I have been discussing the hobby lobby SCOTUS decision on FurryMUCK, FaceBook, and the LD here on Gaia. my position is pretty solidly one of opposition, because this is basically theocratic misogynist bullshit. I have numerous posts detailing the logical arguments for why this ruling is unconstitutional. but for now, I will only share this article.
I would directly type it all out in a spoiler, but that would be violating Copyright laws. and I value intellectual property.
if you want to see more of my arguments, I can and will quote them from the thread in the LD.
discus: the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the ruling.
I have been discussing the hobby lobby SCOTUS decision on FurryMUCK, FaceBook, and the LD here on Gaia. my position is pretty solidly one of opposition, because this is basically theocratic misogynist bullshit. I have numerous posts detailing the logical arguments for why this ruling is unconstitutional. but for now, I will only share this article.
I would directly type it all out in a spoiler, but that would be violating Copyright laws. and I value intellectual property.
if you want to see more of my arguments, I can and will quote them from the thread in the LD.
discus: the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the ruling.
I'd like to know how it could possibly be constitutional to force employers to provide free birth control to their employees. This ruling doesn't stop women from getting birth control using their own money, or free of charge from Planned Parenthood or someplace like that.
I have been discussing the hobby lobby SCOTUS decision on FurryMUCK, FaceBook, and the LD here on Gaia. my position is pretty solidly one of opposition, because this is basically theocratic misogynist bullshit. I have numerous posts detailing the logical arguments for why this ruling is unconstitutional. but for now, I will only share this article.
I would directly type it all out in a spoiler, but that would be violating Copyright laws. and I value intellectual property.
if you want to see more of my arguments, I can and will quote them from the thread in the LD.
discus: the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the ruling.
I'd like to know how it could possibly be constitutional to force employers to provide free birth control to their employees. This ruling doesn't stop women from getting birth control using their own money, or free of charge from Planned Parenthood or someplace like that.
alright, lemme break out my arguments...
let's start with the religious argument. the ruling is that employers of private companies, including incorporated ones, can refuse to provide contraceptives to their employees on the basis of religion. specifically, it allows the boss to refuse to pay for Birth Control and the Morning After Pill if they believe according to their religion that it is immoral.
the 1st Amendment states, and I quote, "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."
this means that no law passed by Congress should contain anything about religion, in favour or opposed. this does NOT mean that someone's religious ideals can legally trump someone else's rights.
which leads me to my next point.
as a Libertarian, I follow the Non-Aggression Principle. this Principle is the notion that each person is autonomous. nobody owns you. you are your own property. it also is the notion that the only legitimate and justified use of force is in defense of yourself or others.
if we are to take this principle seriously, then we have to concede that the hobby lobby ruling is denying women the right to prevent pregnancy. it is literally religion trumping an individual person's autonomy, and that makes it unconstitutional.
the right-wing christian conservatives are referring to the Morning After pills as "abortion pills". this is a mistaken notion. Plan B, to use the generic example, doesn't induce an abortion; it attempts to prevent the sperm from fertilizing an egg in the first place! it doesn't even have a chance of having any effect at all after a few days. and even if taken immediately after insemination, it might fail to prevent a pregnancy. even if we were to take the radical (and frankly, irrational) position that life at conception should be legally recognized, the Morning After drug wouldn't kill a living being.
more importantly, the christian right-wing crowd has consistently refused to accept that a woman has a right to not get pregnant against her will, and insist that the ruling is about private property and voluntary contracts, not about autonomy. they even go so far as to say "if you don't want to get pregnant, do what is necessary NOT to" in their arguments FAVOURING the ruling!
this implies one of two things, logically.
1.) that women are not people, and/or don't have a right to autonomy.
or 2.) that women aren't entitled to decisions about their reproduction.
and this is unacceptable. just more examples of misogynist religious beliefs trumping individual legal rights.
this article explains it all quite nicely. it's pretty much exactly my thoughts on the matter.
