posted July 07, 2014 04:20 PM            

Well, it's like this. More than 100 million people were already insured for health insurance by their employers. This insurance payment by employers is in lieu of salary and/or waqes.

On the other hand, after O'BomberCare almost all those 100 million employer insured employees are going to lose their health insurance.

So yeah, if women want the morning after abortion pill, then be an adult and pay for it yourselves. Don't insist on people whose religious beliefs forbid the killing of innocent life pay for it for you.

posted July 08, 2014 08:29 AM            

Hobby Lobby does not have the authority to determine what kind of birth control their employees use. Employees are free to use whatever they wish. Hobby Lobby insurance pays for 16 out of the 20 birth control measures contained within O'BomberCare. What Hobby Lobby will not pay for is the abortion pills generally called morning after pills.

Now, we have the suggestion some employers might object to paying insurance premiums for blood transfusions and organ transplants on religious grounds. True, they might, but if they do, they will lose in court. If I had a court, they would lose in my court too.

Blood transfusions and organ transplants are intended to SAVE life. Abortion pills...morning after pills are intended to KILL lives of the most innocent...without due process of law.

Birth control IS included in the health insurance policies Hobby Lobby agrees to purchase for employees. Abortion is not. Hobby Lobby is not telling people how they should live.

The federal government tried to tell Hobby Lobby owners that since they're in business, they lost their 1st Amendment Right of religious freedom.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

1st Amendment religious liberty won.
O'Bomber/O'BomberCare lost.

One other thing.

There was a great outcry when the Marxist Messiah O'Bomber addressed Congress at a State of the Union Address and said O'BomberCare contains no provisions for abortion.

Joe Wilson jumped to his feet and yelled out...YOU LIE. Oh the O'Bomber drooling press...and O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinkers were simply outraged. A member of Congress had called O'Bomber on his LIE and they didn't like that.

Now, we know Joe Wilson was right. Not only did O'Bomber LIE about abortion not being part of O'BomberCare but, the Marxist Messiah was willing to go to court to keep abortion in O'BomberCare.

posted July 08, 2014 09:33 AM            

In order for something to be aborted it already has to be implanted into the uterus.

posted July 11, 2014 12:42 PM            

An abortion can't occur if an embryo hasn't already implanted into the uterus. It's not medically possible. The morning after pill can't cause an abortion.

I just prefer if people are going to debate on subjects they feel passionately about that they at least get their facts straight.

posted July 11, 2014 03:49 PM            

Catalina's right as well. The employee is essentially paying for the insurance. It may be brokered through the employer, but the employer is welcome to decide the extent to which they'll sponsor the insurance. Regardless of the amount of sponsorship they choose, insurance is a form of compensation, a benefit, for the employee.

posted July 12, 2014 09:00 AM            

You couldn't "verify" the sun rises in the East acoustic.

If Ruth Bader-Ginsburg said this...."there exists no precedent for this decision"..the Hobby Lobby decision; then Bader-Ginsburg is either a complete idiot or a corrupt lying ideologue. In either case, Bader-Ginsburg isn't fit to sit on any judicial bench in the United States.

The Hobby Lobby case and decision was based on:
1. The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

2. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993..RFRA, passed by a unanimous demoscat controlled House vote and near unanimous demoscat controlled Senate vote...and signed into law by demoscat president...Kommander Korruption, aka, William Jefferson Clinton.

Apparently, this Congress and president took Nancy Pee-Lousy's advice..."We have to pass this law so we can find out what's in it"!

posted July 12, 2014 11:23 AM            

If you are under agreement that corporations are also people and have the same rights as people do then it makes sense you don't have a problem with the ruling.

If it were a company what had founders with different religious beliefs would some people be so adamant about the 1st amendment then? I highly doubt that.

posted July 12, 2014 11:06 PM            

No one prohibited muslims from building at the world trade center site. No one.

Nor did anyone compel them to build a community center there.

Government did not infringe on their religious rights one teenie tiny bit.

