High Court Rules Against Obama’s Abortion Pill Mandate in Hobby Lobby Case

[Valin]

Worker beware, know thy employer's religion

Tomlinson: I may have made a horrible mistake... snip

 

In the Houston Chronicle

 

Darn behind the (evil) paywall

 

 

However I have a solution Chris's problem.....work for a different company.

[Valin]

Today the Supreme Court Protected Religious Freedom
Sarah Torre, Elizabeth Slattery
June 30, 2014

You don’t have to agree with Hobby Lobby or share its owners’ opposition to abortion to recognize that the government should not be able to force Americans to set aside their deeply held beliefs simply because they go into business.

 

Thankfully, the Supreme Court agreed and upheld the right of Americans to live and work according to their convictions in a 5- 4 decision today.

 

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the justices ruled the government will not be able to force Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties to provide coverage of four drugs and devices that can end the life of a human embryo.

[Valin]

The Funniest Left-Wing Reactions to Hobby Lobby So Far
John Hinderaker
June 30, 2014

As Paul and I have already noted, the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision is carefully circumscribed and may or may not ultimately amount to much. (“Meaningless,” is now appellate lawyer Mark Arnold described the decision.) But that hasn’t stopped lefties (hardly any of whom have actually read the opinion, of course) from going crazy.

 

The funniest reactions so far have come from lefties responding to the SCOTUSblog’s Twitter feed. These individuals suffer from the misapprehension that in addressing SCOTUSblog, they are talking to the U.S. Supreme Court. The folks at SCOTUSblog couldn’t resist responding in character–sort of–and the results are pretty funny. You can see lots of distressed lefty tweets at Twitchy, but here are a few of my favorites:

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

6 Stupid Arguments About Hobby Lobby From Dumb Liberals

Sean Davis

June 30, 2014

 

The Supreme Court’s decision today affirming the right of business owners to run their businesses in accordance with their religious beliefs has caused no small amount of consternation among the anti-science, functionally illiterate Left. The Supreme Court just banned birth control forever. Male justices just imprisoned women across America. If you don’t buy my stuff for me, it means you want to ban that stuff. And so on and so forth

 

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, we have been given a wealth of riches when it comes to stupid arguments from stupid people. Here are the 6 dumbest arguments from dumb liberals about the Hobby Lobby decision.

 

(Snip)

[Geee]

COURT GRANTS CATHOLIC TV NETWORK REPRIEVE FROM BIRTH CONTROL MANDATE, CITING HOBBY LOBBY DECISION

 

Citing the new U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Hobby Lobby case, the Eleventh Federal Circuit Appeals Court issued an injunction Monday providing the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN Global Catholic Network) with a reprieve from enforcement of the ObamaCare HHS Mandate.

According to Catholic World News, while the court did not decide the merits of the EWTN lawsuit, the injunction does block fines that would have been charged against EWTN beginning July 1 for failure to comply with the contraceptive mandate that required that the network pay for employees' birth control.

“On the same day as the Hobby Lobby decision, the Eleventh Circuit protected religious ministries challenging the same government mandate,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents EWTN. “It’s time for the government to stop fighting ministries like EWTN and the Little Sisters of the Poor, and start respecting religious freedom.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/30/Citing-SCOTUS-Hobby-Lobby-Decision-Federal-Appeals-Court-Grants-EWTN-Reprieve-From-HHS-Mandate

[Geee]

ALITO VS. GINSBURG ON THE HOBBY LOBBY DECISION

 

This morning the Supreme Court announced its decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, with Justice Alito delivering the majority opinion. The Court affirmed the Tenth Circuit decision, excusing Hobby Lobby and the other corporations represented in the case from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. The store chain and Conestoga Wood Specialties opposed the required coverage of four contraceptive methods they consider abortifacients, which have the potential to terminate an embryo after its conception. Despite anticipation that victory for Hobby Lobby in the case would extend First Amendment rights to corporations, the decision explicitly denies that it does this, and bases its argument on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) rather than the First Amendment.

 

The decision fell into four statements. A majority opinion written by Justice Alito is summarized in its conclusion, stating, “The contraceptive mandate, as applied to closely held corporations, violates RFRA. Our decision on that statutory question makes it unnecessary to reach the First Amendment claim raised by Conestoga and the Hahns.” Justice Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion, also drawing the case under the RFRA. The majority opinion calls for the four contraceptive methods in question to either be provided to affected employees via a separate government program or through the same system currently in place currently for dissenting non-profit entities.

http://spectator.org/blog/59816/alito-vs-ginsburg-hobby-lobby-decision

[Draggingtree]

Hobby Lobby: Government Can’t Violate Religious Liberties Willy-Nilly

This decision has nothing to do with big business, freedom to use contraceptives, or preferencing religious liberty above everything else.

By Ilya Shapiro JULY 1, 2014

By now you’ve no doubt heard that the Supreme Court ruled corporations can fire women who use birth control and that religion trumps all other values in constitutional jurisprudence. At least that’s what my Twitter feed tells me.

 

But what was at stake in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby actually has nothing to do with the power of big business, the freedom to use any kind of legal contraceptive, or how to balance religious liberty against other constitutional considerations. Much like Citizens United (which struck down restrictions on corporate political speech without touching campaign contribution limits) and Shelby County (which struck down Section 4( of the Voting Rights Act because it was based on obsolete voting data that didn’t reflect current realities as constitutionally required), Hobby Lobby is doomed to be misunderstood. The case now enters the “war on women” echo circus—as if half the plaintiffs challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptives mandate weren’t women—or possibly some more bizarre corner of the Obamadämmerung.

