Moderator: Jon Estes
That question was addressed in 2014 when the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and other closely held corporations are eligible under RFRA for exemptions from Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that corporate personhood is just a legal construct but argued that protecting a corporation’s free exercise amounts to protecting the exercise of the actual persons who own it. As for whether that rule also applies to publicly traded corporations with more diffuse ownership, Alito maintained that the question of their religious exercise was not on the table at that time.
It’s on the table now. The Trump administration also published new regulations allowing any employer to seek a religious exemption to the contraception mandate. If Hobby Lobby’s claim of religious exercise reflected the beliefs of the family with a controlling interest, now such a claim might be made on behalf of a company owned by millions of otherwise unrelated people, some of whom don’t even know what stocks they own. They have free exercise rights, so apparently the company does, too.
Sandy wrote:How would you decide, if some shareholders held a particular religious perspective, and others did not, which one prevails and how would the "religious identity" of the corporation be determined?
William Thornton wrote:Sandy wrote:How would you decide, if some shareholders held a particular religious perspective, and others did not, which one prevails and how would the "religious identity" of the corporation be determined?
I'd try and apply the SCOTUS decision on it, that "closely held" corporations must be afforded religious liberty rights. Almost all businesses are corporations, some are publicly held, some privately. Win some elections. Get some more liberal-friendly judges. For now, Hobby Lobby sets the standard. Of course, that doesn't stop the chicken little talk but it's a free country.
William Thornton wrote:Here's the Hobby Lobby argument: Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that corporate personhood is just a legal construct but argued that protecting a corporation’s free exercise amounts to protecting the exercise of the actual persons who own it. As for whether that rule also applies to publicly traded corporations with more diffuse ownership, Alito maintained that the question of their religious exercise was not on the table at that time.
A broader religious exercise exemption for widely held corporations will have to be decided judicially, I expect. When we were under Obama, businesses had to fight to protect their religious exercise. Under Trump they don't. Elections have consequences...someone said. Like many church/state issues, there are competing rights here. We will see where it goes. Anyone can posit hypotheticals and build a case.
William Thornton wrote:Doesn't help your argument on religious liberty to toss in extraneous stuff. You can read the HL decision. A majority of the court was persuaded on the issue. If religious liberty isn't protected for a minority view then the whole concept is eliminated but the discussion here was on corporations being afforded such rights not the rights themselves. I don't think you are up to speed on this.
Dave Roberts wrote:William Thornton wrote:Here's the Hobby Lobby argument: Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that corporate personhood is just a legal construct but argued that protecting a corporation’s free exercise amounts to protecting the exercise of the actual persons who own it. As for whether that rule also applies to publicly traded corporations with more diffuse ownership, Alito maintained that the question of their religious exercise was not on the table at that time.
A broader religious exercise exemption for widely held corporations will have to be decided judicially, I expect. When we were under Obama, businesses had to fight to protect their religious exercise. Under Trump they don't. Elections have consequences...someone said. Like many church/state issues, there are competing rights here. We will see where it goes. Anyone can posit hypotheticals and build a case.
The question that ultimately comes into play here is whether the owners of a business have a right to apply their scruples to mine as an employee. That becomes a slippery slope on which the questions of religious freedom have many applications beyond whether a company pays for contraception. By the way, should Fox News be forced to deny Viagra coverage based on the misbehavior of executives who have violated the religious (and legal) rights of female employees?
William Thornton wrote:Perhaps you could interact with Alito and the other four judges. See below. The broader issue will be litigated. For now, The HL decision decides it. Win some elections. Replace some judges. Or, just keep complaining about current law.
You call,it a brush off. I say you fail to approach the salient points of the HL decision.
William Thornton wrote:Perhaps you could interact with Alito and the other four judges. See below. The broader issue will be litigated. For now, The HL decision decides it. Win some elections. Replace some judges. Or, just keep complaining about current law.
You call,it a brush off. I say you fail to approach the salient points of the HL decision.
KeithE wrote:William Thornton wrote:Perhaps you could interact with Alito and the other four judges. See below. The broader issue will be litigated. For now, The HL decision decides it. Win some elections. Replace some judges. Or, just keep complaining about current law.
You call,it a brush off. I say you fail to approach the salient points of the HL decision.
Your approach to debate/discussion is to ‘agree with me' or go find out your points myself. If you don't want to enter the debate/discussion, then ignore what others say instead of saying your foil is "not up to speed”.
My point was that religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution is about personal (all people’s) religious freedom not corporate religious freedom or giving corporate owners the right to negate their employee’s religious freedom (even in minor ways).
William Thornton wrote:KeithE wrote:William Thornton wrote:Perhaps you could interact with Alito and the other four judges. See below. The broader issue will be litigated. For now, The HL decision decides it. Win some elections. Replace some judges. Or, just keep complaining about current law.
You call,it a brush off. I say you fail to approach the salient points of the HL decision.
Your approach to debate/discussion is to ‘agree with me' or go find out your points myself. If you don't want to enter the debate/discussion, then ignore what others say instead of saying your foil is "not up to speed”.
