December 26, 2012

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the Obama administration's contraception mandate from taking effect."

"Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a request for an emergency injunction that would have shielded employers from the mandate."

Opinion: here:
Applicants do not satisfy the demanding standard for the extraordinary relief they seek.... This Court has not previously addressed similar RFRA or free exercise claims brought by closely held for-profit corporations and their controlling shareholders alleging that the mandatory provision of certain employee benefits substantially burdens their exercise of religion.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; unless we want to give health care benefits and free contraception to certain parties, and then, you've got to practice the religion we believe in, free stuff.

edutcher said...

Zero got what he paid for.

Skyler said...

When we stopped being a free people and allowed the government to spoon feed us our pablum of social security and the new deal, the courts must have concluded that we didn't care for the first amendment silliness either. We are such a bunch of children. I'm glad that Marxism has been implemented to show us the way.

Skyler said...

The Romans didn't care who you prayed to either, so long as you also prayed to their gods too.

Big Mike said...

Six of the nine justices are (at least nominally) Roman Catholic, notably includine Sotomayor. If the Catholic church really cared about the contraception mandate, they'd threaten to excommunicate them all.

It's all Kabuki theater.

XRay said...

"It's all Kabuki theater."

It's not even that, it's just blatant, 'we won'.

Anonymous said...

Re: "It's all Kabuki theater."

Being that it's all about preventing sperm from fertilizing an egg wouldn't it be more accurate as Bukkake Theater?

Levi Starks said...

it would be extraordinary if the court were to relieve us from the obligation to obey the president.
resistance is futile

CWJ said...

Whenever a customer service department wishes to deflect a complaint and gain the upper hand against the complainant, the standard response is that they've never heard a complaint like this before. I've heard this deployed no matter how obvious the problem might be. Sotomayer's opinion stinks to high heaven of the same tactic.

john said...

I don't get this. Doesn't SCOTUS agree to take cases, and aren't they heard en banc?

Michael K said...

If religious organizations are serious, they will drop health care insurance for employees.

Dante said...

If religious organizations are serious, they will drop health care insurance for employees.

Aren't there serious penalties for doing this? Or are you saying they ought to take it up the ass?

Just wondering. I'm an atheist, by the way. But I have come to value the contributions of religion to Western Civilization, and think the new age government of control is an obamination.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Michael K, my impression from Catholic media is that many organizations are going to do precisely that. Or close altogether, if they can't afford the fines.

Went caroling with my church at a nursing home run by an order of nuns, not sure which. Delightful, smiling, joyful women, doing the difficult work (caring for the poor, weak, old and vulnerable) they've been doing for centuries. I couldn't help but watch the sisters and think about what a vulgarity it is for the administration to target these women and their organization. Would it have been so hard to exempt those with conscience objections to the mandate? Would it have been so hard for our schoolyard bully of an administration to leave well enough alone?

rasqual said...

WTF? "Applicants do not satisfy the demanding standard for the extraordinary relief they seek"

The mere claim to liberty is now "extraordinary relief" from what's deemed reasonable governance (read: tyranny).

Legal insurrection.

john said...

Well, the US having voted for Santa Claus, the timing was actually pretty good.

Eric Jablow said...

John, I believe each Justice is assigned a geographical area to handle injunctions while the Court is not in session. You hear about this usually with capital punishment cases.

Chip S. said...

...religious affiliated institutions such as Catholic hospitals don't have to cover contraception directly. (Their insurance companies cover the cost of making it available at no cost to the employee.)

The magic beans that deliver stuff to people "at no cost" must be what power unicorn farts.

Hunter said...

@betamax 3000

If you're doing it that way, contraceptives probably aren't necessary.

DEEBEE said...

This Court has not previously addressed similar RFRA or free exercise claims brought by closely held for-profit corporations and their controlling shareholders alleging
=========
Is the wise Latina drifting towards strict constructionism? My heart be still

Would she have preferred a filing by a publically traded for profit company or a closely held non-profit entity?

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...
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Brent said...

She writes pretty and stuff - we have to say that because dhe's Latina and cannot possibly be held to the same standard applied to White Men Jurists, because if she were held to that standard, she would then be just another run of the mill, average to above-average agenda-driven affirmative- action benefitting vs. merit qualifying leftist attorney. And seriously - aren't there so many more of such types who are far more qualified to at least pretend to the role of Jurist on the SC?

If Sotomayor cannot get something as basic as the very first part of the very first Amendment, then what we have for everyone with half a brain and even a minimal moral standard to see is the Leftist agenda of a Latina legal idiot.

Unknown said...
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tim maguire said...

The Supreme Court has long been in the business of ignoring government regulation of religious observance. This decision is not particularly surprising.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We are going to do it by the book.

But, thats what we are saying, your honor...

I'm not talking about your book... I'm taking about my book.

gerry said...
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gerry said...

Abortifacients are a non-option for Catholic administrations. They are non-profit, so I do not know how this refusal to protect religious liberty applies to them (I am no legal expert, but it seems to me that making a profit should not affect religious liberty rights).

It's time for civil disobedience. I wonder how many nuns and priests and bishops and plain vanilla Catholics Obama can support in federal prisons?

We are entering a new time of religious persecution.

Tank said...

Wise.

Very wise.

Wise.

Latina too.

Double dip.

Wise.

Cool.

DEAD COUNTRY WALKING

Unknown said...

When we stopped being a free people and allowed the government to spoon feed us our pablum of social security and the new deal, the courts must have concluded that we didn't care for the first amendment silliness either. We are such a bunch of children. I'm glad that Marxism has been implemented to show us the way.

Althouse lemmings do have a special way of saying really silly things.

Brent said...

Jake Diamond,

haven't paid attention to your postings before.

But i will. It is obvious you are a lemming.

Just a few more posts to find out who your master is . . .

Methadras said...

All this is going to do is basically have companies drop insurance for new hires or find way to curtail their costs as deeply as possible. Unintended consequences and all that.

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