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Green Crayons posted:Because I posted it at the very end of the last thread, I'll link it again. Awesome, thank you very much for these; Hobby is expected to go before the court by next summer, correct? Also, the OP was missing an important image: 
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Dec 2, 2013 21:33
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I've been reading over this set of posts by Eugene Volokh on the Hobby Lobby case and two things I've gathered (correct me if I'm wrong here: 1. The RFRA likely improves the case for Hobby Lobby (because, the argument goes, Congress could modify or exempt PPACA explicitly from RFRA exemptions and didn't and haven't and they haven't modified RFRA either). 2. In a more perfect world a single-payer system requiring employers to pay a tax into a government health system that provides these contraceptives would have a stronger case on the side of the government (because the uniformity of the tax system as a government interest is enough to override the burden on religious beliefs in the same way religious companies can't object to paying taxes because gays are in the military or pacifists can't object to taxes because they go towards creating weapons). How they decide on the question of the least burdensome method I think will be interesting. Of interest to me but not really in this case is how the question of sincerely held beliefs applies to much larger, non-family owned corporations: does the corporation need to vote to secure that status? Is a majority of shareholders filing suit enough, and what about for a minority of shareholders? For example if a minority of shareholders for Wal-Mart want the company to be exempt from providing coverage for contraceptives they view as abortifacients, and they file suit to press that what would the result be? Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 20:26
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evilweasel posted:Right. It's really easy to characterize this as merely an improvement over your own rabbit ears, or merely as a cynical workaround of obvious existing law. But whichever you pick it's surprisingly hard to write a rule that works. Being as I haven't watched over-the-air television in maybe a decade this might seem like a dumb question, but is it legal to rent an antenna to receive OTA broadcasts currently? For example, could an apartment complex have a dozen antennas installed on it's rooftop made available for tenants to rent and then charge them $5 each month for the service?
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Apr 22, 2014 21:09
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evilweasel posted:Probably, but nobody's ever done it on a scale big enough to get a decision...until now. Yeah. I can definitely see what you're saying while I'm reading through the oral arguments by the Respondent. I don't really envy the Justices on this one because it looks like a goddamn mess. quote:JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Frederick, would you clarify? If every other transmitter does pay a royalty maybe it's under compulsory license and you are the only player so far that doesn't pay any royalties at any stage Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 21:26
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Well, this is disappointing.  Way to keep being terrible Supreme Court.Restricting it only to contraceptives without any reason beyond "we say so" is maybe the most blatant horseshit excuse I've ever seen. I have a 3 year old nephew and his excuses are less transparent than this. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 16:27
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Ginsburgs dissents are at least a consolation prize for this poo poo sandwich, emphasis in bold is mine:quote:Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA.13 The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. As Chief Justice Marshall observed nearly two centuries ago, a corporation is “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.” Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 636 (1819). Corporations, Justice Stevens more recently reminded, “have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 466 (2010) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). 