 

http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/01/hobby-lobby-government-cant-violate-religious-liberties-willy-nilly/

[Draggingtree]

EWTN gets last-minute stay on HHS mandate after Hobby Lobby decision

 

POSTED AT 10:01 AM ON JULY 1, 2014 BY ED MORRISSEY

 

Late yesterday, the first fruits of the Hobby Lobby decision fell into the lap of EWTN, the Catholic satellite television station which has fought the HHS mandate into the appellate court. Today would have been the first day that EWTN would have to start paying ruinous fines for refusing to provide free contraception and sterilization in its health insurance coverage. Fortunately, the Eleventh Circuit granted a stay not long after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby:

 

In a resounding victory for religious freedom, today EWTN was granted last minute relief from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, one day before the world’s largest religious media network would be forced to violate its deeply help religious convictions or pay crippling fines to the IRS on July 1.

After the district judge recently issued a disappointing ruling against the global Catholic media network, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an emergency appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.

 

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/01/ewtn-gets-last-minute-stay-on-hhs-mandate-after-hobby-lobby-decision/

[Draggingtree]

[Geee]

Post-Hobby Lobby, Courts Grant Injunctions Against Obamacare Abortion Drug Rule for 7 Groups

 

CNSNews.com) – Within 24 hours of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Obama administration was wrong to impose its contraceptive and abortion drug regulation on small companies that oppose it on religious grounds, two federal courts granted emergency injunctions to seven non-profit groups that also oppose the rule.

 

In a July 1 news release from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the non-profit law firm stated that the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and five Catholic institutions in Wyoming -- Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne, Catholic Charities of Wyoming, St. Joseph’s Children’s Home, St. Anthony Tri-Parish Catholic School and Wyoming Catholic College – were granted temporary waivers from the mandate.

 

Also, a separate federal court granted a temporary injunction to Wheaton College to protect it from the mandate.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/post-hobby-lobby-courts-grant-injunctions-against-obamacare-abortion

[Draggingtree]

Ron Paul on the Hobby Lobby Decision

 

By Ryan McMaken

Tuesday, July 8th, 2014

Ron Paul writes on the Hobby Lobby decision:

 

Hobby Lobby Decision Creates Small Island of Freedom in Ocean of Statism

 

by Ron Paul

This week, supporters of religious freedom cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The Court was correct to protect business owners from being forced to violate their religious beliefs by paying for contraceptives. However, the decision was very limited in scope and application.

 

The Court’s decision only applies to certain types of businesses, for example, “closely-held corporations” that have a “sincere” religious objection to paying for contraceptive coverage. Presumably, federal courts or bureaucrats will determine if a business’s religious objection to the mandate is “sincere” or not and therefore eligible for an opt-out from one Obamacare mandate.

 

Opponents of the Court’s decision are correct that a religious objection does not justify a special exemption from the Obamacare contraception mandate, but that is because all businesses should be exempt from all federal mandates. Federal laws imposing mandates on private businesses violate the business owners’ rights of property and contract. http://bastiat.mises.org/?p=10133

[Draggingtree]

New fallout from Hobby Lobby

By Lyle Denniston on Jul 8, 2014 at 8:15 pm

Five major advocacy groups working to promote gay rights, reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, on Tuesday backed off from support for a pending bill in Congress to make it illegal to discriminate in the workplace based on sexual orientation. Some gay rights activists have been working for such a bill for decades, and finally succeeded in the Senate in November.

 

The withdrawal of support was announced jointly in this statement by the American Civil Liberties Union, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Lambda Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Transgender Law Center. The text of the religious exemption in the bill to which they object can be read here. (UPDATE: Another group, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, has announced a similar stand.)

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/07/new-fallout-from-hobby-lobby/#more-215118

[Valin]

[Draggingtree]

Rules for birth-control mandate after Hobby Lobby(UPDATED)

 

By Lyle Denniston on Aug 22, 2014 at 3:22 pm

 

UPDATE 5:27 p.m. The proposed new rules have now been published by the government. The revisions for profit-making businesses are here, and for non-profit organizations are here.

 

The Obama administration, planning to change its health insurance rules to satisfy the Supreme Court’s ruling in June limiting the federal birth-control mandate, proposed on Friday that for-profit companies with publicly traded stock will not qualify for a new exemption. A government fact sheet giving background and summarizing the proposed changes can be read here.

 

The new rules appear to have two purposes: to keep the mandate under the Affordable Care Act within the new limits required by the Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, but also to make sure that women who work for employers who object to the mandate for religious reasons would continue to have access to that coverage. The revisions would apply to both for-profit businesses and non-profit groups like religiously oriented charities, hospitals, schools, and colleges.

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/08/rules-for-birth-control-mandate-after-hobby-lobby/

[clearvision]

New stuff released on Fri.

 

LINK

[Draggingtree]

Despite Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Ruling Obama Administration Repackages Abortion-Pill Mandate

 

By: Matthew Clark (Diary) | August 22nd, 2014 at 04:20 PM

The Obama Administration is not one to let a mere Supreme Court decision get in the way of its radical pro-abortion agenda.

 

After losing major abortion-pill mandate litigation at the Supreme Court and then failing in an attempt to ram a new abortion-pill mandate through Congress (where it couldn’t even muster enough votes in the pro-abortion Senate), the Obama Administration is back with two more attempts at the HHS Mandate.

 

The Department of Health and Human Services has unveiled two new regulations concerning the mandate that would force businesses, religious non-profits and for-profit businesses alike, to pay for, facilitate, and provide abortion pills in violation of their faith.

 

http://www.redstate.com/diary/matthewclark/2014/08/22/despite-supreme-courts-hobby-lobby-ruling-obama-administration-repackages-abortion-pill-mandate/