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from the companies==people-er-does-not-compute dept.
gishzida writes:
"According to a Reuters report Supreme Court signals support for corporate religious claims, "The U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised on Tuesday to open the door to companies' religious-based objections to government regulations as justices weighed whether business owners can object to part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law. From the article:
During a 90-minute oral argument, 30 minutes more than usual, a majority of the nine justices appeared ready to rule that certain for-profit entities have the same religious rights to object as individuals do. A ruling along those lines would likely only apply to closely held companies. As in most close cases of late, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely be the deciding vote. Based on his questions, it was unclear whether the court would ultimately rule that the companies had a right to an exemption from the contraception provision of President Barack Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
The dozens of companies involved in the litigation do not all oppose every type of birth control. Some object only to emergency contraceptive methods, such as the so-called morning-after pill, which they view as akin to abortion.
The case marks the second time Obamacare has featured prominently before the Supreme Court. In 2012, the court upheld by a 5-4 vote the constitutionality of the act's core feature requiring people to get health insurance. Although the case has no bearing on the overall healthcare law, it features its own volatile mix of religious rights and reproductive rights. A capacity crowd filled the marble courtroom, while outside hundreds of demonstrators, most of them women, protested loudly in an early spring snowstorm.
We already know that the SCOTUS thinks corporations are citizens, do you think the SCOTUS should allow corporations to have religious beliefs too?"
(Score: 1) by BananaPhone on Wednesday March 26 2014, @10:11PM
If a corporation is a "Person" under the law, a person can have a religion, too. /s
(Score: 1) by SpockLogic on Wednesday March 26 2014, @10:17PM
Wouldn't it have to be in the corporation's articles of association. Can't have corporations suddenly getting "religion" to avoid the law.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday March 27 2014, @05:10AM
Of course not. They need to be free to experiment, to join and drop religions at the drop of a hat, whatever is convenient for the moment, just like everyone else.
What could go wrong?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dast on Wednesday March 26 2014, @10:46PM
I'm sorry. That logic evades me. Can I object on religious grounds to the government's war on drugs or immigration policy? If not, that means I'm not a person, right? But a corporation IS a person? Wtf?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday March 26 2014, @11:31PM
The logic fail here is that only certain religions are going to be respected.
Let's face it. This is really just for Christianity, and it's really just for abortion.
Any other privately owned corporation that had religious values defined in their charter will find themselves out in the cold if they are not good honest bible thumping Christians that champion the Sweet Baby Jesus.
If it's not this, it's Christians demanding religious rights for their corporations to deny service to the homosexuals, the men apparently bringing the downfall of humanity if they enjoyed a chicken sandwich in front of children.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday March 27 2014, @02:10AM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nobuddy on Thursday March 27 2014, @03:58AM
The instant a Muslim owned company requires their female employees to cover their head, all the supporters of this will burst in to flames and march on the SCOTUS complaining about legislating from the bench.
(Score: 5, Funny) by edIII on Thursday March 27 2014, @04:14AM
Interesting.
Who is the more unreasonable party?
Muslims controlling women's hair or Christians controlling women's vaginas?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:13AM
If you want to continue treating humans as a special case, you might have to treat human embryos as special too. Many countries still don't make it easy to kill adult humans even if they supposedly can't feel pain, aren't conscious etc. So where should we draw the line?
As technology progresses it may get harder to define what human is, I'd say err on the "safe side" , even if you have to use seemingly stupid definitions. The alternatives might be worse.
Don't want Skynet to recycle you just because you weren't human enough, or because stupid humans told Skynet that humans aren't special.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 27 2014, @04:36PM
Sometimes it's men forcing a woman to relinquish control of their own vagina. Sometimes the woman isn't in a position to give any kind of consent because she's 13 years old. Sometimes it's women who are taken advantage of when passed out. Sometimes it's women trusting men who, say, promise to marry them and then don't. Sometimes it's women who thought they could have a child and then it turns out that trying would kill them. Sometimes it's women who have decided to sleep with their boss in order to keep their job. And also remember that it takes two to tango, so even in cases where none of that coercion happened the men who impregnate women are as responsible for the consequences as women.
The fact is that you know nothing of what the situation is of people deciding to get an abortion. You know nothing about why they arrived at that decision, or how, or who they consulted. Among the women I've known that have told me about it, they consulted friends, pastors, parents, the man who got them pregnant, and a couple of hotlines. Planned Parenthood is very clear that they make sure that people who come in to get an abortion understand what other alternatives might be available. This isn't a case of someone waking up one day and deciding "Oh, well, I guess I have to have another abortion.", it's a case of somebody discovering that they have to make a terrible choice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 28 2014, @02:03AM
Sometimes it's men forcing a woman to relinquish control of their own vagina. Sometimes the woman isn't in a position to give any kind of consent because she's 13 years old. Sometimes it's women who are taken advantage of when passed out. Sometimes it's women trusting men who, say, promise to marry them and then don't. Sometimes it's women who thought they could have a child and then it turns out that trying would kill them. Sometimes it's women who have decided to sleep with their boss in order to keep their job. And also remember that it takes two to tango, so even in cases where none of that coercion happened the men who impregnate women are as responsible for the consequences as women.
