Posted on 06/23/2014 5:11:27 AM PDT by xzins
The Supreme Court decision in the monumental Hobby Lobby case against the abortion mandate in Obamacare is expected either this week or next.
The Obama administration is attempting to make Hobby Lobby and thousands of pro-life businesses and organizations comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up 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.
Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of the Becket Fund, the legal group heading up the lawsuit against the mandate for Hobby Lobby, talked about what to expect.
hobbylobby3“We are expecting the Hobby Lobby decision any day now,” she said in an email to LifeNews. “In fact, we have been holding our collective breath for the last several weeks as the Supreme Court issues its Monday opinions.”
“As of today, according to several longtime observers of the Court, the expectation is that additional days will be added to the opinion calendar. We suspect that Monday, June 23, will be followed by several other days of announcements; and then, we will hear later that same week. Until then, we wait,” she added.
Arriaga says the decision is a long time coming.
“I think it is inherently unjust that the government has forced the Green family, the devout owners of Hobby Lobby, to face a two-year battle in court,” she explained. “As you know, the Greens grew their family business out of their garage. They now own stores in 41 states employing more than 16,000 full time employees. They have always operated their business according to their faith. In fact, the Greens pay salaries that start at twice the minimum wage and offer excellent benefits, as well as a healthcare package which includes almost all of the contraceptives now mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Their only objection is to 4 drugs and devices which, the government itself concedes, can terminate an embryo.”
“Their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be protected by the government. Instead, the government has threatened them with fines and fought them all the way to the Supreme Court,” Arriaga added.
“The government has already exempted tens of millions of Americans from complying with the mandate that forces employers to provide certain specific drugs and devices. However, it refuses to accommodate the Green family because the Green family’s objections are religious. We believe that the government’s position is not only extreme and unconstitutional; it presents a grave danger to our freedoms,” she continued.
The Obama administration says it is confident it will prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”
“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO. “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”
The Supreme Court is also taking the case of the Mennonite cabinet makers forced to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs.
In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling recently. The government’s appeal makes it highly likely that the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the upcoming term.
After the appeals court ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the case until Oct. 1 to give the Obama administration time to appeal the decision.
In an opinion read from the bench, the court said, “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”
Duncan says there are now 63 separate lawsuits challenging the HHS mandate. The Becket Fund led the charge against the unconstitutional HHS mandate. The Becket Fund currently represents: Hobby Lobby, Wheaton College, East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Colorado Christian University, the Eternal Word Television Network, Ave Maria University, and Belmont Abbey College.
Hobby Lobby could have paid as much as $1.3 million each day in fines for refusing to pay for birth control or abortion-causing drugs under the mandate.
A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.
“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.
The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.
Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”
Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.
“In the 1800’s (I assume before all this convoluted corporate law), how did businesses protect its individual members from personal liability or were they not protected?”
Back then, their liability was limited to what they had agreed to do for a given individual, based on Winterbottom v Wright (1842) 10 M&W 109. As Wiki puts it: “In 1842, the law’s only recognition of “negligence” was in respect of a breach of contract. As the plaintiff was not in a contract with the defendant the court ruled in favour of the defendant on the basis of the doctrine of privity of contract...
...”If the plaintiff can sue,” said Lord ABINGER, the Chief Baron, “every passenger or even any person passing along the road, who was injured by the upsetting of the coach, might bring a similar action. Unless we confine the operation of such contracts as this to the parties who enter into them, the most absurd and outrageous consequences, to which I can see no limit, would ensue.””
In the US, that changed with MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. (1916). “The principle that the danger must be imminent does not change, but the things subject to the principle do change. They are whatever the needs of life in a developing civilization require them to be.” Judge Cardozo, writing for the New York Court of Appeals, overturned the idea that lawsuits should be limited to those with a contract, and extend instead to...everyone. And as had been foreseen years earlier, “...the most absurd and outrageous consequences, to which I can see no limit, [have] ensue[d]...”
God bless Lord Abinger. This is an example why there was sanity in the world in the 1800's.
Then came the 1900's, the ushering in of the end of the current age. The judicial and legal world hails the eloquence of Judge Cordozo. I have yet to see ONE DECISION or OPINION by Cordozo that I agree with.
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What about the right of the people to peaceably assemble is so difficult to grasp?
That is the best case scenario.
There is no possibility, none whatsoever, that any of the four liberals -- Clinton appointees Breyer and Ruth Buzzie Ginsburg and Obama appointees Sotomayor (the wise Latina) and her sidekick Kagan -- will side with Hobby Lobby over the Obamanation. It is more likely that pigs will fly out of Obama's butt with copies of Obama's birth certificate and college transcripts.
The only question is whether any of the remaining Justices (in particular Kennedy and Roberts) will side with the liberals.
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Probably not, because it’ll raise a lot more questions (ie, if the government can’t force the religious to get insurance, what about the non-religious?) that could shake Obamacare’s already fragile foundation.
Check out posts # 81 and 82 for a little about why the Constitution has been pushed aside for governmental and juridical "wisdom".
We continue to pay dearly for the Progressive Era. It has brought a centuries old curse on our great land.
True, but remember how Roberts actually re-wrote the Obamacare document in order to bend it just far enough to classify it as a "tax."
I predict the SCOTUS will try to apply the King Solomon trick to toss a bone to the good guys, but will rule for the darkside, 5-4.
That's the rub. Obama makes the laws now.
I think it will be 5-4 against Hobby Lobby.
Followed by some condescending statement about removing religion from the workplace.
“I think it will go against Hobby Lobby because it is a corporation rather than a sole propritor or partnership.”
I think they’ll win, but the decision will only apply to closely held companies, including some corporations. Of course it’s extremely hard to predict the Court with Roberts selectively playing politics with some of his decisions.
I think if the court goes against, then Kennedy will cite the 7th day Adventist Business not wanting to pay for blood transfusions. The difference, of course, is life/death (blood) versus convenience/personal (contraception). But justices don’t have to explain themselves. They only have to say what they say. No one can argue with them. That’s why life tenure was a mistake.
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