Businesses have religious liberty....

[The Dude]

I have read the Opinion and it is one of the most nonsensical, scary, and unconstitutional rulings I've read in the last 20 years. It's far more absurd than Raich's convuluted reading.

1. Alito specifically said certain corporations legitimately have religious beliefs, and if that was not bad enough, left the door wide open on the question on whether all corporations have religious beliefs. He argued at least some are basically people, not just in terms of the right to assembly, but in beliefs. What. The. f**k.

2. Alito literally made a determination of fact based on religious doctrine. Alito wrote that Hobby Lobby's religion believes that the contraception is abortoffacient and that makes it enough. Uh, that is not for a religion to determine as fact. A contraception is either abortoffacient or it is not but that definition cannot change based on whose viewpoint it is. Roe v. Wade even said when it comes to moral questions like this that scientists, philosophers, and religious scholars cannot agree on, then the Court has no place in deciding, but that is exactly what Alito decided and he decided in favor of one religion, a religion he too subscribes. This is f**k scary. Hobby Lobby's opinion on that is irrelevant. They don't decide facts. But Alito says they can and that facts can change as well.

3. The worst and most ridiculous part of the Opinion is where Alito specifically cited things like vaccinations as still not subject to religious review ala contraception. You see, I had always argued I thought Hobby Lobby would go the other way and my argument was that to do otherwise would open Pandora's box and that all religious stuff could be challenged and must be overturned. How else they deny Jehovas Witnesses from not providing blood transfusions or Muslims from not providing pills derived from pigs, or Scientologist from not providing vaccinations to employees? In fact, some of these were also cited.

The issue was how to you side with Hobby Lobby and make the ruling very narrow so as to avoid this problem. I saw no way out, but i was wrong. Alito found one way out. He established a national religion, one that resembles Catholicism. There is no other logical reading of his ruling. He specifically said a Catholic company may deny contraceptive converage via employer insurance to women but a Scientologist company cannot deny vaccinations in the same vain or a Jewhovas Witness company cannot deny blood transfusions in the same way and a Muslim/Jew cannot deny pills derived from pig intestis in the same vain.

Today, Samuel Alito argued one religion is above the others in his Opinion. This is a blatent violation of the First Amendment as the gov't established a religion (in the most narrowest of terms) and it argued the national religion recognizes these contraception as abortoffacient and exempt to gov't regulation in a way other religious beliefs are not.

Everyone should be appalled by this aspect of the ruling. How can you say Catholics are exempt from the contraceptive mandate but Johovas Witnesses would not be exempt from a blood transfusion mandate?

Horrible, horrible ruling. Reading his opinion makes it seem f**k laughable. Scalia needs to die already so we can get someone else on this court and turn it back moderate when it comes to things like this.

[Gremlin]

[Indy]

I agree. I stated in my dupe thread that do you think for one second this decision would have been made had the plaintiffs been... Muslim?

First we get the town hall meetings where a prayer is ok: a Christian one. Now we get religious people defining what abortion is.

W T F...

[The Dude]

I'd also like to add to how nonsensical Alito's opinion is.

1. Alito argued that Hobby Lobby shouldn't be forced to spend money to provide contraceptive coverage.

2. Alito argued the gov't, via regulation (opposed to law), can be the middle-man in providing this coverage like they currently do for workers of non-profit churches.

Well, that means Alito is arguing Hobby Lobby can't be forced to pay an insurance company to provide contraceptive coverage, but they can be forced to pay taxes to provide contraceptive coverage.

It's nonsense. There is no different in the eyes of Hobby Lobby/religion. What a piece of shit ruling this one. A convoluted mess.

[Philly]

[The Dude]

[Gremlin]

[The Comrade]

don't you have a compound to burn to the ground or something?

[The Dude]

[John Galt]