Free Republic

Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday to effectively reverse the Supreme Court’s decision last week exempting employers from having to provide insurance coverage for contraception. The law would not allow for-profit corporations to seek exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that their health plans cover contraception costs. Religious institutions would still be able to opt out. “Our bill simply says that your boss cannot get between you and your own healthcare,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the bill’s chief sponsor told reporters. “Last week, we saw the Supreme Court give CEOs and corporations across America the green light to design...

Have we reached Peak Reid Demagoguery yet? I thought we had yesterday when Democrats signed onto Harry Reid’s Kochsteria strategy for the 2014 midterms, but we actually missed the new nadir for America’s top-ranked demagogue — but our good friend Larry O’Connor at the Free Beacon didn’t. Yesterday, when addressing the media about the Democratic strategy to undo Hobby Lobby, Reid insisted that the Senate wouldn’t let “five white men” have the last word on contraception mandates.Um …CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later,...

The Hobby Lobby case has produced some ridiculous hysteria and pronouncements, especially from lawmakers and Obama administration officials, and that may have just produced some significant backfire on their own side of the aisle. The White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill put a lot of effort into pushing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on behalf of the LGBT community, a bill that would prohibit employment discrimination for a wide range of sexual-orientation categories. It passed the Senate with Republican votes that came after adding a clause that protected religious expression similar to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),...

The Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby has pushed all the buttons that could be expected when sex and religion intersect. Many on the right are celebrating because they value religious expression and feel rather less excited about sex, especially of the non-procreative variety. And much of the Left is outraged because religion is generally considered of far less import while sexual freedom has a high priority. But both sides are missing the point. It is true that your boss shouldn’t be deciding whether or not your insurance plan includes contraceptives. It is also true that...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so angry over the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Hobby Lobby contraception case last week that he apparently forgot Justice Clarence Thomas is black. The Nevada Democrat lamented the court’s ruling which allows Hobby Lobby and other for-profit companies with religious objections to certain forms of contraception to avoid providing them to employees in health insurance plans mandated under Obamacare. Hobby Lobby approves of 16 out of 20 forms of contraception that have been approved by the FDA. “People are going to have to walk down here and vote, and if they vote...

Noah told you it was coming and now here it is. Pandermonium: The bill, developed in consultation with the Obama administration, would require for-profit corporations like Hobby Lobby Stores to provide and pay for contraceptive coverage, along with other preventive services, under the Affordable Care Act…“Your health care decisions are not your boss’s business,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who led efforts by Senate Democrats to respond to the court ruling. “Since the Supreme Court decided it will not protect women’s access to health care, I will.”…Ms. Murray’s bill criticizes the Supreme Court’s majority opinion and repudiates...

Sahil Kapur, TPMJuly 8, 2014 Senate Democrats are poised to introduce legislation as early as Tuesday to reverse the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling which exempted for-profit corporations with religious owners from the Obamacare mandate to cover emergency contraceptives in their insurance plans. The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO). According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception, to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling against the...

Democrats want to lure Republicans into a fight over birth control with legislation to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision that ObamaCare may not require certain businesses to include contraception in their employee health coverage. At least three bills are being crafted in the House and Senate to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which the high court used as the basis for its ruling that the contraception mandate violated federal law. Democrats are expected to introduce the measures prior to Congress’s August recess as part of an effort to recalibrate the party’s election-year messaging. Their hope is to turn...

When religion goes, other religions take its place. They mimic the forms and formalities of it without the substance. They are faiths without any gods but themselves and without any devils but themselves. Confronted with the religious horror of abortion, the post-religious faiths of the free world act out a godless religious drama in which they take turns playing all the old religious roles without the religion. The most pernicious of these is the martyr to the morally superior high ground of humanism. Faced with imagined violence, they retreat into a universalism that no one else shares. "We feel your...

A conservative Christian and mother of three from West Virginia has provoked vitriol from the left and support from the right after sharing her extreme beliefs about guns, abortion, health care and other political hot issues. Holly Fisher, who Tweets using the provocative handle Holly Hobby Lobby, has created uproar online in the wake of last week’s controversial birth control decision by the Supreme Court. To celebrate the court’s decision, Fisher posted a provocative photo online of her wearing a pro-life T-shirt, while posing in front of a Hobby Lobby store and holding a Chick-fil-A drinking cup.

