Hobby Lobby Decision

[lvstephanie]

I know that this topic was brought up in the "Losing our Civil Liberties" topic by vp44, but as that topic was more to be a commentary on the linked article about how America is becoming more of a police state, I thought I'd pull this discussion out to a new topic. From what I've seen on Facebook, I think that this is a hot topic right now...

The one thing that frustrates me is how many people keep insisting that this decision is somehow hurting people's freedom of religion -- that it allows HL to force their religious views on their employees. For one thing, HL isn't forcing anyone to do anything... I haven't heard about HL locking up their employees unless they agree to read the Bible. Nor is HL kidnapping people off the street at gun-point, requiring them to purchase Xmas decorations. In either case, the people always have a choice; they can choose whether they want to work at HL (even if HL made some ridiculous policy requiring their employees to read the Bible), or they can choose whether they want to patron a company that they feel is not treating their employees correctly.

People tend to forget that the Bill of Rights was written to protect the people's rights against the government. We have given our government the power to create laws and to use actual force (ie imprisonment, use of arms, etc.) in order to enforce those laws. Because we allow the government to make laws and force to make sure they're followed, we wanted to include into our constitution various protections to ensure that the government doesn't create laws (and enforce them) that go against a person's basic rights to live in a free society.

But the protection given by the Bill of Rights is just to ensure that no one can take those rights away through use of force, without consent. It does not guarantee that when a person freely exercises of those rights, that their actions won't have repercussions.  Even though I have the freedom of speech / press to write whatever I want on these forums, there are still forum rules that prevent me from writing my referral code for some other site, for example. Although I don't have to worry about the police putting me in jail for writing my referral code and creating an advertising topic, I still would be faced with the repercussions of being banned on the forums or perhaps even banned from FC altogether. Likewise my company has the right to monitor my internet usage and fire me if, for example, I visit a *bleep* site or send an e-mail to a competitor revealing our company's secrets.

If anything, I see that this decision shows how the ACA is more in violation of the people's religious rights than HL is... The ACA mandates that certain things must be covered by a company's health insurance that they provide to their employees. And some of those mandates (which are enforceable aspects of the law) may go against certain people's religious beliefs. Similarly, I can understand if a company with strong Jehovah's Witnesses connections wouldn't want to pay for coverage of blood transfusions or if a Muslim company doesn't want to cover prescriptions for medicines that use pork-derived products.

[rghvac69]

Amen. I couldn't agree more.

[sfreeman8]

Well, hold onto your hat. The dictator in Congress is trying to force a bill to pass that will ignore the Supreme Court ruling and force Hobby Lobby to offer the 4 abortion drugs that SCOTUS stated they didn't have to offer.

What gets me is the "rumors" that some people are spouting, which is word-for-word what the Democrats against the decision have been saying.

It just seems like some in Congress don't want us to enjoy the freedoms we have had for over 2 centuries and it's been especially worse in the past 6 years. 'Scuse me for saying this, but this is exactly what Bill Ayers and Saul Alinsky worked towards, plus Cloward and Pivens, who were also college professors like Ayers and Dorhne (his wife) preached. If you did deeper, George Soros is behind the election of Obama. I did a lot of research on this man who brought down the Bank of England, the economy of France and Belgium, and is trying to bring down our economy to the point of no return. He is a hedge fund manager who I found out that he backed Hillary Clinton for her Senate seat and then at the start of her run for President in 2008...but he noticed Obama, had him at his home for "a conference" and dropped support of Hillary (who thinks Alinsky was a great human being), and pumped up Obama.  Why do you think Wall Street didn't pay any price for the crash, except those that weren't favorites (competitors) of Soros?

BTW, Hillary has also backed the Palestinian Liberation Organization since college according to an excerpt in the "Hell to Pay" book.

Sorry for the long rant...I can only hope the RNC or Independents can put someone up for President that can keep another follower of the above people from getting in office. Time to use a big broom and sweep D.C. clean.

