ACLU 1, Godbothering panty sniffers 0:
A federal court of appeals ruled today that religiously affiliated nonprofit employers can’t block their employees’ health care coverage for contraceptives. The ruling finds that the plaintiffs, which include Catholic health care systems and Catholic high schools, are not burdened by having to formally object to covering contraceptives for employees. The ACLU supported the government’s arguments by participating in a friend-of-the-court brief.
“Today’s victory is not only incredibly important for the more than 12,000 employees who stand to gain contraception coverage, but it also sends a clear message that an employer’s religious beliefs can’t be used to deny health care benefits to employees,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “We fight hard to protect religious freedom at the ACLU, but that right doesn’t allow employers to discriminate against their female employees.”
Excellent news.
srv
I guess then employers shouldn’t have the right to fire you for excercising your 1st Ammendment rights either.
John Cole
It’s amendment.
JPL
@srv: wtf! There has always been consequences to free speech. Call you boss a fucking idiot and find out.
Why not just equate women’s health with the price of bread, it makes more sense.
John Cole
Has SRV always been this way, or is this an imposter?
donnah
Good news! And at a time when women’s contraceptive rights and health care are under attack again, still, as always by the ridiculous Right to Lifers and Republicans.
JPL
@donnah: Hillary had a good ad up yesterday on her twitter feed, called throwback Thursday.
found it http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-plays-throwback-thursday-new-video
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@John Cole:
He’s been this way for a while. Basically just straight trolling for funsies.
Cervantes
This is what it’s come to, let’s not forget.
Randy P
Last night’s troll pie fight was kind of fun. Can we have more of those?
boatboy_srq
@John Cole: This is definitely a more-than-usually wingnutty srv.
Can this case be used to revisit Hobby Lobby? Because the plaintiffs are far more obviously Xtian than the craft store chain was.
Iowa Old Lady
@Randy P: When is the next debate scheduled?
kc
@Cervantes:
Yeah . . . I mean it looks like the “religious” corps can still get out of PAYING for the coverage, the court just ruled that they had to object in order to do so.
Not really a huge victory, it seems to me, but better than the alternative.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole: My theory is that, he is either DougJ’s sock puppet or his understudy.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: That’s an important point. The gubmint is already bending over backwards to accommodate the fanatics’ precious, fragile, extra-dainty fee-fees and to make sure their ultra-pure hands aren’t sullied by a single crystal of a precious snowflake babby’s holy blood. They won the right to shift the costs to another party. This petulant suit was about trying to duck the arduous task of informing insurers that the organization is too holy to bear the cost of slut-pills.
srv
@schrodinger’s cat: Nope.
To the best of my archival abilities, and sticking with these handles and not those lost to time, this DougJ fellow precedes me by a few weeks in 2005. Back when this place welcomed conservative and liberal opinions and wasn’t such an echo chamber.
Frankensteinbeck
@John Cole:
Srv is a performance art troll. There’s no consistency to his/her/its positions. Srv comes up with a comment opposing everything. Some are blatant parodies, some sound believably offensive. One hint that this is performance art is that there’s very little of the personal insults favored by actual want-to-start-a-fight trolls. Often, I suspect srv is trying to find the weirdest plausible objection to any point, and is quite good at it.
burnspbesq
Yawn. It’s not 1-0, Cole, it’s 7-0, as the ACLU’s announcement correctly notes–and its role in the process has been pretty trivial.
For a fun read, go find Judge Posner’s opinion for the Seventh Circuit in the Notre Dame case.
Patricia Kayden
Great ruling! Why can’t people mind their own dang business and let grown women make up their minds about contraception choices? I’m religious but my religion is about me and my family. It has nothing to do with strangers or society as a whole. Unless I’m asked directly, I never bring up my religious beliefs as they’re no one’s business but my own.
Mind your own business, Religious Right. Find something else to do with your time. The whole world is not interested in your religious beliefs. Stop trying to force your religious dogma down people’s throat.
Mike in NC
Recall that JEB!’s dad spent an entire presidential campaign demonizing the ACLU. Should be on the agenda for the next Republican debate.
JPL
The Sunday Review in the NYTimes has an opinion piece about billionaire’s concerned about income inequality and what to do about it. link Ken Langone’s name is mentioned. I was going to write a comment, but it was difficult to phrase it in such a way that it would be allowed.