This week, supporters of religious freedom cheered the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The Court was correct to protect business owners from being forced to violate their religious beliefs by paying for contraceptives. However, the decision was very limited in scope and application. The Court's decision only applies to certain types of businesses, for example, "closely-held corporations" that have a "sincere" religious objection to paying for contraceptive coverage. Presumably, federal courts or bureaucrats will determine if a business's religious objection to the mandate is "sincere" or not and therefore eligible for an opt-out from one Obamacare...

As a faithful Catholic with moral objections to forced Christian complicity in both abortion and contraception, I had many reasons to rejoice in the Supreme CourtÂ’s majority decision in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby written by Justice Alito. Unfortunately, the CourtÂ’s reasoning was not one of them. Two premises in the majorityÂ’s argument were especially troubling: first, the CourtÂ’s assertion of the legal inscrutability of moral and religious beliefs, and second, its assumption of the GovernmentÂ’s claim that contraceptives and abortifacients are necessary for womenÂ’s health and well-being. Contrary to the first premise, I agree with dissenting Justice Ginsburg that...

This image — which features an American woman named Holly Fisher and an international terrorist named Sherafiyah Lewthwaite* — has been doing the rounds on Lefty Twitter: “Explain the difference”? With pleasure. The woman on the left is a peaceful American citizen with a husband in the military. She has never killed anybody, and nor does she have any desire to. The reason that you know her name is that she has become a minor political celebrity for her outspoken support of a Supreme Court decision that upheld the rule of law against the intrusion of the executive branch. In...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Democrats will take up legislation in the “coming weeks” to address last month’s Supreme Court decision that allowed some employers with religious objections to opt out of Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Democrats on Capitol Hill have overwhelmingly criticized the high court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case and are working to craft a response that would restore the coverage, though no specifics have yet been outlined. “We’re going to do something about the Hobby Lobby legislation,” Reid said on the Senate floor Monday as he ticked off the Senate’s to-do list over the...

Poverty, violence and other issues aside, women everywhere are focused on being depressed after hearing the “anti-woman” ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.and Wheaton College v. Sylvia Burwell last week. Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College became embroiled in litigation due to Obamacare’s requirement that for-profit employers provide abortifacients to employees, despite their owners’ Christian beliefs. As we all know, there is no issue or right more important to women everywhere than to force all employers to subsidize their use of abortifacients. It doesn’t matter that women can easily buy the abortifacient Plan B...

Attorneys say clients have religious rights afforded by same law cited by SCOTUS in controversial Hobby Lobby ruling.Lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees have filed motions asking a U.S. court to block officials from preventing the inmates from taking part in communal prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The lawyers argue that – in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision – the detainees’ rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The motions were filed this week with the Washington D.C. district court on behalf of Emad Hassan of Yemen and Ahmed Rabbani...

The Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case demonstrates that the court, at least the five justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby, has little concern for, and probably little understanding of, women's health care. By ruling that corporations, on the grounds of the alleged religious views of their owners, can deny women access to some forms of contraception, the court set a horrible precedent that if followed will endanger the health and lives of many American women. The Hobby Lobby ruling may at first seem like a victory for the minority of Americans who think that...

After the Supreme Court handed down a defeat for supporters of the contraceptive mandate, which gave religious exemptions to for-profit, “closely-held corporations;” Democrats are moving to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). When it was passed in 1993, the bill almost had unanimous support; three votes were against it in the Senate. It seems that our more left-leaning members on the Hill seem to think that RFRA is being used haphazardly to benefit conservatives. As Megan McArdle of Bloomberg View wrote yesterday, RFRA isn’t a “blank check:”

There’s no better wisdom than received wisdom. And when it comes to parroting things she’s heard from people she believes to be smarter than her — which doesn’t really narrow it down — Lena Dunham is tops. Take it away, genius! Lena Dunham ✔ @lenadunham Women's access to birth control should not be denied because of their employer's religious beliefs. 12:50 PM - 30 Jun 2014 4,877 Retweets 6,617 favorites This is true, in theory. It’s also irrelevant, because that’s not what just happened. Lena Dunham is very stupid, but perhaps this analogy might find its way through that geologically...

It’s no surprise that Democrats are using the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Hobby Lobby and their Christian owners exemption from Obamacare’s contraception mandate as political bait. “No more birth control!” War on women!” liberals cry, hoping this fear mongering will drive more single women to the polls. There's just one problem: This demographic doesn’t care about midterm elections. In the NY Times’s own words: But the challenge for Democrats is that many single women do not vote, especially in nonpresidential election years like this one. While voting declines across all group in midterm contests for Congress and lower offices,...