My point was that religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution is about personal (all people’s) religious freedom not corporate religious freedom or giving corporate owners the right to negate their employee’s religious freedom (even in minor ways).
It is corporate, though limited in an as yet unspecified manner. SCOTUS says so. You have yet to interact with the rationale of the decision.
William Thornton wrote:Well, I'd already read those, bro, several years ago.
Notice that the most lib judges Ginsburg and Sotomayor aren't joined in one important section of the dissent, although Breyer and Kagan are dissenting votes.
Note also that the majority decision is limited to the contraceptive mandate. I think that the first amendment is important enough to make congress do a workaround if they think providing contraceptives to the populace rather than substantially burdening the FA rights of employers and forcing them to do so. And, please, we're dealing with the sovereign laws of the good old USA. What European nations do is irrelevant, though lib judges sometimes make that appeal.
More later.
Here's your problem: Dave raised a good question about the Trump admin expanding this. Your lower antitrump impulses compelled you to avoid this issue, which is prickly in many ways and on which you and I would agree in part, and to toss out the old standby culture war complaint along with the wage rate and even the last hope of ihatetrumpers, the 25th amendment. If your aim to to back up your garbage truck and dump all that out, I'll yield the field to you. OTOH, this narrow religious liberty issue is interesting and important and worth discussing.
William Thornton wrote:What religious right of employees was raised in the case and have employees filed a first amendment lawsuit in response to being denied those rights? You make an equivalence of employees being denied employer paid contraception and the employer being forced to do that which he says violates his FA rights.
William Thornton wrote:It's not an insult but it doesn't look like you understand either the hobby lobby case or first amendment religious rights.
William Thornton wrote:I didn't ask about religious views of employees but their FA rights. I'm off to a church meeting and will reread the dissent but I didn't see a FA assertion by employees. Manifestly, employees were denied contraceptives which are easily obtained elsewhere. The court said that the burden on the FA rights of the employer was substantial and outweighed the loss to employees.
You are deep into error here by your test of which side has greater numbers that are harmed. The whole concept of RL protections fails if affected minority rights may be set aside by majority views.
I'll state again that you will have to point me to a FA issue with employees. Ginsburg wrote of women being able to fully participate in the economy, etc., but not that those whose moral views do not inform them that certain contraceptives are immoral should be given free contraceptives by their employer so that the former's religious views are protected. That might be your view but not one that was made in the case.
Taking your argument farther, surely you don't believe that employers should be mandated by government to pay for the abortions of their employees, since some employees have religious views that prebirth babies should be killed and if in the majority, these employees should have their religious views protected.
It's not an insult but it doesn't look like you understand either the hobby lobby case or first amendment religious rights.
Sandy wrote:William Thornton wrote:It's not an insult but it doesn't look like you understand either the hobby lobby case or first amendment religious rights.
I think the Hobby Lobby case is the result of a court decision that applies the first amendment in a way that it wasn't intended to be applied, and defines "religion" in a much different way than it has been defined. In light of the way this has been applied, the SBC needs to come up with a way to evangelize corporations, because apparently, unlike pickles, they have souls and can be "religious."
What the ruling amounts to is giving a for-profit corporation the ability to claim a religious exemption in order to avoid compliance with federal law regarding employee benefits. Any time a company wants to cheat employees on benefits, they can say "that's against our religion" and get away with it. So companies with limited ownership can save themselves some money while their competition among publicly held companies can't, because Alito closed that door, at least for the time being.
The court concluded by addressing "the possibility that discrimination in hiring, for example on the basis of race, might be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction". The court said that their decision "provides no such shield", and that "prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal."[54] The court also said that the requirement to pay taxes despite any religious objection is different from the contraceptive mandate because "there simply is no less restrictive alternative to the categorical requirement to pay taxes."[55] The court acknowledged the dissent's "worries about forcing the federal courts to apply RFRA to a host of claims made by litigants seeking a religious exemption from generally applicable laws ...", noting that this point was "made forcefully by the Court in Smith". The court responded by saying, "Congress, in enacting RFRA, took the position that 'the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests' ... The wisdom of Congress's judgment on this matter is not our concern. Our responsibility is to enforce RFRA as written, and under the standard that RFRA prescribes, the HHS contraceptive mandate is unlawful."[56]
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion, responding to the "respectful and powerful dissent", by emphasizing the limited nature of the ruling and saying that the government "makes the case that the mandate serves the Government's compelling interest in providing insurance coverage that is necessary to protect the health of female employees", but that the RFRA's least-restrictive way requirement is not met because "there is an existing, recognized, workable, and already-implemented framework to provide coverage," the one that HHS has devised for non-profit corporations with religious objections. "RFRA requires the Government to use this less restrictive means. As the Court explains, this existing model, designed precisely for this problem, might well suffice to distinguish the instant cases from many others in which it is more difficult and expensive to accommodate a governmental program to countless religious claims based on an alleged statutory right of free exercise."
Return to Politics and Public Policy Issues
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests