, but the language in some of these rulings is standing out to me. Like the Bush v. Gore ruling that explicitly stated "this ruling is limited to the present circumstances" or something along those lines. There was a similar clause insert by Alito that I alluded to above that restricted this ruling.

I think irrelevant of which side you are on in this particular issue, it's probably a bad thing in the long run. The Court is basically taking a much stronger case-by-case role that is probably better suited to rule-making agencies or the Congress, and it's going to be flat-out impossible for them to hear the shear number of cases required to evaluate every case-by-case situation that arises. Will we have to hear more "repeat" cases on vaccination, blood transfusions, etc. for this particular issue?