Take the time to read it, if you can because I’m gobsmacked.
Maybe Tom Levinson should tackle this.
Patricia Kayden
@John Cole: Always been this way. I believe there are two other trolls running around BJ: Right to Rise, who is a Jebbie enthusiast and Knowbody, who is shrugs. I suppose all lefty blogs attract trolls. LGM has had to crack down on theirs recently.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: I read it, its the same centrist Tom Friedman like BS. He mentions Mark Warner too, in the op-ed.
gbear
@Betty Cracker: ‘Babby’ has been my new favorite internet word. Somehow, whenever the word shows up, it makes its sentence more funny than it already was (including the original wingnut comment that used the mis-spelling).
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: Maybe it should be titled that big GOP donors are afraid their taxes will have to be raised.
I stand corrected because Peter Georgescu donations lean democratic.
FlyingToaster
@Patricia Kayden: @John Cole: srv has been around forever, but is not personal.
Knowbody had been around for quite a while, and is a freaking stalker — though of Zandar rather than the general commentariat.
a guy has been around for at least a few months, and is consistently misogynist.
Right to Rise has got to be a paid troll. He comes in, makes his talking points, argues for up to 20 minutes, and then leaves. I don’t know which sweatshop he works out of, but he’s surely another Bill in Portland.
kc
@JPL:
“What crumbs can we toss the poors in order to keep them from storming our castles?”
Cacti
I’m a little disappointed that the front pagers have missed this one so far:
Dunkin Donuts’ $10.2 million per year CEO calls $15/hour minimum wage “outrageous”.
Link
kc
@Cacti:
That guy can go take a flying fuck at a rolling . . .
MattF
@FlyingToaster: In fact RtR mentioned SEO as one of his motivations. Although exactly why this blog would be a good place to send people googling Jeb! is not clear.
Cacti
@boatboy_srq:
I was noticing the same.
His/her usual ennui seems to be morphing into garden variety Teabagger-ism since srv has jumped aboard the Trump crazy train.
p.a.
@srv: Opinions yes. Buffoonery no.
trollhattan
@srv:
Misspelled “Ammo.”
WereBear
For heaven’s sake, why don’t they start tormenting men about the care and feeding of their precious Aspiring Fetal Swimmers, huh? It’s even in the Bible!
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Patricia Kayden: exactly. I’m a Methodist, so why should I be expected to live by the rules of the Catholic church when 98% of Catholics in this country don’t bother to follow that rule?
Iowa Old Lady
@WereBear: I had that same thought. Life begins at fertilization? No, eggs and sperm are both alive. So do sperm have constitutional protection?
If a man has testicular cancer, should he be allowed to die rather than harm a single sperm?
Redshift
And let us note that the reason the religious wingnuts keep losing these cases is that the law they’re basing their claims on prohibits the substantial burdening of religious freedom, not any old “I don’t wanna.” Being prohibited from using your business or institution to force other people to comply with your religious beliefs doesn’t come close.
boatboy_srq
@WereBear: You’re forgetting the first principle of male privilege: it’s only wrong if she does it.
Cacti
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yahweh killed Onan in the bible for spilling his on the ground.
Jparente
@John Cole: He has always been this way, from wha I can tell. However, I’m only an occasional lurker/commenter, in these here parts.
Jparente
@Betty Cracker: You sum it up nicely, Ms. Cracker. Thanks.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
Probably not. In Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby didn’t have to provide contraceptive coverage themselves if they objected to it on religious grounds. So the government did a work-around where they would say they objected, and then somebody else would provide it. Now these idiots are saying that it’s too awful for them to have to say that they object and aren’t going to provide contraceptive coverage because they know somebody else is going to do it for them. The court in this case says that’s ridiculous and having to register their objection is not a substantial burden on their religious freedom. That isn’t going to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself on Hobby Lobby unless one of the justices who ruled on Hobby Lobby is replaced. It might even go to the Supreme Court for the same five to say that even that is too much of a burden.
Punchy
Here comes ObamaCare SCOTUS challenge #3. Wish I was joking.
Any lawyers want to opine on the merits?
Patricia Kayden
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): That’s a good point. If the U.S. were to run as a theocracy, which religious denomination’s rules would govern? Christianity is not monolithic. Catholics and Protestants don’t even share the same Ten Commandments.
Yay for secular governments, including our own.
Bobby Thomson
@Frankensteinbeck: yeah, this.
