SB1062, Hobby Lobs...Religious Exemptions Q: Do Corporations have Religious Beliefs?

[paperview]

Shame on corporate America for not towing the democratic line eh paperview?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/8828384-post57.html

 

[paperview]

"ABOUT THOSE RELIGIOUS NONPROFITS: Mr. Clement’s suggestion that the government could step in to subsidize contraception for employees of organizations whose leaders object to contraception, just as it has for some religiously affiliated universities and charities, might not go over too well.
Under that arrangement, nonprofits can turn over responsibility for providing the coverage to insurers, who are then reimbursed by the administration.

But a number of nonprofits are suing anyway, saying the compromise is inadequate because they still have to facilitate something happening that they believe to be immoral. More about that here."

Live Blog: Contraception Cases at the Supreme Court -- Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties - Washington Wire - WSJ

So Clement is bringing in the option of what happened in the Little Sisters /nuns/Notre Dame case.

But as the above note mentions, STILL - they objected, because it would mean facilitating it (by filing out paperwork).

 

[paperview]

• "Solicitor General Verrilli, representing the Obama administration, began his argument by invoking a 1944 opinion by the revered Justice Robert Jackson, who wrote that “the limits [on religious exercise] begin to operate whenever activities begin to affect or collide with liberties of others or of the public.”
• Mr. Verrilli meant that allowing the corporate plaintiffs to refuse to provide the contraceptive coverage would harm the thousands of their employees whom Congress decided were entitled to the benefit. But Chief Justice Roberts rebutted Mr. Verrilli at once, saying that Congress itself had rejected Justice Jackson’s view when it passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing religious exceptions to general laws in some circumstances.

 

[paperview]

• Mr. Verrilli hewed to the argument, though, that Congress didn’t intend, and courts never had applied, religious exemptions that operated to the detriment of third parties, like the Hobby Lobby employees. He repeatedly turned to U.S. v. Lee, a 1982 case where the Supreme Court unanimously held that Amish employers and employees could not opt out of Social Security despite their religious belief in self-reliance.
  
  
  
  
• Justice Alito raised the highest-profile question in the case: Can for-profit corporations make free-exercise claims at all? Or rather, why did the government believe for-profit corporations can’t raise such claims?
  

The above are live updates.

 

[Plasmaball]

I think when I think about it corporations can have religious beliefs.
While I think the idea that the are fighting against birth control and what not is stupid. They have that right. I also disagree with the mandate of aca, but at the same time these things in healthcare need to be covered period.
I'd say everything is covered and if hobby lobby doesn't like it they can not hand out healthcare. The choice is theirs.

 

[The Rabbi]

Moe:

• Justices Sotomayor and Kagan shifted to a different line of questioning. Companies objecting to the contraception requirement aren’t being forced to provide health coverage, they said. Companies could avoid the contraception issue by deciding not to offer health care coverage and choosing to pay the tax penalty instead.
  
• • 11:25 am
  Justice Sotomayor raised a line of questioning highlighted by a dissenting judge in a lower court. How are courts, she asked, supposed to know whether a corporation holds a particular religious belief? And what happens to the minority members or shareholders of a corporation who may not share the majority’s belief? How much of a corporation’s business has to be dedicated to religion?
  Mr. Clement said those issues would go to questions about whether a corporation was being sincere in asserting religious claims.
  Justice Sotomayor responded that the court has always resisted engaging in the tricky proposition of trying to measure the depth and sincerity of someone’s religious beliefs.
  

Sotomayor is an idiot. COmpanies could avoid the issue by going out of business. But I dont think anyone believes that is a reasonable compromise.
How are courts supposed to know whether a corporation holds a religious belief? How about asking them? How about looking at their published words? How do courts know individuals hold religious beliefs? It is an absurd assertion.

 

[paperview]

"Mr. Verrilli said that the Supreme Court never had held that for-profit corporations could make such claims. To recognize them now would be a “vast expansion” of the exemption Congress had intended to create when passing RFRA in 1993.

But Justice Scalia retorted that the court never had ruled that commercial enterprises couldn’t raise free-exercise of religion claims."

Oh...this should be goood...

 

[The Rabbi]

I think when I think about it corporations can have religious beliefs.
While I think the idea that the are fighting against birth control and what not is stupid. They have that right. I also disagree with the mandate of aca, but at the same time these things in healthcare need to be covered period.
I'd say everything is covered and if hobby lobby doesn't like it they can not hand out healthcare. The choice is theirs.

It's not a choice. They want to provide health coverage. But they dont want to provide the health coverage that is mandated. Their only choice is to provide coverage that offends them or not provide any and pay a penalty. That isn't freedom. That isnt a reasonable compromise.

 

[paperview]

"Chief Justice Roberts appeared to tip his hand when he told Mr. Verrilli that the parade of horribles — all kinds of religious exemptions being claimed by all sorts of employers, punching holes in the uniform application of the laws — could be avoided by a ruling limited to closely held enterprises, like S corporations that pass their earnings through to their shareholders.

