Posted on 03/25/2014 6:04:56 AM PDT by xzins
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the most prominent case yet pitting some Americans' religious rights against Obamacare's edicts Tuesday.
Some say Obamacare is forcing business owners who believe abortion is a sin to pay for contraception that will terminate life in the womb.
Others warn if the justices side with those business owners, it could lead to all sorts of business owners using religion to try to dodge all sorts of laws.
Hobby Lobby's owners have lived out their religious beliefs through the store chain for decades, like keeping all Hobby Lobbys closed on Sundays.
They company is in court because they say Obamacare will force them to cough up coverage for drugs and devices that basically abort life at its earliest stage in the womb.
Those on the other side of the case say if the Supreme Court rules for Hobby Lobby, it's basically saying that businesses, not just people, have religious rights. Opponents believe that's nonsense.
But the Green family who started Hobby Lobby say, as the owners, if they have to pay for contraceptives that kill potential life, that's a direct violation of their religious conscience.
Attorney Lori Windham, with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, has been fighting for the Greens against the Obamacare mandate that Hobby Lobby must cover 20 forms of contraception. The company only wants to be freed from having to cover four of those.
"In the law Congress said you had to cover women's preventive services, and a federal agency decided that women's preventive services meant all forms of contraception, including four drugs and devices that could terminate a human life," Windham told CBN News. "And that's something that the Greens cannot pay for in good conscience. If you do not comply with this, then you are looking at penalties that very quickly run into the millions of dollars."
One of the nation's top secularists told CBN News Hobby Lobby's desire to be free of giving its workers what Obamacare guarantees them is just wrong.
"Think about an employer who has 10,000 employees, and all those employees have different personal beliefs. But should that one employer's religious belief trump each one of the individual 10,000 employees' religious beliefs?" Edwina Rogers, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America, said.
Rogers said to imagine the chaos if every employer can claim his religion exempts him from Obamacare's mandates.
"What if that employer happens to be a Jehovah's Witness and they're opposed to blood transfusions?" Rogers asked. "My daughter is alive today because she got a blood transfusion. What if the employer is Christian Scientist and they believe you shouldn't have access to any type of modern health care? That you should only be praying to their God?"
On the other side of the issue, the Becket Fund's Windham pointed out Hobby Lobby only wants to be free of having to cover the four drugs and devices that can terminate an unborn life. And even then, all its employees could still go buy them themselves.
"They have a right to access all different forms of contraception, even those that could take a human life, and this case isn't going to change that," Windham insisted. "What's at stake here is whether the government can force the Green family to be the ones who provide those things."
She said the charge that the Green family is trying to control what contraceptives its employees use is ridiculous.
"They cover most contraceptives, including the contraceptives that 93 percent of American women use," Windham pointed out. "It's only four specific drugs and devices they won't cover, and so 16 out of the 20 FDA contraceptives they have no problem with."
But Rogers argued Hobby Lobby's owners won't actually be taking money out of their pockets to buy those four drugs or devices at the center of this case.
"Legally, technically, they're not paying for it," Rogers suggested. "Because when you work, you have a salary, you have your fringe benefits, which usually includes health insurance and maybe life insurance. But that's part of your compensation. It is owned by you as an employee. If you weren't there working, earning it, it wouldn't exist."
She said it's flawed thinking to mix up the Greens' religious rights with Hobby Lobby itself.
"A company is not a person and doesn't have religious liberty," Rogers opined.
Windham couldn't disagree more and believes the Greens face great harm.
"This is a basic religious freedom case," she told CBN News. "Does a family still have their religious freedom when they open a family business? Or can the government come in, take that freedom away, and force them to do things that violate their faith?"
True but health insurance is considered a draw for employees. I just get a little uncomfortable with the company getting involved in medical decisions. It’s a Pandora’s box and really none of their business. I mean, is it morally wrong in their view for a virgin to use birth control pills? Or someone who isn’t having sex?
Appy, if it’s their business, and they’re the ones buying, I really don’t see it as any different than the company vans they choose to purchase. Maybe they want radios and maybe they don’t. Maybe they want 12 passenger seating and maybe they don’t.
It’s their business. It’s their decision.
They were buying your loyalty by providing a benefit on top of salary for working there. You would look at that benefit and say, “Well, that’s cool. I’m not putting my application in elsewhere.” If you didn’t like the benefit, then you looked for a better deal elsewhere.
The only real obligation I saw in regard to benefits was openness about what the package included or didn’t include.
To me, the question is “Why the heck should they be buying someone’s birth control in the first place?” It isn’t even an insurance issue. There’s no one dying of condom deficiency.
And women want everyone else to pay for what they say is a “holy choice”.
That is what I don’t get. They are not saying that an employee can’t use birth control, but that the company doesn’t have to pay for.
They need to sue over the violation of personal rights. If a corporation is a legal person, they have the same legal rights and responsibilities as “real” persons.
See #22
I think there is a difference between medical care and a car. If a company says “You can’t have a Ford”, no big deal. If they say “You can’t have vaccines”, that’s a big deal
What I’m saying pappy is that it’s their money and their decision to give you a bonus to keep working for them. They don’t have to give you any bonus at all. And if they do, they can give whatever bonus they want to give.
They are not obligated to give you a bonus.
Until NOW when the government said, “You know that bonus you used to give your employees, well, we’ll be telling you what a bonus has to look like no matter what you say. And, oh by the way, if you don’t give your employees that gift bonus, we’ll be fining you for it.”
If a large business doesn’t buy insurance at all, then they pay $2000 per employee penalty for each full time employee.
That seems to me to be the better route financially for Hobby Lobby. I’m sure their insurance costs far more per full time employee than that. Let’s say each policy cost them on average $10,000.
If they got out of the insurance game altogether, they could then give each employee 8000 more in their paychecks to buy their own insurance.
Then each person could buy what they wished
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