You can't make a rational, coherent argument for compelling Hobby Lobby or other people of religious faith to lose their religious freedom by complying with government edicts...which you happen to agree with.

posted July 13, 2014 02:31 PM            

I notice you didn't address the truth in the claims that these contraceptives don't induce abortions. You won't want to either. It won't be pretty.

Bader-Ginsburg has an adequate understanding of the law:

Any First Amendment Free Exercise Clause claim Hobby Lobby or Conestoga might assert is foreclosed by this Court’s decision in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). In Smith, two members of the Native American Church were dismissed from their jobs and denied unemployment benefits because they ingested peyote at, and as an essential element of, a religious ceremony. Oregon law forbade the consumption of peyote, and this Court, relying on that prohibition, rejected the employees’ claim that the denial of unemployment benefits violated their free exercise rights. The First Amendment is not offended, Smith held, when “prohibiting the exercise of religion . . . is not the object of [governmental regulation] but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision.” Id., at 878; see id., at 878–879 (“an individual’s religious beliefs [do not] excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate”). The ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement applies generally, it is “otherwise valid,” it trains on women’s well being, not on the exercise of religion, and any effect it has on such exercise is incidental.

Even if Smith did not control, the Free Exercise Clause would not require the exemption Hobby Lobby and Conestoga seek. Accommodations to religious beliefs or observances, the Court has clarified, must not significantly impinge on the interests of third parties.8

The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would override significant interests of the corporations’ employees and covered dependents. It would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure. See Catholic Charities of Sacramento, Inc. v. Superior Court, 32 Cal. 4th 527, 565, 85 P. 3d 67, 93 (2004) (“We are unaware of any decision in which . . . [the U. S. Supreme Court] has exempted a religious objector from the operation of a neutral, generally applicable law despite the recognition that the requested exemption would detrimentally affect the rights of third parties.”). In sum, with respect to free exercise claims no less than free speech claims, “‘[y]our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.’” Chafee, Freedom of Speech in War Time, 32 Harv. L. Rev. 932, 957 (1919).

Lacking a tenable claim under the Free Exercise Clause, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga rely on RFRA, a statute instructing that “[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the government shows that application of the burden is “the least restrictive means” to further a “compelling governmental interest.” 42 U. S. C. §2000bb–1(a), (b)(2). In RFRA, Congress “adopt[ed] a statutory rule comparable to the constitutional rule rejected in Smith.” Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, 546 U. S. 418, 424 (2006).

RFRA’s purpose is specific and written into the statute itself. The Act was crafted to “restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened.” §2000bb(b)(1).[9](3378021) See also §2000bb(a)(5) (“[T]he compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.”); ante, at 48 (agreeing that the pre-Smith compelling interest test is “workable” and “strike[s] sensible balances”).

The legislative history is correspondingly emphatic on RFRA’s aim. See, e.g., S. Rep. No. 103–111, p. 12 (1993) (hereinafter Senate Report) (RFRA’s purpose was “only to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Smith,” not to “unsettle other areas of the law.”); 139 Cong. Rec. 26178 (1993) (statement of Sen. Kennedy) (RFRA was “designed to restore the compelling interest test for deciding free exercise claims.”). In line with this restorative purpose, Congress expected courts considering RFRA claims to “look to free exercise cases decided prior to Smith for guidance.” Senate Report 8. See also H. R. Rep. No. 103– 88, pp. 6–7 (1993) (hereinafter House Report) (same). In short, the Act reinstates the law as it was prior to Smith, without “creat[ing] . . . new rights for any religious practice or for any potential litigant.” 139 Cong. Rec. 26178 (statement of Sen. Kennedy). Given the Act’s moderate purpose, it is hardly surprising that RFRA’s enactment in 1993 provoked little controversy. See Brief for Senator Murray et al. as Amici Curiae 8 (hereinafter Senators Brief) (RFRA was approved by a 97-to-3 vote in the Senate and a voice vote in the House of Representatives).