That would leave the issue of, say, an Exxon claiming religious freedom rights to another day. Later, Justice Breyer suggested he might be open to that type of resolution"

 

[The Rabbi]

• "Solicitor General Verrilli, representing the Obama administration, began his argument by invoking a 1944 opinion by the revered Justice Robert Jackson, who wrote that “the limits [on religious exercise] begin to operate whenever activities begin to affect or collide with liberties of others or of the public.”
• Mr. Verrilli meant that allowing the corporate plaintiffs to refuse to provide the contraceptive coverage would harm the thousands of their employees whom Congress decided were entitled to the benefit. But Chief Justice Roberts rebutted Mr. Verrilli at once, saying that Congress itself had rejected Justice Jackson’s view when it passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing religious exceptions to general laws in some circumstances.

There's that "religious exemption" thing I mentioned that you ignored. Good stuff.

 

[Plasmaball]

I think when I think about it corporations can have religious beliefs.
While I think the idea that the are fighting against birth control and what not is stupid. They have that right. I also disagree with the mandate of aca, but at the same time these things in healthcare need to be covered period.
I'd say everything is covered and if hobby lobby doesn't like it they can not hand out healthcare. The choice is theirs.

It's not a choice. They want to provide health coverage. But they dont want to provide the health coverage that is mandated. Their only choice is to provide coverage that offends them or not provide any and pay a penalty. That isn't freedom. That isnt a reasonable compromise.

Tough shit. I don't want to have to have higher costs because people like to smoke and drink. But that's not going to happen.
Hobby lobbies choice is still their in the end.

I will say I am not completely settled on the issue.

 

[paperview]

Funny That: Up until 2012, Hobby Lobby provided the coverage they objected to now..

It's in their own briefs. "its generous health insurance plan actually covered Plan B and Ella"

 

[paperview]

• "Solicitor General Verrilli, representing the Obama administration, began his argument by invoking a 1944 opinion by the revered Justice Robert Jackson, who wrote that “the limits [on religious exercise] begin to operate whenever activities begin to affect or collide with liberties of others or of the public.”
• Mr. Verrilli meant that allowing the corporate plaintiffs to refuse to provide the contraceptive coverage would harm the thousands of their employees whom Congress decided were entitled to the benefit. But Chief Justice Roberts rebutted Mr. Verrilli at once, saying that Congress itself had rejected Justice Jackson’s view when it passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing religious exceptions to general laws in some circumstances.

There's that "religious exemption" thing I mentioned that you ignored. Good stuff.

Ignore this:

from Scalia...in an important holding:

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.
On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.

And, also (quoting Justice Frankfurter):


Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs.

Also, too:

Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)."

And, finally:


It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in;

but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.
LINK

 

[The Rabbi]

I think when I think about it corporations can have religious beliefs.
While I think the idea that the are fighting against birth control and what not is stupid. They have that right. I also disagree with the mandate of aca, but at the same time these things in healthcare need to be covered period.
I'd say everything is covered and if hobby lobby doesn't like it they can not hand out healthcare. The choice is theirs.

It's not a choice. They want to provide health coverage. But they dont want to provide the health coverage that is mandated. Their only choice is to provide coverage that offends them or not provide any and pay a penalty. That isn't freedom. That isnt a reasonable compromise.

Tough shit. I don't want to have to have higher costs because people like to smoke and drink. But that's not going to happen.
Hobby lobbies choice is still their in the end.

I will say I am not completely settled on the issue.

Tough shit. The liberal response to anything they don't agree with.

 

[g5000]

Corporations are people, my friend. That's the line, as we have all heard it. Citizens United basically affirmed it.

Generally, this has been applied to political speech, nonetheless, it provides Freedom of Speech to Corporations -- but the question is: Are Corporations persons that can have a sincerely held religious belief?

In the recent mishmash of that ill-begotten AZ bill SB1062, one aspect was little touched on, mainly this:

See that there? What has been defined as a "Person" was amended to not only include "a religious assembly or institution" but also:

"ANY INDIVIDUAL, ASSOCIATION, PARTNERSHIP, CORPORATION, CHURCH, RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY, OR INSTITUTION, ESTATE, TRUST, FOUNDATION OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY."

SB1062 - 512R - I Ver

The definition there is far broader in scope and applicability in that Corporations, et al, could have discriminated if they held sincerely held religious beliefs.

Which brings us to the recent SCOTUS cases up soon involving Hobby Lobby v Sebelius - and the other entities that are suing to be able to deny specific contraceptive coverage on religious beliefs grounds.

We are at crossroad where not only are for-profit corporate commercial entities and organizations considered to be persons regarding Freedom of Speech, but now the trend is to carve out laws to give these Corporations Freedom of Religion.

How do Corporations, fictitious persons under the law - practice religion? Can they go to Church? Do they partake in sacraments?
Should they be protected fully as a person under the cherished Free Exercise clause?


Do you think this trend to be something good for America?