Throughout world history, there are myriad instances of wars consisting of coalitions aligning together against a common enemy. It is considered the course of wisdom for both sides in a war to marshal support to their cause of nation’s with the largest armies and devastating armament that more often than not give one side a clear advantage and an expedited victory. Whether most Americans realize it or not, they have been spectators, victims, and often combatants in a sectarian religious war that one side appealed to, and won, the support of a religious male cabal with the ultimate weapon of mass destruction; the U.S. Constitution. Of course, the religious cabal is the five male conservatives on the Supreme Court who enjoined the religious right’s war on women. To ensure a victory for the aggressors, they brought the ultimate weapon of mass destruction to bear on over half the American people that will expand to include every man, woman, and child unwilling to capitulate their liberty and acquiesce to the Christian Right’s will.
Over the past three-and-a-half years, since the teabagger-Republican takeover of the House in 2011, there has been a sustained attack on women’s rights that no politician, pro-choice group, or remotely interested party had the courage to call what it always has been; a sectarian religious war on women. It is true that the war is being waged by men steeped in misogyny and patriarchy, but the basis for the Republicans’ misogyny, patriarchy, and assault on women has always been founded on religion and a seriously distorted reading of the Christian bible. Likely, the aggressors and victims alike adhere to the unwritten dictate that at no time, and under no circumstances, is the Christian religion or bible to be mentioned in a negative light, or pointed to as the basis for the Republican assault on women; the five conservative Christian males on the Supreme Court had no compunction, or hesitance, identifying the basis of the Republican, teabagger, or religious rights’ war on women.
The Supreme Court’s five male conservative Christians, in ruling for Hobby Lobby, announced in grand fashion that, indeed, the war on women is based on the Christian Right’s faulty interpretation of their rule book, the Christian bible. In their ruling for corporate religious tyranny, the five males cited, specifically, that a corporation enjoys Constitutional religious liberty to ignore laws and enjoys the Christian right to decide, based on the bible, that a corporation’s religion is the ultimate arbiter of women’s health. It is a continuation of last week’s ruling that the religious right has Constitutional authority to take the religious war to women seeking medical care, so the decision escalating the religious war was not unexpected.
It has been a long time in coming, but American’s now understand that there is a sectarian religious war against over half the American population, and the Supreme Court just unleashed the full weight and power of the United States Constitution on women, their physicians, and health according to edicts of the religious right. Apparently the conservative Court cannot comprehend that the First Amendment’s religious freedom clause was intended by the Constitution’s framers to be a shield to protect the individual against religious tyranny. The Court’s Christian males agreed with the religious right that the Founding Fathers intended freedom of religion to be a Constitutional sword to force women to comply with a corporations’ religious beliefs. Now that freedom of religion has been deemed a weapon by Supreme Court by Constitutional fiat, it is impossible to conclude anything other than America’s democracy, and women’s rights, are now under siege by the Christian right.
No American should delude themselves for a nano-second that Hobby Lobby’s owners, the Christian Dominionist Green family, the Christian conservatives on the Court, or religious right has any other intent than to impose Christianity on the entire nation. It was reported here a couple of weeks ago that the Greens are spending about a billion dollars of their fortune to inculcate their bastardized version of Christianity, with all its perverse anti-science and anti-democratic dogmata, on America; including a mandatory four-year bible-based curriculum in every public high school in America. The Christian conservative males on the High Court just gave the Greens and religious right the primary weapon they lusted after to achieve their goal; freedom of corporate religious tyranny.
It is relevant to reiterate that the contraception mandate Hobby Lobby objected to had nothing whatsoever to do with impinging on the for-profit corporation’s bottom line, or its phony conscience objection against contraceptives. The corporation’s Christian conscience had no problem including contraception coverage in health plans the employee pays for prior to 2011, and it reaps profits from investing in pharmaceutical companies that produce all manner of contraceptives including drugs used during abortions, or selling goods manufactured in China where abortion is mandated by law. Their lawsuit was a frontal assault on women’s rights according to their bastardized version of Christianity as a frontline battle in the religious right’s war against democracy, secularism, and Americans unwilling to toe the evangelical line and nothing else.
