Posted on 03/25/2014 9:03:08 PM PDT by Beave Meister
In a dramatic moment at the Supreme Court Tuesday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told justices that U.S. business owners have no religious freedom to reject government mandates forcing them to cover abortions.
Justices and lawyers also sparred over whether businesses actually have religious freedom and whether striking down the Obamacare mandate makes women second-class citizens.
The notable abortion exchange between Verrilli and Justice Anthony Kennedy came during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, two cases linked by the companies’ owners objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services requirement that businesses fully cover the contraception costs for their employees. That mandate includes coverage of abortafacient drugs, also known as the “morning-after pill.”
Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Legal Studies Cathy Ruse was in the gallery during oral arguments and said that was the most remarkable moment in the court session Tuesday.
“This was actually the most exciting part of the oral argument this morning, when Justice Kennedy asked the government’s lawyer, ‘So under your argument, corporations could be forced to pay for abortions, that there would be no religious claim against that on the part of the corporation. Is that right?’ And the government’s attorney said yes,” Ruse said.
“You could hear a pin drop, and I think that stunned Justice Kennedy. Since he’s always the swing vote, you want to stun him in a way that pushes him over to your side of the column,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.wnd.com ...
It seems as a dream now, but I recall being rewarded for my art work depicting our beloved “Bill of Rights” in the late 1960’s. It was a competition amongst Los Angeles and Orange County High School Art students. Such a “competition” would be ludicrous today, what with the total disregard for our laws, our borders and our Constitution.
Loyalty for country has gone away. The tragedies of the unwisely begun and unwisely fought Vietnam war probably had a lot to do with the start of the divorce. Gore arrived on TV screens with little obvious gain to show for it, and people began to wonder. Such doubt could have been weathered by a robust faith in God, but that was getting weak too.
One Stone, Two Powers: How Chief Justice Roberts Saved America
An interesting article.
They were ruled to have 1st Amendment rights in campaign contributions. If they are afforded that, then it is illogical they have no religious freedom as that is part and parcel to 1st Amendment protections.
Bfl
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Isn’t the US Constitution a creation of government and not god?
The Constitution says it's a creation of the people.
Moreover, the Declaration says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And the people are the government. No matter how you look at it the US Constitution is the product of men and not some religious being.
Maybe so, but can you imagine who Obama would replace him with? It makes me shudder to think about it - and it should you as well.
Let’s let Roberts pay for everyone’s contraception because he likes Obamacare so much.
Hobby Lobby is private ownership not a public shareholder held company. It’s the man and his family’s company and he should be able to run it as he sees fit. The same for church owned or ran hospitals. It’s tyranny to impose governments mandates which violate ones conscience before GOD. We fought a war over this and won our nations freedom. Lawyers many who are as disconnected from Founding Fathers Intent and their own personal conscience themselves worship twisting laws rather than making certain tyranny is stopped. They worship at the alter of their professions subversion and dismanteling of freedoms and rights given to man by GOD our Creator.
MUSLIMS are EXEMPTED from the LAW???? OMG!!
The corporation is a legal entity created under duress.
Without Big Government, at the point of a gun, forceing people to use the corporate identity to operate, people would simply work together in loose association.
You are splitting hairs and ignoring legal history.
A person as an individual or as a business creates a service or product. That creation is based on behavior that they ‘select’ to express and behavior is based on beliefs.
Observant Christians and Jews make a choice to ‘select’ their behavioral expression as conforming to their religious beliefs.
A Kosher restaurant cannot be forced to ‘select’ pork as a menu item.
A wedding cake maker cannot be forced to put figurines of the same sex at the top of a wedding cake.
Nowhere under federal civil rights laws and anti-discrimination statutes is it found that a homosexual or an abortion seeking woman may seek redress from acts that conform to religious expression. Nor does Amendment I limit itself to individuals or businesses but in fact to Congress making law.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no ***law*** respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The argument that a business has no rights versus an individual is specious because Congress can make no law that prohibits free exercise of religion and is not addressing one versus the other with respect to individual or business.
An argument in Hobby Lobby that can be considered is whether First Amendment protections substantially detract or vacate other rights, in this case a right to an abortion or to its access. This is obvious on its face. A woman has access to abortion and is not denied any right to one.
The question is whether a woman’s employer health insurance plan must ‘select’ abortion as a benefit of health coverage so that she has access to it. The Supreme Court must determine if her Roe vs. Wade access to abortion is restricted or hampered; they must mull over what is meant by “reproductive health” and who pays for it.
Putting Constitutional arguments aside, the act of forcing an employer to select abortion coverage as part of a covered health plan is no different than forcing them to cover routine dental care. Many employers will not cover routine dental care because it is an issue of personal behavior and habits. Employers will also not cover liposuction or Botox injections or sex change surgery and hormone treatments.
Returning to constitutional arguments the remedy is for the government to convert their law making or enforcement authority from a tax authority of business to individual persons. But they won’t do this because people won’t stand for it. So government law makers attempt to hide legal mischief by forcing a cost onto business with business tax penalties and punishments as the means of coercion.
Justice Roberts has said that Obamacare is a tax. So let the government assess a tax penalty on Hobby Lobby for not selecting health coverage for abortion on demand. Then the question becomes by what right does the government have the authority to penalize First Amendment rights. The question pits the Sixteenth Amendment against the First Amendment.
It’s very long and must be deconstructionist in method, because it’s highly likely that Roberts would say he doesn’t recognize much of it as his own thought. Maybe the Declaration of Independence caused trouble the same way, because the fact that “all men are created equal” might include slaves was set to the side by a lot of people for a long time and ultimately was at least highly contributory to a war.
I repeat: “If you like your insurance, you can keep it”.
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