Six Lies The Leftist Media Tells About The Contraception Mandate Cases The media narrative is false

The Federalist ^ | March 24, 2014 | Gabriel Malor

[xzins]

This week, the Supreme Court will consider whether businesses and their owners must choose between paying millions of dollars in fines and violating their religious beliefs. The outcome of the combined cases, popularly styled Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, will shape how government interacts with religious Americans for decades to come. It is no overstatement to say that an adverse outcome would banish from public life many Americans who wish to go on operating their businesses in accordance with their religious beliefs, as they have for decades.

But a funny thing happens if you pick up a newspaper covering these cases. The leftist papers do not mention the substantial monetary burden put on religious business owners to violate their consciences. The papers do not mention that contraception was both inexpensive and widely available before the contraception mandate, and still is. The papers omit to mention that it isn’t the businesses who have radically changed, but the mandates from government.

Quite simply, if you read a newspaper to find out about the contraception mandate cases, you will read lies. Here are the top six.

Lie 1. The contraception mandate cases are about women’s rights. The New York Times’ Adam Liptak puts it right there in the first sentence: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in a case that pits religious liberty against women’s rights.” This could not be further from the truth. Women will have the same constitutional rights to acquire and use contraception regardless of whether Hobby Lobby wins or loses. More than that, they’ll have the exact same rights as they had before the contraception mandate was a gleam in Sec. Sebelius’ eye. What women won’t have is the right to force other people to pay for their contraception, but that has never been a right recognized by the Supreme Court.

In the Bizarro World of the newspapers, not paying for someone else’s contraception is the same thing as prohibiting them from purchasing and using them themselves. This is an obviously false equivalence, but one that leftists are bent on telling themselves. No matter how many times you point out that the business owners in these cases aren’t preventing their employees from purchasing and using contraception, a smug leftist will smile and say “but women’s rights, you see,” as if these magic words excuse the lie.

Lie 2. The contraception mandate cases are about gay rights. In USA Today, Human Rights Campaign’s Chad Griffin and Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards paint a picture of a world where a decision in favor of religious owners’ decision not to provide contraception coverage unleashes numerous horrors unrelated to contraception coverage, including the possibility that businesses could turn away gay customers. Setting aside the fact that it is already legal for businesses to turn away gay customers in more states than not, this is the classic reductio ad absurdum, wherein letting businesses continue to operate as they have for decades will somehow unleash an apocalypse of discrimination heretofore avoided.

In fact, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), the law that will decide this case, holds that each time people challenge law as a violation of religious freedom, their interest must be weighed against the government’s interest. There is no one-shoe-fits-all approach to religious freedom challenges, and any liberal telling you otherwise is simply trying to gin up popular hysteria.

Lie 3. The contraception mandate cases are about for-profit corporate rights. Let’s flip back to the New York Times. Liptak repeatedly emphasizes that this case involves for-profit corporations seeking special treatment. This is a red herring. The beliefs of Hobby Lobby’s owners are just the same as the beliefs of thousands of owners of non-profit corporations who Sec. Sebelius exempted from the mandate. Importantly, the First Amendment’s free exercise clause and RFRA protection of religious belief does not carve out people who organize in certain corporate forms. Indeed, the corporate form goes unmentioned in both the free exercise clause and RFRA.

Liberals seem focused on the “for-profit” characterization of the businesses involved in this case because, by exempting thousands of non-profits from the mandate, they’ve little else to stand on. I’m sure the leftist bias against profit also plays a role.

Lie 4. Corporations cannot exercise religion. This Sunday’s New York Times took a particularly harsh tone when criticizing businesses that operate according to their owners’ religious beliefs, claiming: “for-profit corporations are not ‘persons’ capable of prayer or other religious behavior, which is a quintessentially human activity.” Again, note the emphasis on “for-profit,” because it is indisputable that non-profit corporations are capable of “religious behavior.” Look no further than, say, my former employer the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, which like all dioceses in the United States is legally organized in the corporate form.

As with speech rights, individuals do not give up their religious rights when they incorporate, for whatever purpose. In the Hobby Lobby case, where the organization’s mission statement explicitly included a charge to operate in accord with the owners’ religious faith, there can be no question that the corporation was intended to further the “quintessentially human activity” of religious behavior. It is astonishing that leftists cannot grasp the simple truth: corporations are made up of people.

Lie 5. Corporations are asking for dangerous new rights. When all else fails, expect leftists to portray something they don’t like as harmful and new, even if it’s really old and innocuous. That’s just what Talking Points Memo’s Sahil Kapur did when he suggested that a ruling in favor of religious liberty would be “a slippery slope to lawlessness.” In fact, the plaintiffs in these cases are simply asking for things to go back to the way they were in 2009, when they weren’t compelled by law to violate their religious consciences.

