Hypocrisy ??? – Updated
Update to the Hobby Lobby decision comes as a result of a SCOTUS injunction the day before the 4th of July 2014
The nonprofit Wheaton College filed a petition to keep it from having to a file self-certification document certifying it is a religious organization and should be exempt from having to provide contraceptives. Sotomayer writes:
“Let me be absolutely clear: I do not doubt that Wheaton genuinely believes that signing the self-certification form is contrary to its religious beliefs; but, thinking one’s religious beliefs are substantially burdened … does not make it so.” She adds, “Not every sincerely felt ‘burden’ is a ‘substantial’ one, and it is for courts, not litigants, to identify which are.”
The court granted the emergency injunction from Wheaton College.
What the plaintiffs in the nonprofit cases are seeking is to be treated like churches – no contraception for anyone. But the majority claims that “nothing in this interim order affects the ability of the applicant’s employees and students to obtain, without cost, the full range of FDA approved contraceptives,” because the government already knows about their objection from the lawsuit and can tell the insurer itself. But without the form, Sotomayor argues, how could the administration “ever identify the organizations eligible for the accommodation and perform the administrative tasks necessary to make the accommodation work?”
Hat Tip: Karoli, Crooks and Liars
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Hobby Lobby won its case at SCOTUS and is now exempt from having to pay for contraceptive devices or pharma for its female employees. At one commenter pointed out at a different blog, this did not include any pharma for men they may need to father a child or just for fun. This is not the Hobby Lobby hypocrisy I am pointing to although it is fair game in critiquing the company’s viewpoint.
While Hobby Lobby does not want to foot the bill for contraception, it has no problem in investing retirement funds in companies which manufacture emergency birth control measures which is something Hobby Lobby exhausted itself in explaining to the court. David at Crooks and Liars reports on a recent CNN broadcast concerning Hobby Lobby. Given its erroneous reporting on the VA recently, CNN has not been high on my list of reputable sources for news.
“While CNN host Ashleigh Banfield on Wednesday highlighted the “hypocrisy” of Hobby Lobby for investing in companies that made the same birth control products that it refused to provide to female employees,” CNN Business Correspondent Alison Kosik gives Hobby Lobby the benefit of the doubt by suggesting Hobby Lobby may have overlooked where its retirement funds may be going. Yea right and one word, “baloney!” and I could have used two words but AB is kind of a family-type-of-blog :). These are religious fanatics who wear their religion on their sleeve and will not hesitate a second to cram it down your throat to gain an advantage. They convinced the world they were being put-upon by the PPACA, President Obama, and the US government until it comes to making a buck.
Maybe SCOTUS will do a “do-over” and rethink their decision which will have some far reaching consequences going into the future as detailed in a recent LA Times Op-Ed The broad reach of the narrow Hobby Lobby ruling by Erwin Chemerinsky. As taken from the Op-Ed:
– “Christian Scientists could claim that they do not have to provide any health insurance to their employees.”
– “a family-owned business ‘could’ require as a condition of employment that no money paid as salary will be used to buy contraceptives, or other things that violate the employers’ religious beliefs?”
– Justice Samuel A. Alito, “it might apply to racial discrimination by saying, ‘The government has a compelling interest in providing equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal.'”
– “what of employers who have a religious belief that women with children should not work outside their homes, or businesses that claim a religious basis for sexual-orientation discrimination?”
– etc.
And of a reconsideration by the court? Doubtful with this crop of activist conservative judges as JackD pointed in the comments . . . and the door is open for other exemptions for those fictional entities called corporations.
Erwin laid it out well, didn’t he , run? SCOTUS could reconsider its error in Hobby Lobby but not without new justices in my opinion. As Charley Pierce pointed out, there’s no excuse not to vote now, and not just for the presidency.
Jack:
Erwin did lay it out well. Since we all know him, it makes it easy to quote him and I always look him on these decisions due to his logical approach. I think we are in trouble.
Two different people told me today that Hobby Lobby’s insurance plan pays for a variety of contraceptives. Do you know if this is true?
I have read news reports that it was true prior to the adoption of the ACA. My guess is that it is still true but shortly won’t be.
“Two different people told me today that Hobby Lobby’s insurance plan pays for a variety of contraceptives. Do you know if this is true? ”
The real question is–who cares if it is true? What business does a company have regulating how your compensation can be spent?
What I read (I think at Balloon Juice quoting somebody else, but I’m sure Google can find it) was that Hobby Lobby did not object to all contraceptives but only those which they consider as killing potential fetuses which have passed the point of conception, e.g., intrauterine devices which prevent implantation. However, had they been Catholics opposed to all forms of conception instead of evangelical Protestants, I’m sure Alito would have still found for them.
The court ruled today in a series of cases that their holding applies to all kinds of contraceptive methods.
Hypocrisy Indeed!
Kettle meet pot. Remove the plank from your own eye before you complain about the speck in another’s !
The absurdity of complaining about Hobby Lobbiy’s owner’s “imposing” their views on their employees (Dear employee, if you want coverage for abortifacients you gotta buy that yourself -oh the humanity…), while supporting the PPACA Mandate which actually forces persons to buy insurance!
What really pisses-off Harry Reid and the HL dissenters is that someone has wiggled out from under their control. Call out the slave catchers! Someone somewhere is acting on their own conscience!
Michael:
Simply nonsense, you would desire society to bear the burden of your wish not to provide for your own care in case of mishap or illness. John S. Mill warned of the tyranny of a majority upon a minority in that they may be protected of it in so much as their pursuit of it does not bring harm upon society. You practice a tyranny of the minority in leaving the cheque to the majority to pick up even though you have means in which to pay for it. Simple solution, sign a DNR so we do not have to pay for yours.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: there’s “little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate, for the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood—combined with its other errors in construing RFRA—invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith.”
Katha Pollitt adds to justice Ginsberg argument; The reason it’s unlikely the Supreme Court would uphold a religious exemption for vaccinations or blood transfusions is not something intrinsic to those claims; it’s simply that Alito finds them weird. Birth control is banned by the Bible? Sure. Blood transfusions are banned by the Bible? Don’t be silly. For now. We have no idea, really, how far the Court might be willing to extend RFRA. Could a CEO refuse to pay childbirth costs for unmarried women? Could he pay married men more because that’s what the Lord wants? (Actually, he’s is probably already doing that.) But here’s my prediction: the day a religious exemption burdens by so much as a mouse’s whisker the right of men to protect their own bodies from unwanted, well, anything, is the day the Supreme Court Five discover that religion is not so deserving of deference after all.
Women have always paid considerably more for preventative healthcare and Hobby Lobby wishes to go back to such a state because it hides under the guise of a violation of religious beliefs which appear to disappear when it comes to ROI. As well as your position on the matter, their beliefs are a matter of convenience and simply nonsense.
The Supreme Court is now also the prime legislative branch of government since the republicans have effectively shut down Congress.
As I am sure Mr. Hansberry recalls, the insurance mandate was part of the original Heritage-Foundation-conservative-Republican plan as a way to avoid a public option and let private health-insurance companies continue to prosper while not allowing them to deny coverage to those they regard as poor risks, who are the ones most in need of it. It was what your masters, the corporate owners of America, wanted, as their price for supporting the bill, which they did.
I don’t have a lot of respect for private insurance companies, but they are not all bad, and I can understand that putting them all mostly out of business with Medicare for all might be going too far, too fast. (I say mostly, because there is still some private insurance in Great Britain and France and other places with universal health insurance.) So while the ACA is not my ideal system, I don’t think it was a terrible compromise, despite being a conservative plan.
Letting religious dogma interfere between patients and their doctors who do not share that dogma strikes me as a different and potentially much more dangerous policy.
The genuine hypocrisy at the heart of the HL decision is about the way these slut shaming panty sniffers have turned to the supreme court to litigate something their religious teachers, thinkers and leaders have failed to sell from the pulpit.
Despite over a half century of advocating aspirin between the legs and other suitably pious views of women’s sexuality, 98% of US Catholic women acknowledge using contraception contrary to the church’s teaching on birth control.
As such, the HL decision may end up being a high water mark for this kind of useless nonsense. Unless “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a likelier scenario than I imagine.
MH,
Amazing you see no difference whatsoever in the insurance mandate and HL’s mandate.
Mandates by the people versus mandates by religion.
Pretty big difference.
EMichael,
But of course I do see a difference, a large difference between government imposing on an individual and forcing him or her to violate their conscience as opposed to a person wishing not to participate in actions that violate their conscience, though those actions may be desired by another.
The owners in HL are not preventing their employees from obtaining abortifacients, they are simply not willing to be involved in that purchase.
Why is it so difficult for you to respect for the freedom of conscience of both HL owners and the employees of HL?
To each his own has been replaced with every knee must bend.
I am amazed that most here (on Angry Bear) seemly have no appreciation whatsoever for the rights of conscience.
Now someone needs to sue Hobby Lobby for support for an unwanted child, at least until the age of 18. If your religion requires you not to pay for contraception, then it requires that you bear the consequences. Otherwise, this is just a company using religion as an excuse to better its bottom line.