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Jun 30, 2014 16:51
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Gregor Samsa posted:RBG seems to dispute that this is the case in her dissent. There are a lot of good parts in there: quote:Why should decisions of this order be made by Congress or the regulatory authority, and not this Court? Hobby Lobby and Conestoga surely do not stand alone as commercial enterprises seeking exemptions from generally applicable laws on the basis of their religious beliefs. See, e.g., Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 256 F. Supp. 941, 945 (SC 1966) (owner of restaurant chain refused to serve black patrons based on his religious beliefs opposing racial integration), aff ’d in relevant part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 377 F. 2d 433 (CA4 1967), aff ’d and modified on other grounds, 390 U. S. 400 (1968); In re Minnesota ex rel. McClure, 370 N. W. 2d 844, 847 (Minn.1985) (born-again Christians who owned closely held, for profit health clubs believed that the Bible proscribed hiring or retaining an “individua[l] living with but not married to a person of the opposite sex,” “a young, single woman working without her father’s consent or a married woman working without her husband’s consent,” and any person “antagonistic to the Bible,” including “fornicatorsand homosexuals” (internal quotation marks omitted)), appeal dismissed, 478 U. S. 1015 (1986); Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, 2013–NMSC–040, ___ N. M. ___, 309 P. 3d 53 (for-profit photography business owned by a husband and wife refused to photograph a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony based on the religious beliefs of the company’s owners), cert. denied, 572 U. S. ___ (2014). Would RFRA require exemptions in cases of this ilk? And if not, how does the Court divine which religious beliefs are worthy of accommodation, and which are not? Isn’t the Court disarmed from making such a judgment given its recognition that “courts must not presume to determine . . . the plausibility of a religious claim”? Ante, at 37. How should the lower courts look at other religious claims if the Supreme Court is extending religious liberties to for-profit businesses?  says Supreme Court.e: More Ginsburg: quote:The Court’s determination that RFRA extends to for profit corporations is bound to have untoward effects. Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private. Little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate, for the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood—combined with its other errors in construing RFRA—invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 17:06
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:None of those things have an accommodation already in place. No, the accommodation in place exists for non-profit religious orgs, not for-profit companies. New accommodations would have to be made, so the question remains.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:47
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:There's still a religious accommodation, which cracks strict scrutiny significantly (Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal). All Obama needs to do is extend a framework already in place. Would you argue then that if there had been no existing accommodation in place that Hobby Lobby should've lost their case? If HHS authors an exemption for religious non-profit organizations to not cover vaccination or transfusions would the comparison then be more valid somehow? Because it sure looks like a meaningless distinction that would be instantly goalposted if it weren't currently in place to something else like "well Congress can just cover it like they cover people below the poverty line" or "well small businesses already are accommodated so they should accommodate larger businesses too" or "well now the accommodate closely held for-profits so why not other for-profits". Not that goalpost shifting from this Court would be surprising in the least, given that they just demonstrated a willingness to provide utterly arbitrary distinctions for what is or isn't an acceptable religious objection to hold: only contraceptives (so far). Magres posted:So how big of a party are we throwing when Roberts and/or Scalia dies? Cause I'm gonna throw a bitchin' shindig and anyone who wants to come toast to their demise is welcome. I'll probably just play this on repeat for a week as it pretty much applies to them too: quote:Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 19:04
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Why? The Court makes no such distinction in it's decision; they even outright state that before offering the accommodation up as a third method to achieve their goal: quote:(2) The Government has failed to satisfy RFRA’s least-restrictive-means standard. HHS has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion. The Government could, e.g., assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives to women unable to obtain coverage due to their employers’ religious objections. Or it could extend the accommodation that HHS has already established for religious nonprofit organizations to non-profit employers with religious objections to the contraceptive mandate. That accommodation does not impinge on the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs that providing insurance coverage for the contraceptives at issue here violates their religion and it still serves HHS’s stated interests. e: And further the Court argues: quote:HHS contends that RFRA does not permit us to take this option into account because “RFRA cannot be used to require creation of entirely new programs.” Brief for HHS in 13–354, at 15.37 But we see nothing in RFRA that supports this argument, and drawing the line between the “creation of an entirely new program” and the modification of an existing program (which RFRA surely allows) would be fraught with problems. Therefore the question Ginsburg raises about where this argument stops and the examples she gives are valid comparisons, existing accommodations or no. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 19:21
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razorrozar posted:Let me quote what he said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlRQjzltaMQ&t=105s You might find more help with rebutting arguments in the Help D&D Debate & Discuss or the Crazy political forwards threads though.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:19