It is not a radical departure from the norm for businesses to pick and choose what health coverage they provide. In fact, that was the norm for decades. What was new and harmful and possibly part of a slippery slope to lawlessness was the decision of Sec. Sebelius to impose her will on businesses, for the first time demanding that they provide morally objectionable coverage or face crippling penalties.

Lie 6. Government has a compelling interest in forcing companies to provide birth control. To survive a challenge under RFRA, the government must demonstrate a “compelling governmental interest” and employ the “least restrictive means” of furthering that interest. That’s why a great deal of coverage, and indeed the government’s own briefing, is devoted to claiming that birth control is an unmitigated good and direly needed by women who will somehow be unable to get it if religious businesses aren’t forced to provide it.

This claim is complete bunk. First, the vast majority of businesses provided contraception coverage for their employees before the mandate became effective and continue to do so now that it has. Only a small number of businesses, most of which are not very large, are seeking an exemption based on their religious belief. Second, Sec. Sebelius has already exempted 190 million people from the contraception mandate, either because they work for non-profit corporations or because their plans were “grandfathered” when Obamacare became effective.

In short, when 190 million people are purposefully exempted from a law, there can be no argument that it is aimed at a compelling purpose. Providing broad exemptions intended to go on in perpetuity demonstrates that the contraception mandate is the opposite of compelling.

[xzins]

when 190 million people are purposefully exempted from a law, there can be no argument that it is aimed at a compelling purpose

Hard to argue you have a critical compelling reason to override 1st amendment freedom of religion when you've already told 2/3 of the nation that it's not that important.

[blackdog]

This law is like going out to dinner at a $10,000 per plate diner at which you are required by law to order food, but you only get to know what you’re eating until after you have finished it.

[BuckeyeTexan]

FReepmail me to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.

[no-to-illegals]

If only we could remove the liars from the media, if only it could be done ... what a wonderful truth we could hear!

[BuckeyeTexan]

See Lie #4.

[longtermmemmory]

environmentalism has been deemed a religion.

corporations practice the religion of environmentalism.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[Steve_Seattle]

" . . . for-profit corporations are not ‘persons’ capable of prayer or other religious behavior, which is a quintessentially human activity.” Again, note the emphasis on “for-profit,” because it is indisputable that non-profit corporations are capable of “religious behavior.”

UCLA prof Adam Winkler used this type of argument in some articles that got wide exposure. It was sophistry at its worst. According to Winkler, the corporate "person" is utterly distinct from the physical persons who own or run the corporation, so the contraceptive mandate only applies to the corporate person and the actual owners are therefore not being forced to do something against their moral views. So I suppose Winkler believes that corporate executives should be exempt from prosecution when a corporation violates the law, because the corporate person is distinct from the actual persons running the corporation! Corporate law applies primarily to financial liabilities, not moral culpability or moral judgment.

Let's go back to 1943, and the Nazi government orders a case of Zyklon-B from a chemical company, which refuses to comply out of reasons of conscience, and the government says, "Conscience? Conscience? We don't care about your stinking conscience - it's the LAW!" And Winkler would totally agree with the Nazis.

[xzins]

Even if you acknowledge a separate status for corporations, they still have owners, and those owners are a collection of people. Stockholders can be polled, and then you have a corporate consensus.

And that’s why some are donating to gay causes, democratic candidates, and global warming nonsense.

In other words, those ‘COLLECTIONS” have ‘CONVICTIONS’

[Steve_Seattle]

It would be hard for the government to sustain a "compelling interest" ruling in this case because:

1. Hobby Lobby does in fact offer several birth control options.

2. Purchasing birth control is within the reach of nearly everyone, especially people who are employed.

3. Opposition to any form of birth control is a long-standing, non-frivolous moral view of several religious groups, and should therefore be considered as a religious belief worthy of First Amendment protection, superseding the wishes of those who want their birth control subsidized by others.

4. Birth control options are often provided free or at low-cost by various public and private clinics.

[xzins]

Absolutely agree with your entire list.

Couple your list with the fact that government has already granted waivers on this to 2/3rds of the country, and you’ve got to see that even the government is being false about the claims of compelling interest.

It’s pure BS

[Steve_Seattle]

"In other words, those ‘COLLECTIONS” have ‘CONVICTIONS’"

Of course they do - labor unions, professional associations, lobbying groups, corporations, political parties, newspapers, universities, and so forth.

[xzins]

they’re not even trying to tell believable lies any more. They just toss stuff off the tops of their heads

[tired&retired]

Most churches are corporations.

[DPMD]

Comparing it to food, which has value to humans, might be a stretch. Maybe more like poison.