[bowrunner]

I believe it was a very good decision and I'm sick of hearing how poor little victimized women will no longer get free contraception.  I have no idea why Sebelius stuck that in the Obamacare bill as contraception shouldn't be paid for by others.  Contraception is available to anyone that wants to pay for it and employers that don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to pay for it.  Hobby Lobby is still paying for 16 different contraceptions anyway just not the abortion ones.

[king4cash]

Well said, I believe that our liberties are being systematically being destroyed by the Fed government, we need to get involve with the voting process.

[jford87]

The precedent has been set. It is now an option for employers to deny healthcare for religious reasons. Where does it stop? Denying healthcare to people diagnosed with HIV because of anti-homosexual religious beliefs? Denying IVF treatment? There are religions that don't believe in healthcare at all, they believe in living God's will. Will the line be drawn so that companies cannot deny healthcare in general because they happen to subscribe to those beliefs?

[lvstephanie]

Once again, no company is denying anyone healthcare, only the coverage for certain healthcare options on their particular plan. But that doesn't prevent people from 1) getting coverage outside of their company's plan, 2) getting additional insurance for things that are not covered by their company's plan, or 3) paying for the healthcare themselves.

After all, a precedent has been set that my company doesn't provide any coverage for my nutritional needs, and that is usually more important than healthcare since I'd starve to death in a matter of days without eating, but can survive a few years without my diabetic medication. However I haven't died of starvation yet because I use option 3 listed above to meet my nutritional needs. My company pays me legal tender which I can then use to pay for any other legal good or service, esp. those goods that I deem are a necessity to living. Even though my company doesn't provide "food-care" coverage, they are not denying me food; the two are completely distinct things. Were I HIV positive and the company I worked for denied coverage for that medication as in your example, I'd simply pay the full cost of the medication at the pharmacy, which if the PSA on Food Network is true, I'd gladly pay the 40-cents a day if that kept me alive.

If people are so worried about companies making decisions like what they want to cover on their insurance plans, then take that power away from the companies instead of increasing their responsibility. Instead of having the government force companies to cover their employees' healthcare (and dictating everything that the company has to cover), the responsibility should be with the employee to purchase their own healthcare coverage. That way if the person had a moral objection to a certain procedure, they could get their own personal religious exemption so that they wouldn't have to pay for a service that they morally object to.

[rogery]

I guess a company that doesn't believe in pre-natal care, surgery or cancer won't have to provide those either. The Supreme court has become a right wing tool. Democrats need to grow a spine and fight fire with fire.

[campbell829]

I agree with you. no one is being forced to work for Hobby Lobby. If you don't agree with their policies then don't work for them.

[hawkeye3210]

I guess a company that doesn't believe in pre-natal care, surgery or cancer won't have to provide those either. The Supreme court has become a right wing tool. Democrats need to grow a spine and fight fire with fire.

You do realize that we still live in a time where companies aren't required to provide any health insurance at all, right? The employer mandate doesn't go into affect until 2015, and still might get postponed again by the Obama administration.

[sfreeman8]

Once again, I see the talking points against HL are still in force. Well, how about this:

I saw a report/live by a woman in a relationship who is in her 50s, as was her female partner. They can't get pregnant by each other and don't plan to have any children because of their age. She was asking why her and her mate are being forced to pay for maternity and birth control under Obamacare. When they had regular insurance, they could pick and choose which plans they wanted. Now they can't.

This fact points out another problem with women over the menopause age who have to pay for birth control and maternity. It's stupidity at its best.

Let's just wait and see how much more the people are going to be taxed through ACA when it hits full throttle next year.....that is, if Obama doesn't change the mandate date again....and BTW, the IRS being sole decider of who has insurance and who doesn't, who qualifies for subsidies and who doesn't, is also a sham. When someone who makes over $150,000 a year still qualifies for subsidies, but another person only making less than $50,000 doesn't, what's wrong with this picture?