Cacti
@Punchy:
My prediction: certiorari denied
Roberts and Kennedy aren’t interested in further wrangling over the ACA.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
Off topic, apologies, but I wanted to ask Rubio who he thought was going to be the Democratic nominee, because he kept saying it wasn’t going to be Hilary.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Knowbody is Zandar’s personal stalker. He apparently knows Zandar from somewhere and is attacking him over some personal grudge.
Patricia Kayden
@Roger Moore: That’s creepy. Perhaps he should be banned and reported.
Mike J
@WereBear:
Actually, it’s not. Onan’s sin wasn’t masturbation, it was refusing to get his brother’s widow pregnant with a baby that would then legally be his brother’s heir. Onan’s sin was greed.
Cacti
@Mike J:
I know. That’s just the biblical justification used by certain Christianists for condemning a certain male-specific activity that is not otherwise alluded to in the bible.
I consider Onan the hero of that story for refusing to be a breeding stud for his dead brother’s wife.
Bobby Thomson
@Punchy: Roberts basically signaled that he’s not going to entertain any more challenges. I don’t think there will be four votes for cert.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden: he’s been banned under other names.
Mike J
@Cacti:
But it wasn’t a moral objection to boning her. After all, he did bone her, but pulled out. His objection was losing the inheritance. It’s not as if he signed all his brother’s property over to the widow.
RSA
@Iowa Old Lady:
It’s often phrased that way: life, or human life. And you raise a reasonable objection.
I think the religious belief (Catholic, at least) is that the moment of fertilization is when God gives a soul to that cell. The secular version would be that the fertilized ovum is a person. Both views have some obvious problems.
A guy
Minding ones own damn business would include paying for their own contraception and not asking somebody else to do it
Cacti
@Mike J:
The widow wasn’t going to get anything in any case. Onan’s obligation was to sire children with her that would be considered his brother’s and not his own, and the property would pass on to them.
Randy P
@A guy: Because that’s how it works with other medication, including boner pills, right?
Tree With Water
“General Groves came calling at The Times early in 1945 to request Mr. Laurence’s services. He was to be paid as a government contractor. That was less than his salary as a reporter, but Mr. Sulzberger and the managing editor, Edwin L. James, pledged to make up the difference”.
That’s from an NY Times obituary of guy who led a fascinating life. What makes me laugh is how the Times makes itself look like the paper was doing Laurence a favor by agreeing to pay him less money than they would otherwise be on the hook to pay.
Mike J
@Cacti: Right,but Onan wasn’t trying to be noble, he was trying to hold on to the money that would be used to support the widow (since the new heir would have been obligated to support her). He never objected to being treat like a stud bull. He objected to losing money.
Emma
@RSA: It’s an iffy question. IIRC, although the general teaching in the Catholic Church has been “abortion is murder”, Popes have fluctuated between “from conception” to “at the quickening” (when a woman feels the fetus move). In at least one penitential manual from the 700s (Theodore’s), oral sex was considered much worse than abortion. Seven years penance for oral sex but 120 days for an abortion.
(added) It’s the super-conservative, women-must-be-controlled-at-all-costs current crew that is acting out.
sharl
@Mike J, @Cacti: This argument has been around for as long as I can remember – driven more (at least in modern time) by sexual politics than actual biblical scholarship, as far as I can tell – but you got me wondering whether the Prosperity Gospel crowd favors one view more than the other, what with the issue of inheritance being involved.
A quick and cursory google search didn’t illuminate matters much, other than making me aware of the existence of something called the Soft Prosperity Gospel. I don’t (yet) know what that actually is, but the phrase along with the topic of this discussion made my inner 14-yo boy giggle.
I’ll see myself out…
Cacti
@Mike J:
I’d also quibble about Onan’s sin being greed.
Onan’s sin was disobeying Yahweh. Nothing pissed off the big cheese quite so much as insubordination.
Abraham was judged righteous because he was prepared to follow Yahweh’s edict of making a human sacrifice of his son.
Gindy51
@srv: First amendment rights are not the same as being fired for saying stupid things on Twitter or Facebook and your boss fires you. It is the GOVERNMENT infringing on your freedom of speech. Go read the constitution for comprehension, fool.