Despite these authoritative indications, the Court sees RFRA as a bold initiative departing from, rather than restoring, pre-Smith jurisprudence. See ante, at 6, n. 3, 7, 17, 25–27. To support its conception of RFRA as a measure detached from this Court’s decisions, one that sets a new course, the Court points first to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U. S. C. §2000cc et seq., which altered RFRA’s definition of the term “exercise of religion.” RFRA, as originally enacted, defined that term to mean “the exercise of religion under the First Amendment to the Constitution.” §2000bb–2(4) (1994 ed.). See ante, at 6–7. As amended by RLUIPA, RFRA’s definition now includes “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” §2000bb–2(4) (2012 ed.) (cross- referencing §2000cc–5). That definitional change, according to the Court, reflects “an obvious effort to effect a complete separation from First Amendment case law.” Ante, at 7.

The Court’s reading is not plausible. RLUIPA’s alteration clarifies that courts should not question the centrality of a particular religious exercise. But the amendment in no way suggests that Congress meant to expand the class of entities qualified to mount religious accommodation claims, nor does it relieve courts of the obligation to inquire whether a government action substantially burdens a religious exercise. See Rasul v. Myers, 563 F. 3d 527, 535 (CADC 2009) (Brown, J., concurring) (“There is no doubt that RLUIPA’s drafters, in changing the definition of ‘exercise of religion,’ wanted to broaden the scope of the kinds of practices protected by RFRA, not increase the universe of individuals protected by RFRA.”); H. R. Rep. No. 106–219, p. 30 (1999). See also Gilardi v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 733 F. 3d 1208, 1211 (CADC 2013) (RFRA, as amended, “provides us with no helpful definition of ‘exercise of religion.’”); Henderson v. Kennedy, 265 F. 3d 1072, 1073 (CADC 2001) (“The [RLUIPA] amendments did not alter RFRA’s basic prohibition that the ‘[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.’”).[10](3378026)

Next, the Court highlights RFRA’s requirement that the government, if its action substantially burdens a person’s religious observance, must demonstrate that it chose the least restrictive means for furthering a compelling interest. “by imposing a least-restrictive-means test,” the Court suggests, RFRA “went beyond what was required by our pre-Smith decisions.” Ante, at 17, n. 18 (citing City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507 (1997)). See also ante, at 6, n. 3. But as RFRA’s statements of purpose and legislative history make clear, Congress intended only to restore, not to scrap or alter, the balancing test as this Court had applied it pre-Smith. See supra, at 8–9. See also Senate Report 9 (RFRA’s “compelling interest test generally should not be construed more stringently or more leniently than it was prior to Smith.”); House Report 7 (same).

The Congress that passed RFRA correctly read this Court’s pre-Smith case law as including within the “compelling interest test” a “least restrictive means” requirement. See, e.g., Senate Report 5 (“Where [a substantial] burden is placed upon the free exercise of religion, the Court ruled [in Sherbert], the Government must demonstrate that it is the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling governmental interest.”). And the view that the pre-Smith test included a “least restrictive means” requirement had been aired in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by experts on religious freedom. See, e.g., Hearing on S. 2969 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., 78–79 (1993) (statement of Prof. Douglas Laycock).

Our decision in City of Boerne, it is true, states that the least restrictive means requirement “was not used in the pre-Smith jurisprudence RFRA purported to codify.” See ante, at 6, n. 3, 17, n. 18. As just indicated, however, that statement does not accurately convey the Court’s pre-Smith jurisprudence. See Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 407 (“[I]t would plainly be incumbent upon the [government] to demonstrate that no alternative forms of regulation would combat [the problem] without infringing First Amendment rights.”); Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 718 (1981) (“The state may justify an inroad on religious liberty by showing that it is the least restrictive means of achieving some compelling state interest.”). See also Berg, The New Attacks on Religious Freedom Legislation and Why They Are Wrong, 21 Cardozo L. Rev. 415, 424 (1999) (“In Boerne, the Court erroneously said that the least restrictive means test ‘was not used in the pre-Smith jurisprudence.’ ”).

With RFRA’s restorative purpose in mind, I turn to the Act’s application to the instant lawsuits. That task, in view of the positions taken by the Court, requires consideration of several questions, each potentially dispositive of Hobby Lobby’s and Conestoga’s claims: Do for-profit corporations rank among “person[s]” who “exercise ... religion”? Assuming that they do, does the contraceptive coverage requirement “substantially burden” their religious exercise? If so, is the requirement “in furtherance of a compelling government interest”? And last, does the requirement represent the least restrictive means for furthering that interest?

