The Hobby Lobby decision: brought to you by……liberals!

Flopping Aces ^ | 07-01-14 | DrJohn

[Starman417]

Let's review RFRA:

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-4 (also known as RFRA), is a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person's free exercise of their religion. The bill was introduced by Howard McKeon of California and Dean Gallo of New Jersey on March 11, 1993.[1] The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and was passed by a unanimous U.S. House and a near unanimous U.S. Senate with three dissenting votes.[2] It was held unconstitutional as applied to the states in the City of Boerne v. Flores decision in 1997, which ruled that the RFRA is not a proper exercise of Congress's enforcement power. But it continues to be applied to the federal government, for instance in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, because Congress has broad authority to carve out exemptions from federal laws and regulations that it itself has authorized. In response to City of Boerne v. Flores, some individual states passed State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that apply to state governments and local municipalities.

Who brought RFRA to us? Chuckie Schumer.

Introduced in the House as H.R. 1308 by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993

You know how liberals are always whining about corporations not being "persons"? Well, that's pretty interesting. Cue the Harvard Law Review

"Why for-profit corporations are RFRA persons"

As noted in the introduction, RFRA prevents unjustified interference with religious exercise by “persons.” The most natural reading of the term “person” in RFRA includes for-profit corporations. Congress passed RFRA in response to Employment Division v. Smith,12 which abandoned application of strict scrutiny to neutral laws burdening religious exercise.13 Because RFRA implements a previous constitutional rule, one could seek the meaning of “person” in constitutional precedent. As Justice Brennan explained, “by 1871, it was well understood that corporations should be treated as natural persons for virtually all purposes of constitutional and statutory analysis.”14 Thus, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that for-profit corporations are constitutional “persons.”15 Furthermore, the so-called “Dictionary Act,” which defines terms appearing in the U.S. Code, provides that, “unless the context indicates otherwise,” the term “person” includes corporations, partnerships, and other entities, “as well as individuals,” without regard to whether such firms or individuals are engaged in profit-seeking activities.16

Their conclusion?

Simply put, corporate law provides no reason for excluding for-profit corporations from RFRA.

Liberals have lost their minds over this and now are reduced to spewing idiocies. The stupidity is so rampant that there is simply not enough bandwidth to accommodate it. One of my favorites is how this ruling curtails women's reproductive rights. From one the of the brain dead at Politico:

Conservative men and their disdain for women's reproductive rights! You bigots on the right won't stop until it becomes legal to own your wives like property

The ruling in no way affects women's reproductive rights. That reminds me- when are women's rights to reproduce ever curtailed? Why are they called "reproductive rights" at all? Should they not be called "Contraceptive rights" instead?

Anyway, here comes the best of all.

[GeronL]

Why did they cite the RFRA instead of the Constitution??

[Personal Responsibility]

The lesson the liberals (and many republicans) SHOULD learn is that laws have unintended consequences and unpredictable downstream results. To minimize the possibility of this happening, among other reasons, laws should be as short and clear as possible.

Of course, neither side wants to create small laws written in clear english (as opposted to legalese). It’s impossible to hide the crap they pull by doing so.