Run75441,
That’s a mighty fine master you have in Uncle Sam, he takes care of you and provides for your healthcare (with other people’s money), and he even let’s you decide some things for yourself -at least those decisions which have no impact on the economy are still yours to make.
A pity the extreme left didn’t have one more vote on SCOTUS for the notion that Congress can regulate our economic decisions, compel commerce, etc. -then we would know true freedom, eh?.
Michael:
non sequitur remark you post today and also in error.
JimV,
Yes, I clearly recall your fervent support for the Heritage plan. Glad to see you are a consistent Authoritarian. 🙂
JimV said: Letting religious dogma interfere between patients and their doctors who do not share that dogma strikes me as a different and potentially much more dangerous policy.
I agree, but why do you bring it up? HL does not interfere between patients and doctors. It only reaches the company owner vs. government relationship. The gov cannot compel the owner to provide insurance for abortificients, while the employees are free to use whatever abortificients they wish.
Mr.Hansberry,
what you seem to have trouble understanding is the utter absurdity of people being allowed to organize their business in such a way as to avoid personal liability for their wrongful acts through their corporation and at the same time being allowed to impose their personal religious attitudes on the employees of the corporation they have formed, supposedly a separate entity with its own rights but in fact simply an alter ego for them.
You and they simply ignore the rights of the employees.
What if Hobby Lobby was a Sole Proprietorship instead of a corporation? Would the same objections still hold?
Commenting here is difficult – technical glitches?
This is a lot of drama considering this is a very small matter in the overall scope of ACA.
ACA and the administration have many, many bigger problems.
Hansberry, your personal attacks are not welcome.
STR:
You should be alright. You just changed your handle which requires approval.
Mr Hansberry seems to want to presume that the consciences of the owners trump that of their employees. As if they were obliged to rent out their moral world views along with their hands and minds. A tidy proposition to be sure but essentially wrong.
Just like it’s wrong to presume that US women can’t discern the use of contraception from moral degeneracy. They tend to turn out at the polls about 10% higher rate than US men so I think some GOP candidates and consultants are going to be reminded of this soon enough.
The HL decision is a rear guard action. The sponsors of this line of thinking don’t constitute a plurality anywhere in this country. Like DOMA in the 90s it will be seen as quaint and ridiculous in about 10-15 years.
amateur socialist.
How so? In what way has the HL owner imposed on the employee?
Where do baby Republicans come from? It is difficult to imagine that many of them actually manage to get laid.
They’re made not born right? Is that it?
JackD,
If the HL owners were actually imposing their religious beliefs on their employees, I would agree with you. But the HL owners are not forbidding their employees to purchase or use abortificients.
I have the same qualms about the corporate structure that you apparently have, but I do not see how that can justify the government requiring the owners of a closely held corporation to surrender their conscience to the state.
But I suppose if one has no issue about empowering Congress to regulate the economic decisions of each of us, in other words to compel commerce, then regulating the consciences of a few rich guys is a given, eh?
Geez
The laws of the country should not be changed due to the religious beliefs of a protected class of owners.
The ACA was made law by legal process in which the entire country was involved.. It contained minimum standards of care and requirements. Now a few private citizens have changed that law, supposedly based on some religious belief bs.
As Run pointed out, the hypocrisy shown by these few people makes it clear it is all bs.
Noone’s asking the owners of closely held corporations to surrender their consciences to the state. Rather we’re asking them to obey the law concerning the coverage of health policies provided to their employees as compensation. That’s the point. It’s the compensation of the employees; not the gift of the employers. Not unlike a minimum wage.
1. Employee health insurance is just part of the employee’s compensation. Would it be OK for HL to also insist that none of their employees’ wages be spent on certain forms of contraception?
2. Anyway, HL isn’t being asked to pay for contraception. HL pays a premium into a pool managed by the insurance company, which pays out of that pool, drawn from many premia, as well as the investment income from those premia.
3. HL is asking for an exception to the rights of US citizens to equal treatment under the ACA.
Joel:
Hobby Lobby are also benefactors to Bill Gothard who prefers to have women in their place and preferably under his thumb. There is a reason for much of this occurring and it appears SCOTUS wished to endorse it.
