Posted on 03/25/2014 9:03:08 PM PDT by Beave Meister
In a dramatic moment at the Supreme Court Tuesday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told justices that U.S. business owners have no religious freedom to reject government mandates forcing them to cover abortions.
Justices and lawyers also sparred over whether businesses actually have religious freedom and whether striking down the Obamacare mandate makes women second-class citizens.
The notable abortion exchange between Verrilli and Justice Anthony Kennedy came during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, two cases linked by the companies’ owners objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services requirement that businesses fully cover the contraception costs for their employees. That mandate includes coverage of abortafacient drugs, also known as the “morning-after pill.”
Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Legal Studies Cathy Ruse was in the gallery during oral arguments and said that was the most remarkable moment in the court session Tuesday.
“This was actually the most exciting part of the oral argument this morning, when Justice Kennedy asked the government’s lawyer, ‘So under your argument, corporations could be forced to pay for abortions, that there would be no religious claim against that on the part of the corporation. Is that right?’ And the government’s attorney said yes,” Ruse said.
“You could hear a pin drop, and I think that stunned Justice Kennedy. Since he’s always the swing vote, you want to stun him in a way that pushes him over to your side of the column,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.wnd.com ...
Kennedy is irrelevant...all they need is Roberts, and he’s already in the bag.
I think I’ll change my vacation plans to the last week of the court calendar. I’m tired of this crap.
Roberts should resign for reasons of “health.” It’s profoundly dishonorable for him to allow himself to be blackmailed on every issue this way.
“Kennedy is irrelevant...all they need is Roberts, and he’s already in the bag.”
I know why you say that, but why do you think he’s turned out so different than anticipated?
Why are Muslims EXEMPTED? Isn’t it because of their religion? Can’t Hobby Lobby et al claim they should be exempt for the same reason?
The government lawyer is correct. Corporations have no religious freedom, because they are creations of the government - not God.
Human beings have religious freedom. Human beings working together in a business have religious freedom.
But a corporation? That’s a paper person - and that’s what all these laws address.
Watching the entire population of the country refuse to grapple with this difference and constantly get smacked by the very thing they refuse to acknowledge is depressing as hell.
Blackmail, or he was a Trojan Horse....
Either way, there is NO logic to his ruling upholding Obamacare...NONE.
I get what your saying but can you explains Citizens United then in this context where freedom of speech is accorded to corporate personhood?
Citizens United Sept 2009:
“Chief Justice Roberts disagreed: “A large corporation, just like an individual, has many diverse interests.” Justice Antonin Scalia said most corporations are “indistinguishable from the individual who owns them.”
Yes they sure can. I dont’ know if they’re going to get a favorable ruling though. I have no faith in the SCOTUS. We’re beyond politics now I think.
That was in 2009, before he turned.
These are the guys who’ve been complaining that “wingnuts” were misinterpreting Obie’s “you didn’t make that” speech, right.
before he was turned
One of the most successful lines of attack against these Constitutionally enumerated rights has been to restrict their coverage in various incremental ways. Examples of this are rife... when head-on attempts to eliminate the right to bear arms came to grief, the incrementalists went after particular catagories of firearms, particular types of gun accessories, particular types of ammunition, etc.
Another attack of this type has been to restrict the venues in which the First Amendment could operate. This started (it can be argued) with the famous "shouting fire in a crowded theater" formulation of Oliver Wendell Holmes in Schenck v. United States.
In the last few decades, the left has succeeded in setting up precedents for the idea that the Freedom of Speech -- arguably the most revered of all the rights we are guaranteed by the Constitution -- ceases to operate the moment a person passes through the doors of a business. A group of businessmen gives up their right to speak freely in the public square, apparently because of the possibility that their financial means might make it possible for them to purchase a particularly powerful megaphone.
The restriction of this freedom does not apply to the management of labor unions, or of large philanthropies, or (it goes without saying) to members of the various media organizations and members of the government.
In its decision in the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to this back-door movement to restrict our freedoms, but the Left is not giving up. They feel an instinctive drive to control speech in the public square, at least when that speech comes from directions that they think will inconvenience them.
There was nothing BUT logic. Cold, hard, rigid, legal logic. Which the ENTIRE country has refused to study.
Because hey, slander is so much easier than actually learning something.
One Stone, Two Powers: How Chief Justice Roberts Saved America
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