Op-ed: Hobby Lobby and the Constitutional Right to Be Stupid

[Kimberley Beauregard]

It annoys me when religious rights are placed before people's.

[Shantel]

It annoys me when religious rights are placed before people's.

Like the religious types aren't people? So far all of this conversation is a real stretch of the what if's and and OMG "Henny Penny The Sky is Falling Down" sort of hysteria which I suppose fits the title to the thread in part "The Constitutional Right to Be Stupid!" Your own liberal constitutional attorney even said it was stupid.

[Eris]

Noone said that the "religious types", as you put it, aren't people. I think the point people were trying to make is that religion should not be used as an excuse to legitimize discrimination or to circumvent the law.

Given that some religious groups are apparently already trying to use this ruling to exempt themselves from policies designed to prevent discrimination to transpeople it doesn't seem particularly stupid to discus this either.

It's not insignificant, it's a precident. President Obama has already received a letter from conservative Christian business men saying that they should be exempt from his executive order requiring them to not discriminate against, among others, us, because it infringes upon their religious liberties.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/religious-groups-lgbt-hiring-hobby-lobby

Who precisely do you feel has become hysterical?

[Olivia P]

This is what russel brand has to say on the subject:

[Patty_M]

If you think the Hobby Lobby case is about who pays for birth control you are being naive.  The religious argument is a smoke screen.

If you want to know what its about I'll refer you to three cases. Autocam Corp. v. Burwell, Gilardi v. Department of Health & Human Services, and Eden Foods v. Burwell.  These three cases were from companies that wanted to do away with the birth control mandate in the ACA.  They were all rejected at the federal appeals level but the day after the Hobby Lobby decision - the very next day - the Court ordered them to be "reviewed" by the appeals court.

Hobby Lobby isn't about the company's religious rights.  Its about doing away with ALL forms of birth control AND it is a knife to the heart of Roe v. Wade. Remember that the methods HL refused were drugs that kept a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman's uterus. That is regarded as an abortion by those who believe that human life begins at the instant the sperm hits the egg.

I don't want this conversation to turn into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of abortion.  The subject has been debated endlessly since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. It is a topic that generates a great deal of heat but not much light. Lets not go there today, okay?

Birth control is just the nose of the camel under the tent flap.  The ultimate goal is to undermine and destroy Obamacare.

[VeryGnawty]

Tbh this is a very alien subject to me, due to living in the uk that has public funded healthcare. I don't really understand how a country that pumps so much money into war doesn't even care to attempt to organize a basic level of tax payer funded national healthcare.

Because this is a divided country.  Trying to implement a national healthcare would be a risky move by Democrats who are up for re-election.

The problem is that healthcare works best either when it is in a mostly free-market with minimal regulation, or when it is in complete government control with massive regulation.  In the United States Of America, we have neither of those things.  We have a lumbering chimera hybrid of healthcare that wants to be public healthcare without actually being public healthcare.  So, what happens is that huge amounts of time and money are spent on the minutae of what can and cannot be funded by taxpayer/employer/personal dollars and what cannot.

[Lonicera]

If you want to know what its about I'll refer you to three cases. Autocam Corp. v. Burwell, Gilardi v. Department of Health & Human Services, and Eden Foods v. Burwell.  These three cases were from companies that wanted to do away with the birth control mandate in the ACA.  They were all rejected at the federal appeals level but the day after the Hobby Lobby decision - the very next day - the Court ordered them to be "reviewed" by the appeals court.

I found it deeply disconcerting when I read an article about this. I can only guess that the Court thinks the outcome will be different in light of the precedent, that it's intended to stem fears by having prominent cases where the outcome remains the same, or that the Court is curious to see if the precedent will be extended. I know very little about US law but do think it would be horrific if the reasoning stripped of inconsequential facts led to extension.

Personally, this is why I'm incredibly glad that the UK Supreme Court is appointed via a commission that purports to select the most talented individuals for the job. I cannot accept a system wherein the judiciary is so radically politicised since it leads to inconsistency and poor legal thought via blatantly obvious attempts to contrive justifications for politically useful pre-determined conclusions. Of course, I don't believe we're 'superior,' we just value different things so I find the difference perplexing.

I appreciate it's a useful legal fiction to sometimes pretend companies are people but I can't envisage an acceptable system within which they're given the same fundamental rights. For better or worse, we live in a capitalist society so people are compelled to work in order to survive and achieve quality of life. Equally, we do not live in some ideal world where people can leave their job and rapidly find another suited to their specific needs. Employers have considerable power over their employees by virtue of biological and cultural necessities. Awarding equal rights to the company allows the employer to extend their will through it and exercise even greater power over the employee that can often choose between the new conditions or poverty. Increasing the imbalance of power so drastically is unconscionable to me. I regard the Hobby Lobby ruling as allowing a violation of people via use of a considerable power asymmetry to impose belief on already disadvantaged social groups in the form of people that face the risk of pregnancy.

Equally, I find the neo-liberal or right libertarian belief that the government shouldn't interfere because it's a private enterprise unconvincing. In my view, a company is an entity participating in the public realm and has far greater potential for impact on society via its actions than the individual does so I think it's entirely reasonable for a government to shield people against abuse and ensure justice via interference. For me, it restores balance and ensures the greatest happiness possible for the community as a whole. This applies whether it's preventing exploitation of those that provide their labour by denying certain health coverage to them or preventing exploitation via stopping the formation of monopolies.

Similarly, the neo-liberal or right libertarian idea that an employee that loses medical coverage for something hasn't lost any freedom because they can still purchase it independently isn't realistic in my mind. It uses a definition of freedom that has no connection to reality since it ignores aspects like exorbitant cost. If a person's practical options have been reduced then they are less free for me. I tend to believe it's somewhat akin to saying that a person that starves to death is free because they could still buy food if they had the money. What's the point of any definition that would describe a person shackled by poverty as 'free'?

With regard to healthcare systems, I have my problems with NHS England but the reports and analyses I've read consistently show that properly managed nationalised healthcare systems yield equivalent outcomes for lower cost in terms of (living cost adjusted) per capita expenditure. In many cases the outcome is superior since it makes it truly accessible to the entire population. For instance, I believe this is the case with things like tooth decay when the UK is compared to the US. I appreciate there are anecdotes about horrible issues and it's unforgivable that those things ever happen but every system has those issues, it's not indicative of the system overall.

[Jess42]

Well to me it is not about government run health care here in the states. The government has pretty much controlled it for a long time now. I have very few choices because I cannot buy health insurance from across state lines. I have to buy it in the state in which I live so kill the competition by insurance commisioners that are government bureucrats and the insurance companies can pretty much charge what they want and accept who they want.

Number two for me is that just as I don't want a coporation knowing every little detail about my heath, why would I want the government to have access to my health records. Yeah paying taxes and recieving healthcare for everyone is nice but we have safety nets already like medicaide and medicare. Not to mention the political soup de jour of the day and what kind of care you may recieve in the way of your voting practices. Yeah I distrust both parties. It does sound good on paper and in theory.

I don't want the government in my bedroom and definately don't want them in my hospital room. I had to have a minor surgery a couple of years ago. I found the Doctor and within a week I had an appointment. Tried twice to keep from having the surgery which was six weeks between visits and then when I decided that didn't work I had an appointment for the surgery scheduled in two weeks. Could have been a week if I wanted. What I had to have surgery on I really needed in a bad way and could not have waited months or a year to have it.

To me it isn't whether the insurance companies are privatized but there is so much control over private insurance companies and I am pretty sure they are in bed with the insurance commisioners just to keep the prices up.

[dalebert]

So do you have similar views for bin emptying, street cleaning, policing and the military? :-) Everyone uses them, they are state funded through taxes; should they be privatised and individualised based on who can pay? - "Sorry, I am not interested if you have been assaulted unless you have a credit card with you".

Actually, yes. I'm an anarchist, but I don't care much for arguing that anymore, particularly not in this thread at the risk of severe derailment. If you care to know my reasoning, click here (and you'll notice I hardly ever update that site anymore). I'm only arguing from the much more moderate POV that government has certain roles that are primarily about protecting us from having our rights violated by others and I can also understand why many people can't picture a world without public infrastructures like roads. The U.S. was actually founded on these notions. I understand fears around the idea of a private organization going around and engaging in police or military activities because they're using violence. We feel safer if they have a government badge that makes them seem official and accountable.

But anyone can help others without violence. We can raise money voluntarily. We can volunteer our time. There are so many ways we can come together to help people in need get resources they need or just raise money to pay for things without violence that there's no need for this kind of activity to be relegated to governments so that they can force that morality onto people against their will.

The problem is that healthcare works best either when it is in a mostly free-market with minimal regulation, or when it is in complete government control with massive regulation.  In the United States Of America, we have neither of those things.  We have a lumbering chimera hybrid of healthcare that wants to be public healthcare without actually being public healthcare.  So, what happens is that huge amounts of time and money are spent on the minutiae of what can and cannot be funded by taxpayer/employer/personal dollars and what cannot.

THIS! It's refreshing to see this kind of insight. Healthcare in the U.S. has been corrupted in so many ways for years by excessive regulations and also by a ridiculously litigious society that is a HUGE part of why it's gotten so expensive. It's screwed up by the culture of attaching insurance as a benefit of employment making it expensive to get independently and making it hard or impossible to change jobs if you have an preexisting condition. The problems go deep. We'd have to reform our court system before healthcare reform could be significant.

This might sound nuts coming from a total anarchist, but I honestly feel like the reforms needed for a free market approach to work are blocked by so many hurdles and Obamacare has messed things up so badly that fully socialized healthcare would probably be better than the situation as it is. I've said before I think that was their point with Obamacare. It was supposed to make things horrible. It makes my stomach turn to even think about it but I can't help but wonder.

In order to try to stay more on topic, I would just add this. Do people not see the difference between the extreme position (IMHO) of banning people from getting abortions and what is actually a very reasonable position of keeping them legal but not making people pay for them when they have deeply held moral positions against them? For instance, I very much think pot should be legal. I don't think companies or government should have to subsidize it. If someone tried to force companies to pay for pot, I'd be opposed to that. I'm pro-pot but anti-forcing anyone to pay for pot.

[michelle gee]

Anarchist? From Websters: "a person who believes that government and laws are not necessary" That's IMHO is a rather extreme viewpoint but hey its your choice.

Pot will soon be like other medicines, it has been proven to be medicinal for many ailments and I for see insurance covering it just the same.
Its ironic that the Supreme court that heard Roe V. Wade and made abortion legal in the first place was republican/conservative majority but these same people now are all against it. The democrats voted against it.
All I will say is if you don't like Hobby Lobby just don't shop there.

[Xenguy]

Post-Hobby Lobby, Religious Orgs Want Exemption From LGBT Hiring Order
DYLAN SCOTT – JULY 2, 2014

"The day after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he exempt them from a forthcoming executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people.

The letter, first reported by The Atlantic, was sent on Tuesday by 14 representatives, including the president of Gordon College, an Erie County, Pa., executive and the national faith vote director for Obama for America 2012, of the faith community."

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/religious-groups-lgbt-hiring-hobby-lobby

----------------------------------------------

Thought this might add?

[Lonicera]

In order to try to stay more on topic, I would just add this. Do people not see the difference between the extreme position (IMHO) of banning people from getting abortions and what is actually a very reasonable position of keeping them legal but not making people pay for them when they have deeply held moral positions against them? For instance, I very much think pot should be legal. I don't think companies or government should have to subsidize it. If someone tried to force companies to pay for pot, I'd be opposed to that. I'm pro-pot but anti-forcing anyone to pay for pot.

I appreciate that many others may see it as an artificial distinction but I regard companies as separate legal entities with unique responsibilities and powers requiring distinct regulation, hence why I said it's a 'useful legal fiction.' The individuals that comprise the company still retain their rights and are not compelled to pay for anything, it's the resources of the company that are used and I don't regard those resources as entirely belonging to the owners since worker labour generates it in a co-operative effort. If it's accepted that a company is solely an extension of owners and that the right to freedom of conscience is inviolable then how do we justify any regulation? In order to be consistent do we extend the same ability to discriminate against anyone and anything for any reason to companies in every domain? Do we return to the horrors of a laissez-faire world? As I said above, the power dynamics of that situation yield unacceptable injustice for me since a large concentration of power being exercised skews the balance of rights massively in favour of one over the others rather than maintaining them as equally as possible relative to one another.

With regard to cannabis, if best medical evidence demonstrates derivatives have major therapeutic benefits then I fail to see why employers should get the right to object to inclusion in insurance. I tend to judge things based on the happiness they yield relative to harm, allowing owners to use a company to impact greatly on something as intimate and imperative as medical care yields far too much harm for me.

Unfortunately, this is all rather fudged reasoning to accommodate an unnecessarily complicated issue. The US has succeeded in creating a complete nightmare and the worst of all possible worlds by intimately connecting work with quality coverage, generating massive amounts of bureaucracy (the number of administrators is astounding), and providing only partial state support.

[mac1]

How about this for a solution? Let there be multiple benefit plans available from which you may choose (medical, dental, optical, legal, etc: multiple choices for each) and the company provides a standard dollar amount which they will provide toward your premiums. Then the employee will be responsible for any premium amount which exceeds the company provided contribution. If you desire greater coverage you will pay more and if you want lesser coverage you will pay less.

For instance everybody does not desire birth control or abortion coverage so they will be able to select a plan which does not cover that. Why should any person be required to pay for benefits they do not desire just because somebody else wants them? Let them use their benefit dollars for something which is more appropriate for them.

[VeryGnawty]

THIS! It's refreshing to see this kind of insight. Healthcare in the U.S. has been corrupted in so many ways for years by excessive regulations and also by a ridiculously litigious society that is a HUGE part of why it's gotten so expensive.

Government intervention is the reason healthcare got so expensive to begin with, and it is also the reason that employers started offering healthcare benefits in the first place.  It's a lose-lose situation.  If Republicans repeal Obamacare, they will just go back to the old system and not change any of the actual problems that it had.  If Obamacare continues, then the government will gain even more control of healthcare, and the only chance of it getting any better is if they get rid of the private insurance companies entirely (insurance is a large reason why healthcare prices are expensive in the first place)

This might sound nuts coming from a total anarchist, but I honestly feel like the reforms needed for a free market approach to work are blocked by so many hurdles and Obamacare has messed things up so badly that fully socialized healthcare would probably be better than the situation as it is.

There is unlikely to be free market healthcare in this country.  Neither the Democrats nor Republicans support it.  When people complain about "free market healthcare" being too expensive, what they really mean is "somewhat open market healthcare which is one of the most regulated industries in the entire country"

[Eris]

It's a shame that the supplement industry isn't more carefully regulated.

WARNING: Video contains information that fans of Game of Thrones may find upsetting.

[Eva Marie]

Thought this might add?

Wow.... this is exactly what I feared when the decision was announced, and is a possible consequence that I posted about earlier in this thread. Lets hope that cooler heads prevail and it is nipped in the bud. The last thing we need is a regression of the progress that has been made in our fight to gain rights.

[VeryGnawty]

It's a shame that the supplement industry isn't more carefully regulated.

Investigations have shown that supplements are filled with lots of filler ingredients, and some supplements don't even contain the ingredients listed on the bottle.

Supplements are a perfect example of why a true free market doesn't work.  A lot of libertarians will argue that a complete free market is the best possible economic system, but they miss the fact that it is only the best economic system when the consumer is intelligent.  There will always be good and bad companies, and the only way to shut down bad companies in a free market system with no regulation is if consumers stop buying their products.  In reality, this will not happen.  Companies will just scam and false advertise and make fake products because they can and because people will buy it.  If you can sell a sugar pill and call it Garcinoga Gugala and sell it for $100 a bottle and claim that it cures anything and people will buy it, then why would you want to spend the money and research to come up with an actual product?

[dalebert]

Its ironic that the Supreme court that heard Roe V. Wade and made abortion legal in the first place was republican/conservative majority but these same people now are all against it. The democrats voted against it.

It wasn't very long ago that Democrats were economically liberal but social conservatives and Republicans were more libertarian, i.e. keep government out of people's lives in general other than certain specific roles of government. Al Gore was very anti-gay back then and even recruited the Westboro Baptist Church for his campaign in their area. Reagan sort of recruited Christians but he was more about convincing them why they should be libertarian. Of course he couldn't use the L-word as a Republican. He was a lot more overtly libertarian in his younger days. I don't want to come off like a fan of Reagan. I used to be but I snapped out of it. He was a war monger and didn't really practice what he preached IMHO. It was around Bush Sr. that the flip happened. Bush started appealing to Christians on the basis of imposing their morality on other through the Federal government.

All I will say is if you don't like Hobby Lobby just don't shop there.

Or work there or buy their stock, etc.

[Shantel]

It wasn't very long ago that Democrats were economically liberal but social conservatives and Republicans were more libertarian, i.e. keep government out of people's lives in general other than certain specific roles of government. Al Gore was very anti-gay back then and even recruited the Westboro Baptist Church for his campaign in their area. Reagan sort of recruited Christians but he was more about convincing them why they should be libertarian. Of course he couldn't use the L-word as a Republican. He was a lot more overtly libertarian in his younger days. I don't want to come off like a fan of Reagan. I used to be but I snapped out of it. He was a war monger and didn't really practice what he preached IMHO. It was around Bush Sr. that the flip happened. Bush started appealing to Christians on the basis of imposing their morality on other through the Federal government.

Or work there or buy their stock, etc.

I think you nailed it Dalebert!

When Bush Sr. was president the religious right followed the mega church pastor Jerry Falwell's lead and became a huge political block and modeled their thinking after his bigoted ideas. Prior to that church people were quiet and unassuming in the political arena. Then came the Neo-Cons, war hawkish investors who realized that big profits abound in Wall Street for those who invest in the military industrial complex companies. These two elements hijacked the Republican Party and are responsible for what it has morphed into today.

Meanwhile the Democratic party has moved radically to the left over the last few decades to the extent that a huge gulf has formed between the two that appears to be unbridgeable.