Posted on 07/01/2014 4:47:41 AM PDT by rhema
Two years ago, I sat on a panel before Congress, testifying to the importance of religious liberty in America today.
It seems like a long time ago.
Since then, we have seen and heard a steady stream of news, from the church and the culture, about the Health and Human Services’ mandate and the Affordable Care Act, abortifacients and the conscience, religious freedoms and what this means for women.
Thankfully, the wait is over. The Supreme Court has ruled, and the verdict is in: In a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious liberty, specifically in regard to closely held corporations (those with a small number of shareholders and offering no public stock, such as corporations that are family-owned, not operated by boards).
While we rejoice in this strong upholding of religious freedom, this decision does not signal an end to this discussion. It simply emboldens us carry on, doing what we do best as Christians: praying, confessing the faith and living it out in our daily callings.
We pray that Americans, whose consciences are burdened because they have been forced to violate their religious beliefs, would know God’s comfort and forgiveness.
We confess that life, which begins at conception, is a gift from God and ought to be held in the highest regard in this country.
We live, knowing that the First Amendment guarantees us not only the right to worship, but also to practice our faith as Lutheran citizens of this great nation, serving our neighbor where the Lord has placed us.
We do all of this, even as we rejoice with the Greens of Hobby Lobby, with the Hahns of Conestoga Wood Specialties and with our millions of brothers and sisters in the United States who believe just as strongly in the religious liberties guaranteed in our Constitution.
Today we are thankful for this step toward maintaining the integrity of our religious freedoms inherent in the First Amendment, but we will also remain ever mindful. The issue is and will continue to be purely and simply about religious freedom.
And so we pray. We confess. We live.
“We fought for a free conscience in this country,” I told the committee two years ago, “and we won’t give it up without a fight.”
I meant that, and I pray you do too.
The Rev. Matthew C. Harrison
President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
The truth about Hobby Lobby. Although they offer other avenues of contraception to their employees, they would not support the mandated abortion and abortifacients (Morning after pill and other products that destroy an embryo -- already fertilized.).
It's that simple because they are a closely held (family) business that believes and lives their religion in their business. They even play religious music in their stores. (And not just at Christmas!)
God bless them.
PS. This does not apply to corporations, etc. as the libs would have you believe.
All the more delicious.
The RFRA reversed a decision by Justice Scalia, and reinstated the interpretation of the First Amendment that had been followed by the Warren Court.
There's also the major premise, the central plank: that there is an expectation of privacy between patient and doctor that the government cannot intrude upon…
Yet ObamaCare requires government involvement in that relationship, imposing itself into the heart of that matter.
I would so love to see a case that forced the USSC to choose: abortion xor socialized medicine.
(I would love to see the terror and running-around...)
Wrong, for at least two reasons: (1) Yesterday's Hobby Lobby decision did not construe the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment; it was construing a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which contained its own definition of the word "person," a definition which included corporations. (2) Roe did not define "person" as used in the 14th Amendment to mean "legal person"; it defined it to mean "born person."
For almost 100 years the courts had made rulings as if the 14th Amendment gave citizenship to Blacks, but if the word “person” means “legal person”, then it never applied to Blacks because Blacks had already been declared by SCOTUS to be LEGAL non-persons, in Dred Scott.
You're again wrong for two reasons: (1) Dred Scott did not say that blacks were not "persons"; it said they were not "citizens of the United States." (2) The 14th Amendment overruled Dred Scott by granting citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States."
You'd have to change the tax laws for that to make any sense. Now, if a corporation gives an employee a cash bonus, the employee pays tax on it, but if the corporation buys the employee health insurance, the employee is not taxed on the cost or value of the insurance.
I wasn’t talking about Hobby Lobby. I was only talking about Roe.
Why was Dred Scott not allowed to become a US citizen even though he was a human being who was born in the United States? What was the legal reasoning/justification for saying he could never be a US citizen, could never have standing to sue in court?
Ah, but Roe has that covered. The ruling is so internally inconsistent that it allows ultimate invasion of privacy even while claiming its decision is in SUPPORT of privacy.
