The Supreme Court has voted in favor of Hobby Lobby in a decision just handed down this morning. Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion. The ruling appears to be a very narrow one, holding that closely held corporations cannot be compelled to provide contraception coverage. It doesn’t apply to other mandated coverage. More on the content of the ruling when the decision is released.
By the way, I have to relate something Kathryn Jean Lopez just tweeted. Evidently the protesters on the anti-Hobby Lobby side are chanting “Out of our bedroom!” You know, the people who want US to pay for THEIR contraceptive coverage.
Praise God!
Please thank Eric S. from Pro Life Action League. He spearheaded the “Stand up for Religious Freedom” campaigns in 2012. Over two hundred cities participated in public outcry over the HHS mandate.
Thanks for the news Mr. Z.
Would you say it’s time for a Can-Can? http://youtu.be/lK0gYi1YEZ8
Heartening, but narrow decision. Expect the Little Sisters and EWTN cases to keep rolling their way upward to the Supremes.
Evidently the protesters on the anti-Hobby Lobby side are chanting “Out of our bedroom!” You know, the people who want US to pay for THEIR contraceptive coverage.
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Different dimensions of portside politics evince a mentality you might expect in a high school student. This is just one facet.
The crux of the decision would appear to be this: “HHS’s concession that a non-profit corporation can be a “person” under RFTA effectively dispatches any argument that the term does not reach for-profit corporations; no conceivable definition of person includes natural persons and non-profit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.”
The closing section of the majority opinion made me cheer:
“In its final pages, the principal dissent reveals that itsfundamental objection to the claims of the plaintiffs is an objection to RFRA itself. The dissent worries about forcing the federal courts to apply RFRA to a host of claimsmade by litigants seeking a religious exemption from generally applicable laws, and the dissent expresses a desire to keep the courts out of this business. See post, at 32–35. In making this plea, the dissent reiterates a point made forcefully by the Court in Smith. 494 U. S., at 888– 889 (applying the Sherbert test to all free-exercise claims “would open the prospect of constitutionally requiredreligious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind”). But Congress, in enacting RFRA, took the position that “the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test forstriking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.” 42 U. S. C. §2000bb(a)(5). The wisdom of Congress’s judgment on this matter is not our concern. Our responsibility is to enforce RFRA as written, and under the standard that RFRA prescribes, the HHS contraceptive mandate is unlawful.
The contraceptive mandate, as applied to closely held corporations, violates RFRA. Our decision on that statutory question makes it unnecessary to reach the First Amendment claim raised by Conestoga and the Hahns. The judgment of the Tenth Circuit in No. 13–354 is affirmed; the judgment of the Third Circuit in No. 13–356 is reversed, and that case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.”
A court acting like a court and not a super legislature. What a revolutionary concept!
Please…don’t vote for Democrats.
So that we can have less need for decisions like this.
Thank you.
(I know that many Republicans aren’t much better )
That tweet about the demonstrators is too funny! They think their freedom depends on making me do something I don’t want to do.
“would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind”).
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It is not a civic obligation to provide any individual with contraceptives or abortificients. All people, any individual, is still free to provide contraceptives and abortificients to whom ever they will, and without the weight of the law levying penalties for following one’s conscience.
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Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Church: “”I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
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“A court acting like a court and not a super legislature. What a revolutionary concept!”
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Quote of the day.
“By the way, I have to relate something Kathryn Jean Lopez just tweeted. Evidently the protesters on the anti-Hobby Lobby side are chanting “Out of our bedroom!” You know, the people who want US to pay for THEIR contraceptive coverage.”
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“unless you honor me, I will make of you a NO People, a foolish nation.”