Free Republic

So says Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn, but color me skeptical. Not of Haberkorn’s reporting on the subject, which accurately takes the temperature of the rhetoric from the Left, but of the bravado coming from Capitol Hill Democrats in the dog days of July. Democrats claim they want to make a midterm fight over a relatively narrow Supreme Court decision that doesn’t restrict access to contraception in any way as a means to fire up their “war on women” rhetoric and turn out their base in what looks like a dismal election cycle: With an eye on the November elections, congressional...

Prior to the 2012 HHS Mandate, there were no “runs” on birth control suppliers, nor were there demonstrations in the streets by women demanding free birth control. Nowhere was there observed a dearth of women willing to work for businesses informed by a religious conscience on matters of contraception or abortion. This should come as a shock to those predicting the end of women’s freedom as a result of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. It should also shock those protesters screaming about women’s ovaries on the steps of the Supreme Court. It should even shock...

As promised, Senate Democrats filed legislation today to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby and other companies from being forced to comply with the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. The Supreme Court ruled that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare. The high court issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions. hobbylobby6The court...

It's been almost a week since the Supreme Court issued their ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, and there appears to be no end in sight to the Left's outrage over the outcome. As expected, given the controversial nature of the issue at hand, most of the ire is reflexive and purely visceral. It's unlikely that many are taking the time to actually educate themselves on the Court's reasoning behind the decision. In their eyes, misogyny and religious fanaticism won out over women's rights, period. On the Right, there is a temptation to fall into essentially the same error: ascribing...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A pair of Democratic senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would overturn a recent Supreme Court ruling that defended the rights of private for-profit employers to opt out of providing insurance coverage for abortifacient drugs on religious grounds. Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO) held a press conference Wednesday morning to announce the introduction of the bill, dubbed the “Protect Women's Health From Corporate Interference Act.”  The bill would force for-profit employers to comply with the Obamacare birth control mandate, which requires business owners to provide employees and dependents with full, co-pay-free coverage for contraception, sterilization...

Judging from the seething reaction by liberals to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the “Hobby Lobby” case, one might easily forget that just two years ago they were singing the Court’s praises after it refused to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional. Then again, such extreme emotional swings should not be unexpected when one’s perception of justice is based not on law, but on politics and emotion. Therefore, in spite of a ruling that was far more limited in scope than could easily have been the case, the Left’s over-the-top reaction to Hobby Lobby is based on myth and delusion. Below are...

As promised, Senate Democrats filed legislation today to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby and other companies from being forced to comply with the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees.The Supreme Court ruled that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare. The high court issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.The court ruled that...

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...