The decision is sure to incite opposition among women and men who care about their wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters health to vote against Republican Christians who are certain to unleash a rash of legislation expanding on the Court’s ruling for Hobby Lobby and the religious war. Women, men, non-believers, and so-called “good Christians” have to come to the realization that they have lost the first of many religious battles and if nothing else can take solace that they were defeated handily by five Christian males who wielded a religious weapon of mass destruction; the United States Constitution. At least as Americans, and particularly women, begin incrementally losing more of their freedoms, they will know it is because they were victims of a sectarian religious war that no-one except the Supreme Court had the temerity to cite was indeed a conservative Christian religious war on liberty.
and again, the article in my OP makes some pretty damn clear and valid arguments for why the hobby lobby appeal was bullcrap to begin with.
I will also remind you that Plan B and other Morning After pills aren't even abortifacients. they prevent conception from even happening! the life-at-conception argument doesn't even have a place here. this means that it isn't a pro-life issue that is being argued, but rather a women-shouldn't-get-to-decide-whether-they-get-pregnant-or-not issue being argued. that is the religious value they feel so oppressed about.
"waah! muh gov'ment wun let meh treatz da wiminz as muh pers'nul babeh-makin' fact'ries!"
furthermore, the company gladly pays for it's male employees to get viagra. huge double standard there.
I'd like to know how it could possibly be constitutional to force employers to provide free birth control to their employees. This ruling doesn't stop women from getting birth control using their own money, or free of charge from Planned Parenthood or someplace like that.
That's what makes Hobby Lobby's argument completely bullshit. They aren't being "forced" to do anything. They pay their portion of the premiums to the health insurance company along with the employee's premiums to cover that person's healthcare needs. They don't get line item bills, they don't get seperate charges. When the insurance companies get the money it is no longer the concern of the business. Their money cannot be traced to X thing.
Even if it did, it's still not their business. Paying for their employees healthcare is a COST they are paying to their employees. It's no different than your boss trying to dictate what you do with your paycheck. According to the SCOTUS, if my boss doesn't like me donating money to my buddhist temple because he is a Christian, they have a right to withold my pay.
employers of private companies, including incorporated ones, can refuse to provide contraceptives to their employees
This might be a stupid question, but humour me. Are you saying that in the US employers have some kind of legal responsibility to provide their employees with contraceptives under the ACA?
To be fair, I think you nailed the argument on the head pretty early on by saying it is unfair that the bill would discriminate on religious grounds and that's against your constitution. That said, the rest of the points about what it implies about women seems a little over the top - it's not like you can't buy your own. As unfair as it is that if you're unlucky enough to be hired by one of these employers.
I find the ruling ridiculous though as now every Tom, d**k and Harry is going to be claiming they can't do it on religious grounds. It's a very foolish precedent to set. What if the company is run by Johova's Witnesses for example? There will always be the eternal struggle between religious tolerance and equal rights (by your very constitution). This time it just so happens the gavel has fallen on the wrong side.
employers of private companies, including incorporated ones, can refuse to provide contraceptives to their employees
This might be a stupid question, but humour me. Are you saying that in the US employers have some kind of legal responsibility to provide their employees with contraceptives under the ACA?
To be fair, I think you nailed the argument on the head pretty early on by saying it is unfair that the bill would discriminate on religious grounds and that's against your constitution. That said, the rest of the points about what it implies about women seems a little over the top - it's not like you can't buy your own. As unfair as it is that if you're unlucky enough to be hired by one of these employers.
I find the ruling ridiculous though as now every Tom, d**k and Harry is going to be claiming they can't do it on religious grounds. It's a very foolish precedent to set. What if the company is run by Johova's Witnesses for example? There will always be the eternal struggle between religious tolerance and equal rights (by your very constitution). This time it just so happens the gavel has fallen on the wrong side.
