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SCOTUS decisions

Ginsburg says this decision opens the door to wider decisions. Like Spot says, "why is HL's religion OK but not Jehovah's Witness'?"

This is up there with as bad a decision as CU and VRA.

Well, it take at least a day for Texas to pass a poll tax and voter suppression law after the SC overturned VRA.
 
Not exactly bigoted, but if you're a catholic and oppose birth control, that's all well and good. You can not provide that for your employee. If you're a Jehovah's Witness, you still have to provide blood transfusions, because we said so. You're religious beliefs don't quite matter as much.

It would be more like saying (not sure it's actually been said yet) that the government's interest in requiring companies to provide insurance that covers blood transfusions is more compelling than in requiring companies to provide insurance that covers certain abortion-like birth control methods.
 
The issue is two-fold for me: the corporation as a person (as RChil has pointed out, plenty of precedent that this is acceptable) and the demarcation between religious organizations. You couldn't convince me for one second that if this was a Rastafarian group bringing a claim under the RFRA for (insert issue here) that this Court would rule the same way.

So far Alito's opinion isn't too radical, he's just recanting the facts.
 
Exactly. How is this not a move toward a government established religion when the Judicial Branch can designate which religious beliefs are legitimate?

Because the Court has long been able to decide whether laws place a substantial burden on exercise of religion and if the government's interest is compelling enough to overcome such a burden if there is one.
 
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It would be more like saying (not sure it's actually been said yet) that the government's interest in requiring companies to provide insurance that covers blood transfusions is more compelling than in requiring companies to provide insurance that covers certain abortion-like birth control methods.

They framed it as constitutional right. Thus "compelling interest" should be of little consequence. Either the constitution protects this right or it doesn't. After all those who voted for this BS are supposed to be "strict contructionalists".

Will be unavailable for the next hour or more.
 
See I think this is where I diverge from the majority:

"HHS would put these merchants to a difficult choice: either give up the right to seek judicial protection of their religious liberty or forgo the benefits, available to their competitors, of operating as corporations."

I think this is a false hypothetical. You can operate as a corporation and thus remove personal liability while getting benefits, AND you remain free to seek judicial protection of your own religious liberty. If the corporation is actually a "person" then it's merely a shadow person - unable to express itself beyond the confines of the puppeteer. This is particularly true with closely-held corporations where the views of individual A are implicitly going to be identical with the corporation's views .
 
See I think this is where I diverge from the majority:

"HHS would put these merchants to a difficult choice: either give up the right to seek judicial protection of their religious liberty or forgo the benefits, available to their competitors, of operating as corporations."

I think this is a false hypothetical. You can operate as a corporation and thus remove personal liability while getting benefits, AND you remain free to seek judicial protection of your own religious liberty. If the corporation is actually a "person" then it's merely a shadow person - unable to express itself beyond the confines of the puppeteer. This is particularly true with closely-held corporations where the views of individual A are implicitly going to be identical with the corporation's views .

Do you believe RFRA should apply to nonprofit corporations?
 
They framed it as constitutional right. Thus "compelling interest" should be of little consequence. Either the constitution protects this right or it doesn't. After all those who voted for this BS are supposed to be "strict contructionalists".

Will be unavailable for the next hour or more.

This is unbelievably wrong. Anyone who has ever taken a Constitutional Law course would tell you as much.
 
They framed it as constitutional right. Thus "compelling interest" should be of little consequence. Either the constitution protects this right or it doesn't. After all those who voted for this BS are supposed to be "strict contructionalists".

This isn't true in the least. The most well-known way to debunk this is freedom of speech. Nobody disputes that you have freedom of speech under the First Amendment, but you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Under your logic the Constitution doesn't then "protect this right" since the court decided this type of action was not acceptable.
 
They framed it as constitutional right. Thus "compelling interest" should be of little consequence. Either the constitution protects this right or it doesn't. After all those who voted for this BS are supposed to be "strict contructionalists".

Will be unavailable for the next hour or more.

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Curious how many support Hobby Lobby because they believe in the merits vs. how many because it's against Obamacare.
 
I don't believe RFRA should apply to corporations at all, but as the majority points out, the Dictionary Act disagrees with me.

I think I agree with you in principle. The Court is starting to box itself into a corner. If it applies to non-profits then it should apply to closely held. And if it applies to closely held then I don't know what logic they can use to prevent it from applying to large corporations - which is a crazy result.
 
I think I agree with you in principle. The Court is starting to box itself into a corner. If it applies to non-profits then it should apply to closely held. And if it applies to closely held then I don't know what logic they can use to prevent it from applying to large corporations - which is a crazy result.

Absolutely agree. Seems like a line in the sand at this juncture for what the Court is marking the corporations as. Perhaps Alito clarifies further on about why public corporations can't seek the protection of RFRA, but I've just read his view of the definition of "person" and according to the Court and the Dictionary Act "corporations" are included with no caveat.
 
They framed it as constitutional right. Thus "compelling interest" should be of little consequence. Either the constitution protects this right or it doesn't. After all those who voted for this BS are supposed to be "strict contructionalists".

Will be unavailable for the next hour or more.

lol wut
 
"As we noted above, RFRA applies to “a person’s” exercise of religion, 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb–1(a), (b), and RFRAitself does not define the term “person.” We therefore look to the Dictionary Act, which we must consult “n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise.” 1 U. S. C. §1.

Under the Dictionary Act, “the wor[d] ‘person’ . . . include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as wellas individuals.” Ibid.; see FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 6) (“We have no doubt that ‘person,’ in a legal setting, often refers to artificial entities. The Dictionary Act makes that clear”). Thus, unless there is something about the RFRA context that “indicates otherwise,” the Dictionary Act provides a quick, clear, andaffirmative answer to the question whether the companies involved in these cases may be heard."

Emphasis added. To your point Billy, under Alito's logic, there is no question about whether not only these companies may have their cases heard but "corporations" at large.
 
Alito will cross the bridge later it seems, interesting given his love for the slippery slope argument when it suits him:

"These cases, however, do not involve publicly traded corporations, and it seems unlikely that the sort of corporate giants to which HHS refers will often assert RFRAclaims. HHS has not pointed to any example of a publiclytraded corporation asserting RFRA rights, and numerous practical restraints would likely prevent that from occurring. For example, the idea that unrelated shareholders—including institutional investors with their own set ofstakeholders—would agree to run a corporation under thesame religious beliefs seems improbable. In any event, wehave no occasion in these cases to consider RFRA’s applicability to such companies. The companies in the casesbefore us are closely held corporations, each owned and controlled by members of a single family, and no one has disputed the sincerity of their religious beliefs"
 
The SC has legitimized discrimination against women. This is another radical decision by the worst SC since before Brown.

I really hope the Clinton Court revisits the insane concept corporations as people.

Ain't gonna be a Clinton Court. She will not run.
 
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