jhmd must have really enjoyed his vacation. This thread has already moved past his arguments to what the Court did after the decision.
Do tell. "The Court" has already acted, citing its own precedent? In a week?
jhmd must have really enjoyed his vacation. This thread has already moved past his arguments to what the Court did after the decision.
Oh, we still need to be whining about the ACA. I see.
"But again, please apply it to the facts as they exist: someone distinguish why the individual mandate is not an intrusion, but the Hobby Lobby decision is the end of the world. "
Because the first was ruled to be a tax and the second exempts religious groups from providing aspects of said tax with a nebulous distinction between closely-held corporations and other corporations that may or may not be upheld in the future?
I was under the impression that as a general employee at a Hobby Lobby store that you might not necessarily have jobs lining up to take you when you exercise your overwhelming power of leverage that the average employee is able to generate in the at-will employment model.
If we had a Constitutional protection for your retail job, your point would be hard to counter. We don't.
We do have Constitutional protections for free exercise.
Not much of a denial on your part. Would you like a do-over that ends in a substantive distinction this time? Why is paving over all health care choices cool but entering voluntary contracts about a subset of a subset the end of days?
I'm not scared by the blossoming power of the day manager at a store full of plastic trains in a strip mall. If I can't convince him to pay for my preferred method of birth control, I have tons and tons of options. If I can't convince other people to pay for my stuff for free, I can always buy it.
My options are a lot less vast when the IRS orders me to spend 10x that amount because they think it is best. If I liked my old health insurance policy, I am no longer allowed to buy it, oft-repeated warranties to the contrary notwithstanding.
It is fairly simple: if you are concerned about intrusions into health care choices and Supreme Court precedent (and I see no evidence you actually are), I would prioritize them in order of their severity.
Getting upset about HL but not about the individual mandate requires toggling one's outrage past the breaking point of credibility. By analogy, Hobby Lobby refusing to pay for the full menu of your a la carte birth control options is your neighbor expanding his deck by 20 inches over the property line (it's minor and resolvable). The individual mandate is the city claiming your lot by eminent domain and forcibly re-locating you. Big to small, people.
I didn't say it trumped it, I said that it's a ridiculous argument to act like there are always jobs out there for everybody who wants one.
Could Hobby Lobby fire someone for not being a Christian? Apparently they can force people to participate in company religious activities.
Let's say an employee defined their beliefs as "atheist" on Facebook. Could Hobby Lobby fire them for that based on the grounds that employing an atheist goes against their religious beliefs?
Employment security seems like an odd responsibility to put on the judicial system.
Oh? Is at-will employment not a judicial creation?
No. Discrimination of the type described in your hypo, especially in hiring practices, is clearly illegal. That's not the same thing as refusing to pay for someone else's preferred method of birth control, especially when doing so would be against a sincerely held religious belief and when they are willing to pay for equally effective methods that are not in violation of those same beliefs. Courts balance equities all the time. It's hard to ignore the wide variety of substitute means available in the HL case.
So how is that not employment security?
This is about private business intervening in public health.
No, it isn't. It is basic contract law. Not that I blame you for looking places other than this Executive branch for job creation.