[The government's] accommodation requires the institution to notify the government of its objection; that, the government argues, is enough to excuse that institution from any direct role in providing contraceptives to their female employees. From then on, it is the government, working with the institution’s health insurer, that actually provides the free access to contraceptives for those employees....The organizations argue that their exercise of religion is substantially burdened by this level of involvement in the process. If this need to avoid even direct participation counts as a substantial burden on religion, then the government must have a compelling interest and it must meet that interest with the "least restrictive means."
The religious institutions have countered that, because the plans that will provide for the access are those institutions’ own heath insurance systems, the government will “hijack” those to provide the contraceptives. The mere act of notifying the government of a religious objection, those institutions have contended, works as a “trigger” to the government to go forward with contraceptive coverage through their plans. That, the institutions have said, confronts them with the choice of violating their religious beliefs or paying the heavy fines.
In Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court didn't decide but assumed that "the interest in guaranteeing cost-free access" contraception was compelling. It said that the government had certainly not used the least-restrictive means, because it didn't even give the accommodation that it worked out for not-for-profit organizations.
In these new cases, the question is whether even that accommodation is the least restrictive, a question Hobby Lobby left open. As the Court wrote in that case, the "most straightforward" accommodation "would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections."
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১৬টি মন্তব্য:
Restore freedom of association except in monopoly markets and it all goes away.
The original error was in the civil rights act. The problem has nothing to do with religion.
The cases that wouldn't go away - I would think the SC justices are getting tired of these!
Still, on a factual basis, I cannot see how one can conclude that the government's solution isn't forcing the Little Sisters to pay for contraception. Insurers most certainly are using the employer's premiums and any employee share to pay for these services. The legal fiction that they are not couldn't satisfy my conscience. The insurers have stated that providing the services at issue does cost them money.
If the government wants to provide free contraception, why doesn't it? It has the legal power to do so. I cannot see that it has the legal power to force a group of nuns to do so. The administration has created a situation under which it either fines the nuns or they pay for what they consider to be murder. It cannot be legal even under the First Amendment.
And yes, paying for this through taxes would remove the burden. The Sisters, by their own acts, would not be directly paying for it.
Is being forced to pay for contraceptives through tax dollars less burdensome than being forced to pay through insurance dollars? How are contraceptives a health issue anyway? (Yes, I know that question's been asked. It just hasn't been answered.)
Money is fungible. Debt is fungible. The State-established pro-choice/libertine cult is already well funded. I wonder why they need to squeeze the Little Sisters of the Poor for more blood.
One problematic law being used to pry an exception from another problematic law.
Gallons of ink spilled. Tens of thousands of person-hours expended in lobbying, legislating, and later litigating. Lamentable!
Just declare a draw and void both laws. Christ on a crutch! Mohammad on a motorbike.
(Peace be upon him.)
Road to Surfdom.
Still waiting to see someone explain how putting a county clerk in jail is less restrictive than removing her name from a form.
n.n said...
Money is fungible. Debt is fungible. The State-established pro-choice/libertine cult is already well funded. I wonder why they need to squeeze the Little Sisters of the Poor for more blood.
Because this whole mess isn't about healthcare or contraception, or abortion.
It is about control.
You must not be allowed to make life decisions concerning your health unless the state can tax you to make the "right" decision.
As I've said all along.
The next "healthcare" subject of the states concern will be gun control.
After that they can deal with "hate speech" .
Once again words are used to mean the opposite of what they really are.
The "accomodation" is not about the government accomodating anything or anyone, it is about private entities being forced to accomodate the government and its scheme of involving those entities in something they do not want to be involved in, and do not need to be involved in if the provision of contraceptives were really the goal.
Sheesh Althouse. Nice matriarchical emphasis on "has tried.
The Nuns (and the others) deserve their day in court. It's outrageous that an all male run Church in any given city is automatically exempted, and these women are not. That "accomodation" is bullshit.
It is not any different than signing an order denying a stay on an execution, and they cannot, nor should they have to, do it.
As a factual matter, under past practice without any contraceptive mandate, employees were able to obtain contraceptives -- and anything else they wanted -- via their employment. The employer paid them a wage and then they used that money for whatever they wanted -- only they did so in an individual and private manner. They could buy contraceptives, they could buy food, pay rent, buy crack cocaine, porn, contribute to various idelogical causes . . . whatever they wanted.
The Mandate was never about employees being able to get contraceptives. It was ALWAYS about forcing religious groups in general and the Catholic Church specifically to put their fingerprints all over something that is contrary to what they believe, what they stand for, what they are. It was always about preventing these institutions (and individuals too) from being true to their religious identity.
And let's not get fooled by this artiface that all that the Mandate requires is that anyone who wants to opt out need only submit a form stating that they object and then that means they won't be involved.
Doing X to "opt out" is necessarily an opting-in. And if all that the form accomplished was to state an objection, then it would be superfluous. All of these groups have already stated their objections, very loudly, very insistently.
But the form has nothing to do with stating objections. The government is demanding that these groups fill out this form because it is the form which then obligates the insurer to provide the offense products.
Moreover, the contraceptive-providing insurer only knows who to give the coverage to because the employer is compelled by the government to give the names, addresses, SS numbers, and other private information to the insurer.
All of this is for one purpose only -- to make religious groups act against their identity, to tear down those institutions one brick at a time.
The form itself, Mark, is an admission that the state hold supremacy in this matter.
Sheesh Althouse. Nice matriarchical emphasis on "has tried.
You can send the Jews to the ovens in cattle cars or in Pullman cars. Either way you accomodate them, they're going to the ovens.
rhhardin, MaxedOutMama, and Mark have all said it better than I could. This is the logical conclusion of the mid-20th-century "Progressive" war on the private sphere, under the intellectually dishonest cover of "addressing racism," something government is incapable of doing in the first place, since no government has ever changed anyone's mind short of killing them. Martin Luther understood this perfectly, hence his (possibly apocryphal) "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me."
"These cases all involve non-profit religious organizations, which the federal government has tried to accommodate"
No, it hasn't. The Obama Administration has attempted to pretend to honor the law while still forcing it down the throats of the organizations.
It would be utterly simple to accommodate the organizations: Stop trying to force them to provide benefits they find objectionable. If it's such a "compelling interest", the Federal Gov't can pay to provide them.
Of course, that would take passing a law. And since Congress is controlled by people who do not see the Obama Mandates as a "compelling federal interest", the Obama Administration would lose in its attempt to get that law passed.
Which, of course, tells you everything you need to know about whether or not it's actually a "compelling interest", now, doesn't it?
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