“For a decade or so, Hobby Lobby and its owners, the Green family, have been generous benefactors of a Christian ministry that until recently was run by Bill Gothard, a controversial religious leader who has long promoted a strict and authoritarian version of Christianity. Gothard, a prominent champion of Christian home-schooling, has decried the evils of dating, rock music, and Cabbage Patch dolls; claimed public education teaches children “how to commit suicide” and undermines spirituality; contended that mental illness is merely “varying degrees of irresponsibility”; and urged wives to “submit to the leadership” of their husbands. Critics of Gothard have associated him with Christian Reconstructionism, an ultra-fundamentalist movement that yearns for a theocracy, and accused him of running a cult-like organization. In March, he was pressured to resign from his ministry, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, after being accused by more than 30 women of sexual harassment and molestation—a charge Gothard denies.” http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/hobby-lobby-bill-gothard-institute-basic-life-principles
@Run,
Yeah, I read about Gothard this morning. Weird stuff, to be sure, but in the end, HL’s motives, faux theology and bad science don’t interest me that much. I’m already reading enough looniness from climate change denier, creationist and anti-vaxxer cults.
Regardless of the “sincerity” of their beliefs, they are not entitled to spin them into a sophistry that abridges the rights of others (the right to equal treatment under the ACA). And the claim that the insurance premia they pay can be mapped to any specific expenses is risible–it simply shows that they don’t really understand how insurance works.
Jerry,
If a sole proprietorship were involved, the same objections would not hold (at least not all of them) but the basic one would and that is the obligation of an employer, any employer, to obey the law and pay its employees in accordance with the law. Added to that is the requirement to allow employees to follow their own religious practices and beliefs even if they conflict with those of the employer.
Looking at this clusterf!ck court, I wonder how long it takes before a pacifist religion(Quakers?) decide that forcing them to pay taxes that support war is against their religion?
And I would love(sic) to see the response from the five horsemen of the apocalypse when they of course threw it out.
I can’t remember the cite, but I think the case of pacifists and taxes has already been decided. They have to pay.
Well, corporations did not use to be people. And Supreme Courts did not change their mind every other day……..
Corporations did not used to be “people”. But they were always “persons”. Legal persons who had the right to hold property and avail themselves of the Courts. Which distinction originally had eccessiastical roots. Because in early medieval times lay people did not grant property to Churches or Monasteries, instead they passed title to the patron Saint. For whom the Cathedral Chapter or the Monastic Abbot was only the trustee. Now while nobody in those early centuries would deny that St. Augustine of Canterbury (first Archbishop) or St. Benedict of Nursia (and the founder of the Benedictine Order) was fully alive and capable of performing acts on Earth and for that matter accepting title to property, it is not like either was going to show up in Court. And still less would you expect the legal person the ‘City of London’ or the Oxford’s ‘Magdalene College’ to appear. On the other hand neither of them could expect to be sworn in as a Juror. They just were not that kind of ‘person’.
The Supreme Court has in my eyes simply closed their eyes to centuries of legal practice that recognized corporations as LEGAL ‘persons’ primarily in matters of land possession and contract and somehow made them eligible to take Communion. That is something that at a stretch made certain sense when applied to a seventh century Saint who ‘owned’ the property devoted to him starts looking pretty damn silly when applied to Trinity College at Oxford. I mean which member of the Trinity gets served? Does Jesus tell the Holy Ghost “Hey its Your turn”.
Hi Bruce:
You may know I live in Michigan east of Howell where the KKK GM lived and south of the Militia. Other than those entities, the state is abundant with whack jobs who angrily spout off about the diseased immigrants (Atkins at Hullabaloo had a nice article about the alleged diseases) coming into America from Honduras, Nicaragua, etc. I suggested the accusers may be suffering from a disorder called xenophobia to which there is no cure or inoculation against. I have handed the County Head-Repub his lunch on more than a few occasions now. The lack of knowledge in this part of the country is pervasive as their main source of info is the county weekly reader look-a-like which merely copies words from wherever. I am disliked immensely by the tea-baggers and the parrots of nonsense and misinformation.
As you must know this has been a topic of conversation by us in which any rebuttal falls upon closed minds and ears which do not accept the truth. There is our state senator Joe Hune who is sick to his stomach due to the Medicaid expansion. We have not heard much from him as of late due to election time. He is fun to pick upon.
It is as what Mike has said below about forcing someone to pay for something which they find offensive while at the same time they do not mind profiting from it. I would call it a tyranny of the minority or a small portion of the population forcing their will upon us causing us harm. Myself and a few others are little more than candles in the wind. I expect I have angered more than a few discrediting their points and presenting the truth an the facts.
E. Michael,
U.S. v.Lee, 1982. Of course that’s just a precedent and this court doesn’t seem to think they matter much.
JAckD,
You must be aware that US v. Lee was based on 1st amendment, claims while HL decision was based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a Clinton era law pushing back on such earlier decisions.
What accommodation under the act do you imagine would be possible for the religious objection described in U.S. v. Lee? Gotta pay your taxes, man; no exceptions.