Let's boil this down to something simple enough for even you to understand: Should a hospital be forced to perform abortions?

Abortions are legal. If someone's insurance pays for it, why shouldn't the hospital, a corporation, be forced to perform one?

 

[paperview]

• Justice Kennedy raised one of the plaintiffs’ main points: that the government already had exempted many employers from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for no-copay preventive services; religious nonprofit organizations receive an accommodation where they don’t have to pay for some contraceptives, while churches and employers with under 50 workers are exempt.
  
• Mr. Verrilli pushed back on this. While churches are entitled to a “special solicitude” from government, the accommodation to religious organizations still ensured that their employees had access to contraceptives, by requiring insurers to cover them at no cost. And there were no exemptions for the small employers he said. Rather, should those companies choose to offer insurance to their employees, they must provide the minimum coverage specified by the regulations, including the challenged contraceptives.
  

Live Blog: Contraception Cases at the Supreme Court -- Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties - Washington Wire - WSJ

 

[The Rabbi]

Corporations are people, my friend. That's the line, as we have all heard it. Citizens United basically affirmed it.

Generally, this has been applied to political speech, nonetheless, it provides Freedom of Speech to Corporations -- but the question is: Are Corporations persons that can have a sincerely held religious belief?

In the recent mishmash of that ill-begotten AZ bill SB1062, one aspect was little touched on, mainly this:

See that there? What has been defined as a "Person" was amended to not only include "a religious assembly or institution" but also:

"ANY INDIVIDUAL, ASSOCIATION, PARTNERSHIP, CORPORATION, CHURCH, RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY, OR INSTITUTION, ESTATE, TRUST, FOUNDATION OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY."

SB1062 - 512R - I Ver

The definition there is far broader in scope and applicability in that Corporations, et al, could have discriminated if they held sincerely held religious beliefs.

Which brings us to the recent SCOTUS cases up soon involving Hobby Lobby v Sebelius - and the other entities that are suing to be able to deny specific contraceptive coverage on religious beliefs grounds.

We are at crossroad where not only are for-profit corporate commercial entities and organizations considered to be persons regarding Freedom of Speech, but now the trend is to carve out laws to give these Corporations Freedom of Religion.

How do Corporations, fictitious persons under the law - practice religion? Can they go to Church? Do they partake in sacraments?
Should they be protected fully as a person under the cherished Free Exercise clause?


Do you think this trend to be something good for America?

Let's boil this down to something simple enough for even you to understand: Should a hospital be forced to perform abortions?

Abortions are legal. If someone's insurance pays for it, why shouldn't the hospital, a corporation, be forced to perform one?

BEcause it violates the ethical, moral and religious foundations of the org.
You've given the answer to this case. Find for Hobby Lobby.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

I'd start a new religion for progressives, but I don't think it could compete with 'governmentism'

Ah well....

Progressives have their own religion. It's called "science".

Actually, they know very little about science. Their religion is government.

 

[paperview]

Corporations are people, my friend. That's the line, as we have all heard it. Citizens United basically affirmed it.

Generally, this has been applied to political speech, nonetheless, it provides Freedom of Speech to Corporations -- but the question is: Are Corporations persons that can have a sincerely held religious belief?

In the recent mishmash of that ill-begotten AZ bill SB1062, one aspect was little touched on, mainly this:

See that there? What has been defined as a "Person" was amended to not only include "a religious assembly or institution" but also:

"ANY INDIVIDUAL, ASSOCIATION, PARTNERSHIP, CORPORATION, CHURCH, RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY, OR INSTITUTION, ESTATE, TRUST, FOUNDATION OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY."

SB1062 - 512R - I Ver

The definition there is far broader in scope and applicability in that Corporations, et al, could have discriminated if they held sincerely held religious beliefs.

Which brings us to the recent SCOTUS cases up soon involving Hobby Lobby v Sebelius - and the other entities that are suing to be able to deny specific contraceptive coverage on religious beliefs grounds.

We are at crossroad where not only are for-profit corporate commercial entities and organizations considered to be persons regarding Freedom of Speech, but now the trend is to carve out laws to give these Corporations Freedom of Religion.

How do Corporations, fictitious persons under the law - practice religion? Can they go to Church? Do they partake in sacraments?
Should they be protected fully as a person under the cherished Free Exercise clause?


Do you think this trend to be something good for America?

Let's boil this down to something simple enough for even you to understand: Should a hospital be forced to perform abortions?

Abortions are legal. If someone's insurance pays for it, why shouldn't the hospital, a corporation, be forced to perform one?

Why the condescension?

If a hospital doesn't provide it, they do not have to be forced to provide it.

If they don't offer bone-marrow transplants, they do not have to be forced to provide them.

Furthermore, this case is about a hormone that is not an abortifacient.

 

[paperview]

In case anyone missed it:

Prior to the mandate, Hobby Lobby's health insurance plan actually covered Plan B and Ella.

Didya all read that?

So their religious objections seemed to be tied to something that happened in 2012. hmmm :think: