Supremes: Hobby Lobby & Harris Win

Cathy_Lee wrote: I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court. Corporations, companies or closely-held companies were never mentioned in the Constitution, that I am aware of.

And yet this decision is entirely consistent with the idea that the individuals who form the corporation don't check their individual liberties at the door when they become part of a corporation. That is, after all, what a corporation is comprised of - individuals.

PrintSmith wrote:

fly off the handle wrote: Just wait until Muslim business owners realize they are exempt from our laws
be careful what we wish for.

There are certain laws the federal government is not delegated the power to enact, and compelling one to violate their religious beliefs falls within that category. The owners of HobbyLobby feel that abortifacients are immoral. You don't have to share that belief, you just can't force your beliefs onto them if you don't.

when a belief system uses this decision to enforce Sharia law you will squeal like a pig.
You got your decision now we live with the consequences.
I really don't care. You guys of faith can kill each other ,reason be damned.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution is about the seperation between Church and State and has had to be defined again and again by the courts what this really means. During Prohibition, religions were allowed to get around a constitutional amendment and have their wine, and some religions were allowed to partake in illegal drugs. Right now, just being a member of certain faiths like Amish is enough to grant you an exemption from ACA. Shouldn't it be fair for a company to slightly modify what it covers in its healthcare policy?

Obama got both the hand holding the phone and the one holding the pen slapped by the Supreme Court today - and rightly so in both instances. Obama knows that in order to sell his agenda he has to separate people from their faith in anything other than the federal government and today he was told that he can't use the vast power and reach of the federal government to achieve that end. You wouldn't want the federal government enacting a law that said you had to support a religious institution of one stripe or another financially even if you were an atheist and yet that is precisely what the left seems to want to allow as long as the target of force is the religious institutions. Doesn't work that way, never has, and hopefully never will . . .

This was not a 1st Amendment issue, it was strictly an interpretation of whether the owners of a "closely held" (five or fewer owners owning at least 50% of the value of the company)for profit company could avail themselves of the Religious Freedom Restoration statute to force their religious beliefs onto their employees. Under the RFRA, the exercise of religion can only be "burdened" by the least restrictive means government regulation. Here, the five Roman Catholic male justices decided that 1) even though the RFRA did not include corporations in the Act, that somehow the owners would be "burdened" by their beliefs that the use of certain contraception by their employees would constitute abortion (with no scientific backing for that belief), and that their "enablement" by providing insurance that included those contraceptives would somehow violate their "beliefs" (even though up until the filing of the lawsuit, the company had provided those very same contraceptives as an employee benefit for years), and that the government had failed to use the "least restrictive" means possible to provide those contraceptives to women who desired them (since the government had excluded religious institutions from that requirement).

My opinion is first that it is wrongly decided. The purpose of forming a corporation is to remove personal liability from the owners to protect their personal assets. If you are not going to be personal liable for the operation of the corporation, then you should not be imposing personal beliefs on the corporation itself. A few posters here forget that the 1st amendment not only protects the right of the individual of free exercise of religion, it also protects the individual from the imposition of the religion by others. Here the owners, while taking advantage of protecting themselves from personal liability by forming a corporation to hide behind, they are using that corporation to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Since the purpose of this and most corporations are to create profits, why should they be allowed to compete with different rules than most for profit corporations? Should not the marketplace be the same for everyone?
Second, this opens a huge door for imposing other religious beliefs on employees at the expense of society. For example, if the owners are predominantly Jehovah Witnesses', will they be able to prevent employees from having blood tranfusions covered under their insurance? Can owners who belong to white supremacy churches (yes they exist) fire employees due to their skin color or religion, or for cohabiting with those of other races? Alito claims that this decision is narrowly tailored to this single instance, but how is that possible?
Third, luckily this decision will affect only the employees of a few companies. Outside of Hobby Lobby and Conestaga, there are few large companies that are both closely held and owned by religious extremists. This decision is opposed by most christian and non-christian churches, and by most of the citizens of america.

I support Mr. Green's rights to run his company however he pleases.

I also support your right to choose not to patronize Mr. Green's company if you happen to disagree with him.

I don't really feel anyone is being denied anything, here.

So what - the Greens don't want to pay. You can pick up a month's worth of oral contraceptive for just $9 at your local Walmart.

Years ago, I paid for an elective vasectomy. At that time, I consulted with colleges to help them set their tuition. From my perspective - one good boy scout doc was worth the price of admission (he tied good knots, just like any scout should).

If the Green's desire to run their business in the manner they desire, they should hold it as a proprietorship instead of a for profit corporation. Corporations are bound by uniform laws that regulate the operation of the corporation. This uniformity creates a level for profit playing field. Once you incorporate your business, your are bound by the same regulations as your competitor.

edited to add:
Why should a closely held large corporation have different rules than a typical large corporation with institutional and/or diverse stockholders? Will we now see numerous shareholder lawsuits against corporations that do not share the same religious beliefs as certain shareholders? Again, will a closely held corporation now be able to impose their religious beliefs on their employees even if those beliefs include bans on medical treatment, bans on maternity benefits for unwed mothers, bans on cohabitation of mixed races, etc. etc. etc. if those practices violate the religious beliefs of the owners?

The Greens are religious extremists? They are willing to pay for most forms of birth control. That makes them less radical than the mainstream Catholic Church.

Their latest pet project in Oklahoma is a christian biblical "curriculum" for public schools.
www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion...1e10a03f0_story.html

" In an award acceptance speech last April before the National Bible Association, Green explained that his goals for a high school curriculum were to show that the Bible is true, that it’s good and that its impact, “whether (upon) our government, education, science, art, literature, family ... when we apply it to our lives in all aspects of our life, that it has been good.”

If realized, these sentiments, although shared by millions of Americans, could conflict with the court’s requirement that public school treatment of the Bible be taught in a secular, academic fashion.

In the same speech, Green expressed hope that such courses would become mandatory, whereas now they are usually elective."

Yep religious extremists pushing to make mandatory teaching that the bible is true and good on all aspects of life. How would that not violate the 1st Amendment clause of the government establishment of religion/

Something the Dog Said wrote: This was not a 1st Amendment issue, it was strictly an interpretation of whether the owners of a "closely held" (five or fewer owners owning at least 50% of the value of the company)for profit company could avail themselves of the Religious Freedom Restoration statute to force their religious beliefs onto their employees. Under the RFRA, the exercise of religion can only be "burdened" by the least restrictive means government regulation. Here, the five Roman Catholic male justices decided that 1) even though the RFRA did not include corporations in the Act, that somehow the owners would be "burdened" by their beliefs that the use of certain contraception by their employees would constitute abortion (with no scientific backing for that belief), and that their "enablement" by providing insurance that included those contraceptives would somehow violate their "beliefs" (even though up until the filing of the lawsuit, the company had provided those very same contraceptives as an employee benefit for years), and that the government had failed to use the "least restrictive" means possible to provide those contraceptives to women who desired them (since the government had excluded religious institutions from that requirement).

My opinion is first that it is wrongly decided. The purpose of forming a corporation is to remove personal liability from the owners to protect their personal assets. If you are not going to be personal liable for the operation of the corporation, then you should not be imposing personal beliefs on the corporation itself. A few posters here forget that the 1st amendment not only protects the right of the individual of free exercise of religion, it also protects the individual from the imposition of the religion by others. Here the owners, while taking advantage of protecting themselves from personal liability by forming a corporation to hide behind, they are using that corporation to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Since the purpose of this and most corporations are to create profits, why should they be allowed to compete with different rules than most for profit corporations? Should not the marketplace be the same for everyone?
Second, this opens a huge door for imposing other religious beliefs on employees at the expense of society. For example, if the owners are predominantly Jehovah Witnesses', will they be able to prevent employees from having blood tranfusions covered under their insurance? Can owners who belong to white supremacy churches (yes they exist) fire employees due to their skin color or religion, or for cohabiting with those of other races? Alito claims that this decision is narrowly tailored to this single instance, but how is that possible?
Third, luckily this decision will affect only the employees of a few companies. Outside of Hobby Lobby and Conestaga, there are few large companies that are both closely held and owned by religious extremists. This decision is opposed by most christian and non-christian churches, and by most of the citizens of america.

That broad brush you are painting with leads you to make numerous errors in your statements. The Greens never, ever, paid for the 4 abortifacients as a matter of corporate policy.

You are also mistaken in your belief that the Greens are forcing their religious beliefs on anyone else. They do not fire any employee who makes the elective decision to take these abortifacients. They do not require attendance at their church of choice by all of their employees. They do not require that their employees financially support their chosen religious institution. They do not require baptism in their faith as a condition of employment. They simply say that if you choose to take an abortifacient, it will be at your own expense, not theirs. They will not financially support, even indirectly, the destruction, or even the potential destruction, of a human life through the use of abortifacients.

The Greens do not oppose all forms of chemical sterilization, they only oppose those that have the potential to destroy a human life through the use of chemicals or devices which are primarily designed to create a miscarriage and thus the destruction of human life. That these 4 abortifacients are primarily designed to act by forcing a miscarriage is not in any way disputed as a matter of science. Thus you are incorrect again when you say that there is no scientific backing for the challenge to being compelled using the force of government to be party to the abortions that would result from the use of the compounds and devices.

And, for the record, nearly 90% of corporations in the Union are "closely held" ones. These are the small businesses that are the major employers in the Union. Large publicly traded corporations must still genuflect before the federal government, but this decision frees the vast majority of corporations from the federal government using force to obtain compliance to their dictates.

The RFRA does not need to specifically mention corporations to apply to them. The court has long upheld the decision that the members of a corporation do not surrender their rights by joining the corporation. A corporation is a group of individuals who jointly own property. Because every member of the corporation cannot be held personally liable for the individual acts of every other member of the corporation, which is what limits their liability to the assets of the corporation only, changes this reality not one smidgen. There is not a single argument to be made that all the members of a corporation should be personally liable for the actions of every other member of the corporation. There is not a single argument that can be supported by reason by which a member of the corporation should have their personal assets on the line should another member of the corporation act in a manner that they alone are responsible for. Were you and I to form a corporation, there is not a single reason why my personal assets should be on the line should you go off the deep end and shoot up a theater for instance. Absent the limits on the liability that correctly apply to a corporation, my personal assets would be subject to confiscation for your actions outside of the corporation because both of us are members. If you were to do such a deed it might be the end of the corporation because of your actions and the financial interest you had in the corporation, but my personal assets are properly off the table. That is why the law limits the financial liability of the members to the assets of the corporation. To suggest otherwise is, unsurprisingly, another of your disingenuous arguments that is wholly without merit.