Posted on 06/30/2014 11:43:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The left has been… animated in their objections to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case which declared the mandate in the Affordable Care Act which forced employers to provide employees with abortifacients drugs over their religious objections to be unconstitutional.
In spite of what many have characterized as the narrow and tailored ruling by the Court, some political and legal observers have determined that the ruling is a step toward the legalization of discrimination.
One of the more creative arguments in this direction was submitted by NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. On Monday, she suggested that the Court has created a legal pathway for employers to discriminate against their employees on the basis of race, sexual orientation, and even national origin.
Totenberg summarized Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote a concurring opinion in favor of the decision to strike down the mandate: “Don’t worry,” she said. “As long as I’m here, the floodgates won’t open and it won’t be hundreds and hundreds, and thousands and thousands of companies saying ‘Why me?’”
She went on to say that a future Court could rule that it was legal to not hire based on sex if the employer asserted that it violated their religious belief. “Or cases involving gays and lesbians,” she added. “Or cases involving people from different foreign origins. It’s just not clear.”
Federal Equal Opportunity Employment laws are clear that discrimination based on those guidelines is already prohibited. Furthermore, given that the decision was intentionally narrowly tailored to apply only to emergency contraceptives, as opposed to, say, vaccines, it seems unlikely that Totenberg’s nightmare scenario could materialize.
For his part, George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley said on CNN on Monday that this decision the “flip side” to Citizens United; one extended speech rights to corporations, and this ruling extends religious freedom to some corporations. He added that decisions like that which prohibited an Arizona baker from refusing to provide his service to same-sex couples must now be revisited.
It would seem to me that failing to provide an employee a narrow set of health coverage benefits and flatly refusing to provide a service to a customer based on their identity are dramatically different situations. It seems like a stretch, but there is no doubt that emotions are running hot today.
RE: Interesting that Hobby Lobby pension fund invests in companies that make contraceptives according to mother jones.
Well, if Mother Jones insists on making it consistent, All Christians tax paying Christians are funding abortion whether they like it or not.
Totenberg is a sanctimonious moron.
but we should never “nyaa nyaa” the Left just because sanity prevailed.”
That sounds like something my mother would have said. Since she is no longer around to admonish me for my less than proper behavior, I have chosen to say “nyaa nyaa” in this situation. We have such few opportunities to do so, particularly lately and the decision did bright my day.
No, the SC decided fascism wasn’t legal in America. Move to a dictatorship more to your liking.
Pray America wakes up
Not in hiring, or serving people in public accomodations, where discrimination based on "race, color or national origin" are banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Mamma is wiser than you give her credit for.
Again, don’t look like the developmentally arrested Left in this. We can celebrate without looking like deranged drones.
RE: where discrimination based on “race, color or national origin” are banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Does that include sexual orientation?
Hobby Lobby to woman: I am going to give you a job
Hobby Lobby to woman: I am going to pay you money
Hobby Lobby to woman: I am going to give you health insurance
Woman: Thank you so much
Hobby Lobby to woman: You are going to have to buy your
own birth control, $6 a month
Woman: OH MY GOD, WHY ARE YOU DECLARING WAR ON ME?
Very true.
If "Xenophobia" were illegal, Obama couldn't have shut the Republicans out ot the Obamacare debate. And if "Racism" were illegal, most the Congressional Black Caucus would be in jail.
THE SKY IS FALLING!
Under federal law, no. Some (but not all) states have bans on discrimination based on sexual orientation.
I resent having to pay Nina Totenburgs salary at NPR. I don’t listen to it because it is biased. Why must I pay for NPR soft propaganda?
Marijuana doesn’t make you that stupid. They must be tripping on meth or PCP or something stronger.
Yes, I’ve poked around at some of their sites. It seems as though they are clueless re what this decision means and how narrow it is, or they are just wanting to foment fear and anger in the rest of the low information voters.
This is just a warm-up. If the dems get hammered in both the house and senate in November they will go absolutely linear.
It's kind of hard not to if you are in ANY equity mutual funds, isn't it?
Of course, leftist sources will make this sound as if HL explicitly chose these investments. More than likely, it was unavoidable.
Very good. Liberal logic in full display. I think I am going to steal this... (If you don’t mind ).
It is not xenophobic to not be FORCED to associated with people we would rather not.
To pay for things that violate our personal faith or philosophy.
The Freedom to associate is also a freedom to NOT associate.
Screw the Left. This was long over due.
Yep, nothing but nuts. About as dumb as a doornail. Liberals never were the smartest people in any room including a morgue.
What’s all this “phobia” crap? I don’t fear any of Obama’s phony victims. I just don’t bend over for them.
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