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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (793053)	7/2/2014 9:50:43 AM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 1585499

What nonsense you post.

To: combjelly who wrote (793053)

7/2/2014 9:52:23 AM

From: jlallen

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
TimF

Respond to of 1585499

Why Is It So Hard to Understand Government Shouldn't Force Employers to Purchase Birth Control or Permit Guns on Premises?
300+ Reason.com Full Feed by Ed Krayewski

The (leftie) internet went bonkers yesterday over the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, a narrow ruling that only let "closely held" corporations whose owners had a religious objection to paying for certain kind of contraceptives (abortifacients) off the hook from Obamacare's "contraceptive mandate." Employees, of course, would still be free to purchase supplemental insurance to cover birth control and to see their doctor to get a prescription for birth control. They can't purchase birth control over the counter but that's not because of the Supreme Court or employers with objections—it's because the federal government prohibits the sale of birth control over the counter.

Nevertheless for a certain kind of spouter of partisan talking points, the Supreme Court ruling—that the government could not, in fact, bully people into doing something if those people have religious objections—was more evidence of the "war on women" Democrats plan to keep running on.

Meanwhile in Georgia, a new gun bill that permits lawfully licensed residents to carry their firearms into a wide range of "public accommodations" (like bars) and actual government buildings goes into effect today. Opponents of the bill, generally liberals, tend to be the same people who opposed the Hobby Lobby ruling, while conservatives who applauded the Hobby Lobby ruling for protecting religious liberty applaud Georgia's law for protecting their Second Amendment rights.

Libertarians have to laugh or they'd cry. The partisan break on Hobby Lobby and Georgia's gun law doesn't make sense if principles mattered. After all, if an employer has a right not to be coerced by the government to purchase something for an employee, that same employer ought to have a right not to be coerced by the government to permit something on his property. Whether the specific objections are religious shouldn't even matter—either you have a right to run your workplace and business as you please or it belongs to the government. For too many partisan ideologues, liberal and conservative, the latter applies. Their political preferences trump any lip service to principles.

To: combjelly who wrote (793053)	7/2/2014 11:36:06 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Recommended By gamesmistress Respond to of 1585499

>> There is no reason why the reasoning used in this case cannot be extended to other things. That is neither here nor there. You are missing the point of the opinion, which is that women have plenty of alternatives and for that specific reason in this specific case, the Court decided that protection of the religious freedom of the owners of the businesses is more important than providing yet another contraceptive alternative. Specifically: As this description of our reasoning shows, our holding is very specific. We do not hold, as the principal dissent alleges, that for-profit corporations and other commercial enterprises can "opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs." Post, at 1 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). Nor do we hold, as the dissent implies, that such corporations have free rein to take steps that impose "disadvantages . . . on others" or that require "the general public [to] pick up the tab." Post, at 1-2. And we certainly do not hold or suggest that "RFRA demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation's religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on . . . thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby." Post, at 2. 1 The effect of the HHS-created accommodation on the women employed by Hobby Lobby and the other companies involved in these cases would be precisely zero. Under [7] that accommodation, these women would still be entitled to all FDA-approved contraceptives without cost sharing. Especially when it rests on specious grounds, namely their claim that it cannot be used to forbid covering of vaccinations because that is a public health issue. By extension, that means that contraception is not a public health issue when it clearly is. There is no connective logic, at all, between this case and the hypothetical you suggested. It is not relevant in the slightest. This is yet another example of the buffet approach to the law the activist Roberts court has made famous.* The Roberts court has managed to piss EVERYONE off. But the reality is that the legal reasoning has been sound on the big decisions. Not that that matters to you. Seriously, that Ginsberg dissent in this case was off the rails. When I read it I started questioning whether she has started over the edge. Notably, she missed the important legal point, i.e., can government effectively force those with strongly held religious views to avoid the corporate form altogether. As you are no doubt aware, the very foundation of the country was built on people seeking religious freedom. The notion of separation of church and state was up front and center in our Constitution. Why would we abandon that concept now?

To: combjelly who wrote (793053)	7/4/2014 1:29:43 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1585499

Pregnancy isn't contagious and birth control primarily provides a private benefit. Birth control (used rather than "contraception" because not all forms of birth control prevent conception) is neither a public health issue nor a public good. Preventing the spread of disease can be a public health issue, but this case was not about condoms. For that matter Hobby Lobby had no problem paying for contraception (and even in the counterfactual scenario where it didn't, and where birth control was a public good, there isn't any particularly good reason to have Hobby Lobby pay for it.