None of which actually gets fixed by the health insurance policy in question. Free birth control isn't any better than cheap birth control, if your rapist doesn't use it.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 28 2014, @01:27PM
If a woman is using birth control pills, then if she's raped she's much less likely to get pregnant, regardless of what decisions the rapist makes. (And the idea that certain elected officials have been spreading about pregnancy not being a possible outcome of rape are simply laughably false.)
Of course, none of that diminishes the fact that rape is a serious crime, and that a woman on birth control pills who is raped is at risk of HIV and other STDs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:24PM
If a woman is using birth control pills, then if she's raped she's much less likely to get pregnant, regardless of what decisions the rapist makes.
So every woman between puberty and menopause should be on birth control just because they might get raped? Is that in a guideline somewhere?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:26PM
Damn it. I keep using those "quote" tags instead of the "blockquote" HTML tags. This is so similar to Slashdot that I habitually use the tag shorthands that I use for Slashdot. I suppose I should preview first.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Geezer on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:26AM
Equally unreasonable, since the core concepts resulting in said behaviors are, for all practical purposes, the same.
Muslims and Christians alike seek to control a lot more than hair and pussy.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 27 2014, @03:29PM
Why do we need to pick one? I say we defenestrate both of them.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday March 27 2014, @12:02PM
"and it's really just for abortion."
No, its not. Not at all. The point is to eliminate employer provided health insurance.
"Well, gentlemen, we could accept $100 million dollar bonuses this year, but if we declare a religious exemption to blood transfusions, which is a sorta common-ish Christian-ish belief, we can eliminate all possibility of insurance covered surgery and pregnancy coverage, because that could require a blood transfusion which we will be religiously opposed to and no sensible person would risk an economic death penalty by becoming pregnant while working here. That would result in $200 million dollar bonuses and a lot less expensive FMLA leave."
"However gentlemen, if we simply declare our religion only believes in faith healing, as per several Christian sects who have recently been in the news, all our diabetic employees or employees with diabetic family members will simply have to quit or die, resulting in vastly lower insurance costs because 1) we won't be using expensive medical treatment for them while they're employed, just cheap prayer 2) they tend to be sicker, so we'll have fewer sick days on average etc, furthermore basically eliminating health insurance other than astrology for diagnosis and prayer for treatment, we can all get $300 million dollar bonuses this year"
Hmm. I wonder which they'll select?
The whole system is hopeless and will tumble down soon enough if this is dodged. In fact the sooner it collapses so we can build a better one, the better off we'll all be. We're just dragging out the downfall to the max so the usual entrenched interests can maximally profit.
Personally I'm a big fan of prop tax based insurance. The quality of care you'll get is directly proportional to the amount spent very close to your house, so it seems very fair.
(Score: 1) by Nygmus on Thursday March 27 2014, @01:56PM
In fairness, at least with regards to the faith healing quip, some courts have been showing a complete willingness to disregard it and require its practitioners to seek actual medical care. At least, for their kids.
The fact that there are people in this country that have to be ordered by a court to seek medical treatment for their sick children is enough of a reason for me to want to torch every Christian church and business in the Bible Belt.
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Thursday March 27 2014, @02:30PM
Think you just might be painting with too broad a brush there, fella? That's a very, very small minority of Christians who rely on faith healing rather than modern medicine. Keep your gasoline and torches away from my not-insane church, thanks.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @08:23PM
Haha, oh that's precious. Excuse me while I take a sip of my not-wet water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:39PM
There was a case I heard on the news last week where an Amish family sought medical care for quite a while, and many doctors told them they had done all they could reasonably do (cancer in one of their children, I believe). Other doctors said no, they could do more (more chemo, more drugs, etc.). The government is forcing them to seek further, more drastic medical treatment then they've already performed for their daughter. This is frightening. Parents should be able to decide their children's medical care if it's reasonable and impacts no others (e.g., not getting vaccinated affects others, so non-vaccinated kids should not be allowed in public schools, etc.). Not undergoing massive chemo because some doctors say it will likely result in nothing but pain and cannot improve the late-stage cancer is reasonable.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday March 28 2014, @12:31PM
"some courts"
Yeah... sometimes... when no money is involved. Lets see how often that keeps happening once its about the executive leadership team's ten million dollar bonuses instead of just an unusual mental illness.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 27 2014, @03:24AM
Ahhhh ... if Hobby Lobby wins this, maybe people who think drone bombing innocent people, starting wars of aggression, and so forth, can take a discount on their taxes for the cash and debt value the Feds are blowing on such stupid shit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by M. Baranczak on Thursday March 27 2014, @12:29AM
The real question is why the fuck does anybody deserve religious exemptions in the first place? If my God tells me to build a 10-story temple out of pop-tarts and duct tape, do I get an exemption from building codes?
The other real question is how did we wind up with a system where most people have to get health insurance from their employer? My employer doesn't pay my rent, my car insurance, my bar tab, or other necessities, why should they have to deal with my health insurance?