For instance, Roe affirms that government DOES have a legitimate concern for “potential life”. It uses that so it can redefine conceived lives as merely “potential life”. But in redefiniing fetuses as “potential life” and then saying that is their business, they are effectually saying that sperm and ova are their business because they are “potential life”. ANYTHING about a person’s health can be the government’s business because it involves “potential life”. If I have some health condition that could affect my ability to conceive, for instance, it would - because of Roe - be the government’s business because it affects “potential life”.
And the precedent they used in order to come up with this conclusion was a case where it was decided that the government could not forbid a married couple from using birth control - because it wasn’t the government’s business. From that they came up with permission for conceived children to be killed but the government to have the right to poke its nose into “potential life” - which can include ANYTHING health-related.
Roe has got to be one of the worst decisions ever made by SCOTUS.
I quite agree.
It's a toss-up, IMO, with Wickard — because Wickard basically said that the ability to regulate commerce is unrestricted.
Technically, he wasn't denied standing; the majority in Dred Scott said he wasn't a "citizen" and therefore couldn't sue under the provision of Article III governing suits between "citizens of different states." The majority's rationale was that, since the Founders permitted slavery, they must have intended that black people could never be citizens, because citizens have rights and slaves have no rights. The dissent, pointing to English and colonial cases which defined a citizen as anyone born in the country, said that blacks could indeed be citizens, at least in free states. The 14th Amendment overruled Dred Scott and codified the position of the dissenters in that case.
From the Sanford v Dred Scott decision, at http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=29&page=transcript :
“The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.”
The 14th Amendment says that “persons born in the US (etc) are citizens of the US and of the States. It also says that no State may deprive any PERSON of due process and the equal protection of its laws.
The Roe court claimed that the word “person” in the 14th Amendment means persons who merit legal protection, not biological persons.
So the first part of the 14th Amendment, according to the Roe court’s definition, says, “All persons who merit legal protection born in the United States (etc) are citizens of the United States (etc)”
But the latest Supreme Court ruling had said that Blacks do not merit legal protection; they are property.
According to the Roe court’s definition of “person” as used in the 14th Amendment, the Dred Scott decision was that Blacks are NOT “persons” - not persons who merit legal protection. So even if they were born in the US they didn’t meet the 14th Amendment requirement that they be “persons who merit legal protection”, regardless of where they were born. If the 14th Amendment had said, “All rabbits born in the United States are citizens of the United States”, it wouldn’t apply to dogs born in the United States. Where the creature was born makes no difference if they don’t first fit the class of animal described, who would be citizens if born in the US.
The Roe court says that the animal that would be a citizen if born in the US is a “person who merits legal protection”. And according to the Dred Scott decision, that is NOT Black human beings.
I should have said “The latest Supreme Court decision BEFORE THE 14TH AMENDMENT WAS RATIFIED had said that Blacks do not merit legal protection; they are property.”
If the 14th Amendment had meant “persons who merit legal protection” when they used the word “person” in the 14th Amendment, then they never meant Blacks to be included - because Blacks had already, just very recently and conspicuously, been ruled to NOT “merit legal protection”.
It the 14th Amendment’s use of the word “person” meant “person who merits legal protection” as the Roe court claimed, then it never applied to Blacks - who at the time had just recently been ruled to NOT “merit legal protection” - and did NOT reverse Dred Scott, and did NOT give US citizenship to Blacks. And furthermore, it did not give them due process or equal protection either - no more due process and equal protection than fetuses, who are also deemed to be human beings who do not merit legal protection.
IOW, if the word “person” in the 14th Amendment means “person who merits legal protection”, then it never applied to Blacks and Blacks are in the same legal class as fetuses.
I guess I/we can agree to agree on that.
Remember the words of President Reagan: "Freedom is only one generation away from extinction."
Liberty is never "settled law" as long as there are criminally minded statists lurking in the weeds--or the White House.
Yes the LCMS (Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod) is theologically very conservative. A bit heavy on the law for my taste but closer to the Mother Church than the liberal wastrels of the ELCA.
At this point, the ruling is moot. Until the President decides to enforce his own law, and implement the employer mandate, these two businesses are not required to provide ANY health care insurance, and so of their own free will..
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