I find this interesting because for years I was in Human Resource and also accounting and was responsible for putting together health insurance packages for a few different companies I worked for. We never went through the policies and picked out portions we thought were immoral and excluded coverage. Never once did the owners of the company say we don't want to exclude birth control we don't agree with. One of my bosses was raised as a Scientologist and he never excluded anti depressants or other things the Scientologists are against. With the company my husband and I own it never even crossed our minds when we were JW's to put an exclusion in for blood transfusions, abortions etc. I feel that this has gone too far and it is another example of big corporations running the government.
US Supreme Court: Hobby Lobby wins we lose
by designs 89 Replies latest social current
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Spectre
Exactly, Aunt Fancy. If this lawsuit had been brought by either a Muslim, a Scientologist or some other religion about something that "offends" them , it never would have gone anywhere. I see this more as red meat to throw to the tea party.
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No Apologies
This ruling is also ridiculous in that somehow now a corporation has religious beliefs. Absurd.
No Apologies
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Band on the Run
I am going to visit the SCOTUS site to read how a corporation's religion is determined. The incorporators. the Board, management, shareholders. My hope is that the dissenters can limit this ruling to its facts. Is GM held to the same standard as Hobby Lobby? This truly messes with women's reproductive rights.
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GrreatTeacher
The language used on the news was that it was a "closely held" corporation.
Hopefully, it doesn't apply to large, publicly traded corporations.
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Shanagirl
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, employers who fail to comply with the birth-control mandate will incur an annual penalty of roughly $2,000 per employee. So it is clearly a substantial burden. Does the mandate further the governmental interest in increasing cost-free access to contraceptives by means that are least restrictive of the employer’s religious freedom? Plainly, the answer is no. There are plenty of other ways to increase access to contraceptives that intrude far less on the free exercise of religion. Health and Human Services itself touts community health centers, public clinics and hospitals as some of the available alternatives; doctors and pharmacies are others. Many of the entities, with Planned Parenthood being the most prominent, already furnish free contraceptives. The government could have the rest of these providers make contraceptive services available free and then compensate them directly. A mandate on employers who object for religious reasons is among the most restrictive means the government could have chosen to increase access. The government should stay out of our healthcare choices with our doctor.
Shana
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problemaddict
Shana....you can't be serious. Religious freedom in the USA is NOT an issue, unless you are trying to whip up the rabble of conservative religious fundamentalists to vote for the next guy that will enact laws not in their best interests.
This is just too much. Hobby Lobby is paying for their medical insurance. Hobby Lobby will not save money by not being able to pay for these 4 things. Know why? Because it doesn't matter. They are actually reaching into coverage, already existing in the providers plan, to yank out some religious excempttions they don't want to "pay for".
Its like a JW arguing they don't want money they give in taxes to go to paying for war, so they don't pay taxes. Well how stupid is that. Your duty is to pay the tax, how the money is used is a separate issue and you are not responsible for it.
HL is not somehow responsible for the destruction of a zygote or fertilized egg by proxy, because they provie medical coverage to the employer who does decide to do that. Will God hold them accountable for providing medical care that is then used in this specific way? Please.
The mandate is with the plan. It does not force the doctor, the patient, or any employer to somehow do anything specific, other than maintain a plan.
This is a non-issue, and is just causing more of a distaste for religion than I have already had recently.
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designs
Justice Ginsburg argued the employer is under no moral action by simply having the plan in their insurance package.
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GLTirebiter
By this logic, a Jehovah's Witness employer could refuse to pay for blood transfusions. Another could claim their religions don't cover cancer treatment, as it goes against God's will. Whether true or not, they gain a competitive advantage, as that would bring down their insurance costs.
No, the court explicitly restricted the scope of this ruling to contraceptive coverage:
"This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice ... Here, there is an alternate to the contraceptive mandate." [pp 5-6 of the ruling]
Is GM held to the same standard as Hobby Lobby?
The ruling addresses the issue of publicly traded vs. closely-held corporations:
Finally, HHS contends that Congress could not have wanted RFRA to apply to for-profit corporations because it is difficult as a practical matter to ascertain the sincere “beliefs” of a corporation. HHS goes so far as to raise the specter of “divisive, polarizing proxy battles over the religious identity of large, publicly traded corporations such as IBM or General Electric.” Brief for HHS in No. 13–356, at 30.
These cases, however, do not involve publicly traded corporations, and it seems unlikely that the sort of corporate giants to which HHS refers will often assert RFRA claims. HHS has not pointed to any example of a publicly traded corporation asserting RFRA rights, and numerous practical restraints would likely prevent that from occurring. For example, the idea that unrelated shareholders—including institutional investors with their own set of stakeholders—would agree to run a corporation under the same religious beliefs seems improbable. In any event, we have no occasion in these cases to consider RFRA’s applicability to such companies. The companies in the cases before us are closely held corporations, each owned and controlled by members of a single family, and no one has disputed the sincerity of their religious beliefs. [p. 29]
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LisaRose
I am glad they limited the scope, it's still a mistake, in my opinion, why should contraceptives be any different than any other medical cost? It's not their moral choice, but that of their employees.
I shop at Hobby Lobby for supplies for my business, now I don't think I can shop there anymore. It will be a hit, they have things I use a lot and are hard to get otherwise, but it's a principle, I don't think an employer should get a vote on the birth control method used by its employees.