I'm glad you brought that point up. it's very important in this debate.
thing is, I can kinda see where the private property, voluntary contracts, argument is coming from -- especially since the ruling doesn't allow the companies to ban the use of contraceptives by their employees, merely says that the employers don't have to pay for it if they don't feel comfortable with that. from a certain point of view, that actually makes alot of sense.
but I do think it could also be thought of a different way, even if we argue purely on the principle of voluntary contracts. this alternative view is a rebuttal to the argument that "if she wants to use BC she should pay for it herself, and if she doesn't like that she doesn't have to work for that company".
I posit that using the reasoning of voluntary contracts, the employer should remember that he has a contractual obligation to compensate his employees for their labour with agreed upon payment. this includes healthcare payment. if his religious beliefs are offended by paying for his employees contraceptives, he either has to suck it up and fulfill his contractual obligation, or else not enter the contract. this ruling doesn't honor voluntary contractual obligations; it allows one party to undermine the other. this is basically withholding payment.
I'm glad you brought that point up. it's very important in this debate.
thing is, I can kinda see where the private property, voluntary contracts, argument is coming from -- especially since the ruling doesn't allow the companies to ban the use of contraceptives by their employees, merely says that the employers don't have to pay for it if they don't feel comfortable with that. from a certain point of view, that actually makes alot of sense.
but I do think it could also be thought of a different way, even if we argue purely on the principle of voluntary contracts. this alternative view is a rebuttal to the argument that "if she wants to use BC she should pay for it herself, and if she doesn't like that she doesn't have to work for that company".
I posit that using the reasoning of voluntary contracts, the employer should remember that he has a contractual obligation to compensate his employees for their labour with agreed upon payment. this includes healthcare payment. if his religious beliefs are offended by paying for his employees contraceptives, he either has to suck it up and fulfill his contractual obligation, or else not enter the contract. this ruling doesn't honor voluntary contractual obligations; it allows one party to undermine the other. this is basically withholding payment.
So just to clarify - please be patient I am not an American so I'm not really clued in on the details of the original act. The ACA act means that large employers are responsible for covering the insurance of their employees?
I'm not saying that I support the idea that it is their problem if their company doesn't want to cover that, however I am surprised that any form of contraception is covered by health insurance, is it not readily available in the USA? It seems it would be easier to say that either no company or every company has to cover contraception, rather than make rules about exceptions. If I'm misunderstanding, please correct me!
Also, I completely agree with your last paragraph. This behaviour does not only isolate the employees, but is also detrimental to the company as a whole.
I'm glad you brought that point up. it's very important in this debate.
thing is, I can kinda see where the private property, voluntary contracts, argument is coming from -- especially since the ruling doesn't allow the companies to ban the use of contraceptives by their employees, merely says that the employers don't have to pay for it if they don't feel comfortable with that. from a certain point of view, that actually makes alot of sense.
but I do think it could also be thought of a different way, even if we argue purely on the principle of voluntary contracts. this alternative view is a rebuttal to the argument that "if she wants to use BC she should pay for it herself, and if she doesn't like that she doesn't have to work for that company".
I posit that using the reasoning of voluntary contracts, the employer should remember that he has a contractual obligation to compensate his employees for their labour with agreed upon payment. this includes healthcare payment. if his religious beliefs are offended by paying for his employees contraceptives, he either has to suck it up and fulfill his contractual obligation, or else not enter the contract. this ruling doesn't honor voluntary contractual obligations; it allows one party to undermine the other. this is basically withholding payment.
So just to clarify - please be patient I am not an American so I'm not really clued in on the details of the original act. The ACA act means that large employers are responsible for covering the insurance of their employees?
I'm not saying that I support the idea that it is their problem if their company doesn't want to cover that, however I am surprised that any form of contraception is covered by health insurance, is it not readily available in the USA? It seems it would be easier to say that either no company or every company has to cover contraception, rather than make rules about exceptions. If I'm misunderstanding, please correct me!
Also, I completely agree with your last paragraph. This behaviour does not only isolate the employees, but is also detrimental to the company as a whole.
before the ACA, companies were still responsible for paying healthcare costs. what the ACA does is reform the health insurance system through co-pay so that nobody loses their healthcare because they lost their job or other circumstances left them without a method of payment, and also ensures that nobody can be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
personally, I think the ACA is a failure in mixed socialized-private healthcare legislature. and this isn't coming from a conservative position, but from a grassroots position. the ACA (also known as Obamacare) is based off of a state-level bill signed into law in Massachusetts by then-Governor Mitt Romney (this law has since been named Romneycare, and the ACA has also been sometimes referred to by Libertarians as Obamneycare). this law was based on a mock draft written by the Heritage Foundation, which is best known for using the Corporate Personhood ruling in conjunction with the Money Is Speech ruling to solidify the oligarchical political structure of the United States. and quite frankly, that's why we have such a huge healthcare coverage problem in this country to begin with.
my big issue, though, is that the hobby lobby SCOTUS decision has opened the floodgates for christian fundamentalist theocracy despite our Constitutional rights to be protected from religious tyranny.
All the problems with the SCOTUS ruling aside (and its a crappy ruling - profitable businesses aren't people with religious values, it makes no sense...), it could potentially open the flood gates to other ridiculous claims, such as refusing to pay for life saving blood transfusions for example.
I don't understand this system of healthcare, its kind of a crappy way to administer it...
arrow Try denying men access to condoms/viagra. arrow Watch as chaos ensues. arrow It's okay to deny it to women, because Jesus. arrow They'll all be wanting abortion. arrow AHAHA women's bodies are property.
All the problems with the SCOTUS ruling aside (and its a crappy ruling - profitable businesses aren't people with religious values, it makes no sense...), it could potentially open the flood gates to other ridiculous claims, such as refusing to pay for life saving blood transfusions for example.
I don't understand this system of healthcare, its kind of a crappy way to administer it...
they already are demanding a religious exemption law from anti-discrimination policies so they can fire people for being gay and refuse to hire gay people. that started yesterday, literally the day after the ruling.
arrow Try denying men access to condoms/viagra. arrow Watch as chaos ensues. arrow It's okay to deny it to women, because Jesus. arrow They'll all be wanting abortion. arrow AHAHA women's bodies are property.
"deny women birth control and Plan B because Christians think women not getting pregnant is icky, nobody bats an eye. make men pay for their own Viagra and everyone loses their minds!"
arrow Try denying men access to condoms/viagra. arrow Watch as chaos ensues. arrow It's okay to deny it to women, because Jesus. arrow They'll all be wanting abortion. arrow AHAHA women's bodies are property.
"deny women birth control and Plan B because Christians think women not getting pregnant is icky, nobody bats an eye. make men pay for their own Viagra and everyone loses their minds!"
the concept of collective goods is just another version of reverse charity and theft. From this concept comes all taxation and justification of use of force to compel others to achieve a form of behavior a ruling group believes benefits themselves or others. Some people decided they wanted free abortions and free birth control, so they argued it was a medical condition that should be covered by other people. Now, they of course lie and call it universal health coverage, but there are all sorts of dead bodies in the ground that are being eaten by worms instead of living because something they had wasn't covered by this universal care people talk about.
********, you cant even get 100% coverage on a damned thing. Obama care is a ******** coupon. Its like those buy one get one free coupon books people pay money for. Where are contact lenses for free? Where are the white enamel colored teeth covered? They aren't. You know they aren't. The rest of the ******** planet knows teeth and eyeballs are part of the human body and thus covered by medical, but in America you get slimy bureaucrats and their cheerleaders to claim that parts of the human body are some how not medical, and then charge tax payers to sterilize your citizens.
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