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StashAugustine posted:I asked this in the GBS thread but that got lovely quickly. Let's say the government decided to mandate certain companies should make the drugs for lethal injections. The owners of a pharmaceutical company objects and says that their religious beliefs prevent them from supporting the death penalty. Do they not have a right to object to the government's mandate? Let's say the sky was purple and gravity repulsed things while we're making hypotheticals with tenuous connections to the case at hand. Boy that'd be a pickle. Can we cut to the chase of what your point is going to be related to this case rather than walking through some elaborate logic example where we have 20 replies back and forth before we get to that point? If you think for-profit companies should or shouldn't be able to express the religious objections of their owners over the interests of the employees / the government just lay that out and explain why. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 02:53
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StashAugustine posted:The point of the hypothetical was that the government was forcing a corporation to pay for something which was against the religious beliefs of its owners. I was simply trying to put it in terms of something most people here would probably consider immoral. To generalize, I think most people here understand the objection being raised by Hobby Lobby already but simply disagree with it. I myself don't find it acceptable (and further don't believe it should be legal) for the owners of a for-profit corporation to exercise their religious beliefs through said separate legal entity to not follow laws that serve a compelling government interest. Especially not when those objections have negative consequences on the health and well-being of employees who may or may not have the same beliefs. How do you stand on the issue? Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 03:13
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:It was limited in that way because those were the facts of the case. Expanding it to more companies involves other issues that weren't argued. Other medical procedures didn't have the non-profit accommodation already in place. I don't know why you keep bringing up the accommodation because, again, the Court opinion is that the government could just provide the benefit themselves (and thus this method is not the least-restrictive-means) and in fact they argue that even if no such accommodation existed they could've found that HHS should make a new program to handle it so as to not burden the owners. If no accommodation existed for non-profits it would not have changed the Court's opinion on the case in question so whether or not other medical practices also have accommodations is not a distinguishing factor or limited criteria.
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Jul 1, 2014 20:03
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Zeroisanumber posted:She sees us! She likes us!  Made me check the referenced Tumblr page and I saw this:  Which timed nicely with a Vox article. The portraits on dollar bills are decided by the Secretary of the Treasury so I think the only way to oppose a change would be to pass a law. C'mon Obama, give the Treasury Secretary the order.
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Aug 4, 2014 22:51
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Join us as we go now to a video in which RBG answers there will be enough women on the Supreme Court when there are nine of them.
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Feb 7, 2015 20:57
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:my dad's a kentucky colonel Please tell me your last name is Sanders. Litany Unheard posted:Public sector unions won't die overnight, of course. The old timers will mostly keep paying their dues. But as time goes on you'll get more and more people coming into those jobs saying "well the pay and benefits are already good, why would I pay dues??" and before you know it, there aren't enough dues-paying members to keep the organizations afloat. Agreed; it's hard to message the importance of a union to people already working 60 hours a week at a little above minimum wage. The union lacks the strength to get a better wage and the workers see the union as too weak so why bother paying or being involved, and a vicious cycle digs them into non-existence.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:08
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Condolences to his family for their loss. If I recall he and Ginsberg got along really well, so this probably hurts for her too. Having said that, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t4-zDem1Sk
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Feb 13, 2016 23:11
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DOOP posted:Words no longer have meaning  More or less. It is a nice distraction from discussing whether or not obstructing the President by outright refusing to even consider an appointment is a good or bad thing though, so I expect a lot of Republicans to try and divert the discussion into "well but what really IS a lame duck and those other times don't count because X was different."
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Feb 19, 2016 00:46
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I think the more interesting question is whether it'd be possible to change it so the Supreme Court is term limited; I have a hard time imagining it being important enough to ever see a constitutional amendment pass on it nowadays, but I'm pretty sympathetic to the argument that having a single 18 year term limit per Justice and having a new Justice be appointed every two years would be an improvement over the court justices retiring when they expect an ideologically similar replacement unless one of them dies, driving the impetus to appoint someone who can live to be 120. It also breaks the lottery of how many Justices a President gets to nominate; Nixon got to appoint four justices to the court, and Carter got to appoint none.
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Feb 20, 2016 16:21
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