Misguided by its errant premise that RFRA moved beyond the pre-Smith case law, the Court falters at each step of its analysis.

RFRA’s compelling interest test, as noted, see supra, at 8, applies to government actions that “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.” 42 U. S. C. §2000bb– 1(a) (emphasis added). This reference, the Court submits, incorporates the definition of “person” found in the Dictionary Act, 1 U. S. C. §1, which extends to “corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” See ante, at 19–20. The Dictionary Act’s definition, however, controls only where “context” does not “indicat[e] otherwise.” §1. Here, context does so indicate. RFRA speaks of “a person’s exercise of religion.” 42 U. S. C. §2000bb–1(a) (emphasis added). See also §§2000bb–2(4), 2000cc–5(7)(a). Whether a corporation qualifies as a “person” capable of exercising religion is an inquiry one cannot answer without reference to the “full body” of pre-Smith “free-exercise caselaw.” Gilardi, 733 F. 3d, at 1212. There is in that case law no support for the notion that free exercise rights pertain to for-profit corporations.

Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA.13 The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. As Chief Justice Marshall observed nearly two centuries ago, a corporation is “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.” Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 636 (1819). Corporations, Justice Stevens more recently reminded, “have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 466 (2010) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).

The First Amendment’s free exercise protections, the Court has indeed recognized, shelter churches and other nonprofit religion-based organizations.14 “For many individuals, religious activity derives meaning in large measure from participation in a larger religious community,” and “furtherance of the autonomy of religious organizations often furthers individual religious freedom as well.” Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327, 342 (1987) (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment). The Court’s “special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,” Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 14), how- ever, is just that. No such solicitude is traditional for commercial organizations.15 Indeed, until today, religious exemptions had never been extended to any entity operating in “the commercial, profit-making world.” Amos, 483 U. S., at 337.

The reason why is hardly obscure. Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community. Indeed, by law, no religion-based criterion can restrict the work force of for-profit corporations. See 42 U. S. C. §§2000e(b), 2000e–1(a), 2000e–2(a); cf. Trans World Air­ lines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U. S. 63, 80–81 (1977) (Title VII requires reasonable accommodation of an employee’s religious exercise, but such accommodation must not come “at the expense of other[ employees]”). The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention.17 One can only wonder why the Court shuts this key difference from sight. http://news.genius.com/The-supreme-court-of-the-unite d-states-burwell-v-hobby-lobby-ginsburgs-dissent-chapter-1-annotated

You get the point. Bader-Ginburg has rightly taken the Court to task on this decision.

posted July 14, 2014 09:35 PM            

"Masturbation is murder!!!"

posted July 15, 2014 10:34 AM            

All the rest of the blither, blather and bloviation is simply bullshiiit to mask angst of the Socialist set that the US Supreme Court followed the US Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in reaching the Hobby Lobby decision. Now, if there are Supreme Court Justices who are unable...or unwilling to rule with the US Constitution...and existing law and there are Justices who are so ideological they shun the rule of law, they should be impeached and thrown off the Court...immediately.

posted July 20, 2014 01:17 AM            

The U.S. Supreme Court did NOT follow the Constitution as Bader-Ginburg aptly pointed out. They broke with the spirit of RFRA (which applied only to beings capable of practicing religion, not corporations) to legislate from the bench.

quote:

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Slipshod, fuzzy, irrational, illogical arguments will get you exactly...nothing.

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posted July 20, 2014 11:19 AM            

And that is not true. What happens during the pregnancy, how the mother feels physically and EMOTIONALLY, nutrition, and many other factors influence the outcome of that pregnancy. In fact a stressed out mother will often have a difficult birth and a child who shows the very real effects of a stressful environment. This in turn can effect the functioning of organs and especially the brain and thought processes even alter its DNA

What the "right to lifers" don't know about having babies could fill the Gulf of Mexico. If life began at conception there would be no need for mom at all, just a petri dish would do the job. Forcing women to carry a fertilized egg to term should be a crime