Comparing tax on mandated health insurance with tax for military

[emilynghiem]

First Amendment Is Murky on Religion and Companies ? Letters to the Editor - WSJ.com

Found this comment off an article online:

Chief Justice Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court, in his ruling on the legality of ObamaCare's individual mandate, wrote that the mandate was no different than a tax and therefore legal. If that is true, then mandating payment for birth control as part of that health insurance cannot be viewed as a violation of religious freedom. ("Justices Spar Over Birth-Control Mandate," U.S. News, March 26)

A Quaker legally is allowed to avoid military conflicts without violating the law. That same Quaker, however, will go to jail if he refuses to pay the taxes that fund the military. In the same vain, in any state where the government pays for birth control or abortions, individual citizens can choose to not use birth control or to have abortions. They cannot however refuse to pay taxes because these programs violate their religious beliefs.

Daniel Bronheim

Great Neck, N.Y.

To compare and contrast

1. Isn't military mandatory to go through federal govt and taxation
while health care is not? States rights can apply to health care, but not to military funding.

Health care has been done and can be done through private or charitable institutions.
Military has to be organized and endorse/directed by Congress on the federal level.
There is not another way to organize national defense except by federal govt, but this is NOT true for health care which can be done independently and even charitably for free.

Isn't that enough difference to distinguish these two cases being compared above?

2. Aren't the conscientious objectors to war such as Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses
limited in population and scope compared with "half the nation" dissenting and objecting to the ACA mandates as passed without our representation and vote?

Does it make a difference that the half of Congress who voted for this bill were all of one Party?

So if all the Quakers took over "majority votes" in Congress, would it be lawful to impose a policy on the "other half" who dissented?

Do the numbers matter, and the fact the majority rule is being pushed by one party make a difference in BIAS (versus "EQUAL REPRESENTATION" for the population) or not?

3. In fact, I DO believe that war-resisters and others SHOULD be able to redirect taxes into alternatives, legally approved, that do not violate their beliefs (prolife, anti death penalty, anti-war, pro gay marriage, etc so it does not impose those alternatives on others).

So instead of enforcing the injustice in these cases, it should be corrected in ALL of them!

NOT using one case of forcing people to pay for things they don't believe in,
to justify expanding this trend to force more people to pay for more things we don't either.

It was already causing problems to begin with, why make it worse by expanding it further.

Any comments or clarifications on the original remarks or my own? Thanks!