Emma
And my favorite, absolute favorite:
“This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.” (Ezekiel 16:49-50)
We’re in trouble, boys and girls.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
Not quite. God killed Onan because he was refusing to do his duty by his dead older brother Er. Onan was supposed to marry Er’s widow Tamar, with the first son from the marriage legally considered Er’s. Because that son would inherit Er’s share of their father Judah’s wealth, Onan practiced coitus interruptus so he could inherit everything himself. God was punishing him for failing to do his duty by his brother, not for some kind of general objection to contraceptive practices, and anyone who bases an objection to contraception on the story of Onan is engaged in bad theology.
Fake Irishman
@kc:
This actually is a fairly big deal, because it does ensure access to birth control if an employee wants it. When the employer signs a piece of paper saying that it’s against their religious beliefs, the employer stops paying for the coverage, but the the insurance company pays for the coverage directly. From the point of view of the employee needing coverage, it means that Hobby Lobby doesn’t matter. What the plaintiffs were arguing here is that they had the right to stop the birth control access itself (or at least stop a third part for paying for it). It’s in line with four or five other circuit court opinions, including the Posner opinion mentioned above. That case is discussed here. and the opinion is here (see the bottom of page 6 and the start of page 7 for important part. Do read the rest though, Posner drops a few passive-aggressive gems while commenting on the quality of Wheaton’s legal argument.
Germy Shoemangler
@Cacti: Dorothy Parker had a pet parakeet she named Onan.
Because it was always spilling its seed.
shell
Funny how times change. In the Middle Ages it was church doctrine that the soul entered the baby at the moment of birth.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@shell: I had a book, borrowed from my church library, on the history/politics of contraception and abortion in the Catholic church, and how it had swung back and forth between approving abortion and condemning it and never mentioned contraception at all; one pope (Gregory?) suggested a way not to conceive. I think the last time that abortion was considered acceptable by the Catholic church was in the 1890s.
Mike J
@shell: And historically there has been yet another standard, quickening (first movements felt).
FlyingToaster
@A guy: Gay, celibate, or MRA? Or is your last name Duggar?
BillinGlendaleCA
@FlyingToaster: Worse, libertarian.
ETA: However, that’s not mutually exclusive from your suggestions.
Another Holocene Human
@gbear: It came from
the Black LagoonYahoo! Answers.Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Here’s the original.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti:
It was Jewish law, though. He violated the norms of his community by failing to provide for his brother’s widow.
She had no sons … no means of support.
John Cole
@srv: No one said you are not welcome, you just seem more of a dick lately.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: Ignoring the cries of the poor is a big sin in the Jewish scripture. It’s harped upon again and again. (Though I suppose nothing tops usury in terms of transgressions.)
@Emma: Yup.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore:
Doctor of the Church Thomas Aquinas thunk up that boner as part of an apology for rape. Yes, really.
Everything went to shit after the Schism, is all I’m saying.
RSA
@Emma: Thanks for your knowledgeable explanation! All this would make for interesting academic studies, if the issues didn’t have so many implications for the lives of real people.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Which could be brutal. Read Ruth if you want an idea of what the life of a childless widow could be like- and Ruth was lucky she was able to find a second husband.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Failing to observe the sabbath is also a big deal, as was failure to observe the sabbatical year.
srv
@John Cole: You’re just overflowing with microaggressions today.
Doug R
@JPL: He isn’t the first billionaire to speak up. I saw an article a couple years back.
Loviatar
I’ve found the following is the best way to respond to God bothers.
I kindly look them in the eye and with a soft voice wish that they get an opportunity to meet the God of their dreams on judgement day.
—–
Knowing we’re all human and fallible, the God of my dreams is a forgiving God, she’ll ask me did I try to do right, I’ll say yes and she’ll forgive me for my failings and welcome me into her arms. Those that worship the flying spaghetti monster, will be asked did they follow the tenets of her religion and mock all those who came before them, if they can answer yes, she’ll welcome the into her al dente arms. Plug in your belief, and, so on, and so on, and so on. Atheist will be ignored, God, doesn’t believe in them.
However, those who follow a stern and unforgiving god, whoo hooo, I am looking forward to standing on the sidelines and watch them meet their god. As I said earlier, we’re all human and fallible, so we know the God bothers will have sinned in some way.
Morzer
@Punchy:
Merits? What merits?
It’s just another exercise in ass-scratching conservative kookery going nowhere fast.
A guy
Yes randy. If a guy wants boner pills pay for it himself!