Supreme Court Sides With Hobby Lobby MERGE

[Loveday]

From CBS News: "Attempting to expand religious expression protections without significantly disrupting the rules that govern for-profit corporations, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Obama administration must exempt closely-held firms like Hobby Lobby from a rule requiring large companies to help pay for their employees' birth control."

The rest of the article here: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-cou ... n-mandate/

(not breaking link as it's CBS)

[sparkles]

Unfuckingbelievable. Good thing I was alone when I heard this because I actually yelled many bad words really, really loud. This opens such a mindboggling can of worms. Slowly but surely this country is dismantling women's rights.

[Mela99]

Took a break from bar study to come here and say fuck these fucking anal apertures and their holier than thou crusade.

:pull-hair: :angry-banghead:

[sonja_kat]

We women better get off of our butts and make sure we vote in all upcoming elections. I'm actually starting to get worried. I'm still a young woman of reproductive age and I take BC for another issue.

Sigh. We are moving backwards in this country.

[gustava]

5 - 4 decision. Men.

[ViolaSebastian]

I so want to be wrong that this is a terrifying precedent for things to come. But I'm convinced it is.

[RosyDaisy]

These ass backwards fucking morons! What the ever loving hell??? We must fight back! This cannot stand!

[polecat]

So much for government of the people, by the people, for the people.

[polecat]

We women better get off of our butts and make sure we vote in all upcoming elections. I'm actually starting to get worried. I'm still a young woman of reproductive age and I take BC for another issue.

Sigh. We are moving backwards in this country.

I'm a woman close to menopause married to a man who has had a vasectomy, and *I* am worried. This is a terrifying situation, and I'm boggled at all the people trumpeting it as a victory. It's a victory for their religious beliefs, perhaps, but what happens when someone else's religious beliefs trump theirs? Who wins? I want my loved ones to have access to blood transfusions, psychiatric medicines and any other necessary MEDICAL care regardless of what some religiously fundamentalist lunatic believes. If you don't want to take birth control/blood transfusions/wtfever else, fine. Have at it. But don't restrict other people's rights to do so!

[EmiGirl]

This makes me want to move to the uk.

[doggie]

Green who just forced his faith on woman by making them pay more is a real piece of work. he got congress to let him teach the bible in school and it would not be a faith based teaching. but when the curricula is released it is preaching telling students they will go to hell if they don't follow the bible and on and on.

[GeoBQn]

Smuggar is gloating on twitter. If there was ever a time when I wish I could punch someone through the Internet . . .

[Curious]

Well this is all well and good, but what happens when someone of the "wrong" religion starts denying godly white christian folks access to their rights because of these rulings. They do understand that it doesn't just apply to the True Believers[tm][/tm], don't they?

There are uses for birth control that do not include family planning, but I suppose those don't matter.

Rome is starting to burn.....

[louisa05]

All the fundagelicals I know love to preach about slippery slopes. This has the potential to begin a terrifying slippery slope.

Employers already have more rights than employees in this country. We don't have mandatory paid vacation or sick leave, no paid maternity leave. Only a few states limit mandatory overtime (you don't want to get me started on that after our awful experience a year ago when my husband was forced to work 7 days a week for 3 months or lose his job). Our federal minimum wage is not a living wage anywhere in the country.

And now the court has determined that it is okay for employers to force their religious beliefs on our health care choices?

It seems we need to revisit the 13th Amendment some time soon.

[salex]

Any legal experts, my question is this... if a for profit company can say "I won't pay for contraceptives because of my religion!" can that same company say "I won't hire women because of my religion." or "I won't promote men over women because of my religious convictions" or (fill in black, women, gay/lesbian, married, unmarried, non christians, etc) because of my religion.

Is this the camel nose under the tent flap that will eventually completely undo the civil rights amendments?

[CrazyCatLady]

There aren't even words for how fully pissed this makes me. Women are under attack.

[infooverload]

I can not say as I am suprised, but as someone else already stated way to open up a can of worms. I mean after all employers can now say I am not going to offer health insurance to anyone with x bmi because gluttony is a sin which supporting would go against my religion. The whole thing is interesting. On the conservative side you hear the employer is not taking away a womens right to birth control and they should not have to be force to pay for services which go against their faith. However, part of the woman's pay is her benefits, so they are short changing her pay for their religious freedom. On a side not was anyone else aware Michael's is owned by the Kock brothers? I didn't know this until I was randomly reading facebook comments over the weekend and one of the drivers for Michael's mention it.

[PennySycamore]

Yep, Sparkles, it surely is. If I had the money to do so, I'd emigrate or be an ex-pat. I like Scotland.

This is why the 2016 election is so important. We cannot let the Repugs/Teabaggers have the say so about any more Justices.

Most of the schlock that Hobby Lobby carries is made in the People's Republic of China. They have had a One-Child policy which has led to untold forced abortions and abandoned girl babies. Does this shitty company not have a problem with doing business with a country with such a policy? Apparently,it's OK to abort Chinese babies (they aren't white), but it's terrible to pay for a white woman's IUD. How about all the child labor in Chinese factories or all the terribly unsafe working conditions?

Here's a link to a Boycott Hobby Lobby Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HobbyLobbyBoycott

I though Rethugs were supposed to be opposed to activist judges. I guess not if they're conservative activist judges.

Why was it OK for HL to cover contraception before the ACA mandated that they do so, but not OK now? And why it it OK for HL to invest some of their pension funds in contraceptive manufacturers if contraception is so fucking bad? Hypocracy, thy name is Hobby Lobby!

[crazyforkate]

If I were in America I would fucking burn the nearest Hobby Lobby to the ground with no regrets and accept the jail time with glee. They are snakes out to destroy women for the simple reason that they consider us subhuman. That the Supreme Court would play along with their horrendous destruction of basic freedom is sickening. Forcing people to comply with YOUR religious rules is the opposite of freedom of religion. Pity the poor dissenting justices who tried to be the last bastion of sanity. And the ones who voted FOR....well, I bet Jesus would be super proud of them now.

Also, this guarantees that I will never move to America, ever. That sick decaying nation which is so bizarrely proud of its own backwardness.

[GeoBQn]

Any legal experts, my question is this... if a for profit company can say "I won't pay for contraceptives because of my religion!" can that same company say "I won't hire women because of my religion." or "I won't promote men over women because of my religious convictions" or (fill in black, women, gay/lesbian, married, unmarried, non christians, etc) because of my religion.

Is this the camel nose under the tent flap that will eventually completely undo the civil rights amendments?

Not quite at that level, but this Think Progress article mentions a private Christian school that only offered health insurance to single people and married men, on the grounds that married women should be covered through their husbands' insurance.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... bby-lobby/

[louisa05]

Not quite at that level, but this Think Progress article mentions a private Christian school that only offered health insurance to single people and married men, on the grounds that married women should be covered through their husbands' insurance.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... bby-lobby/

Good lord...until May, my husband worked for P&G. They make couples pay a pretty heavy extra premium to cover spouses who are eligible for coverage through their own employers. I doubt such policies are uncommon anymore. Unless the spouse is not employed, proof that no insurance is available is required. Even my temp employment as a sub teacher required us to prove that no insurance was available to me.

[Jana814]

Such a sad situcation.

[SPHASH]

Fuck you Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts and the horses you rode in on!

[Emkay]

Ohio is currently working on it's own version of this for state employees- I give you house bill 351. Same denial of coverage for 'abortifacients,' but in this one, you also get denial of coverage for abortion. Only exception is for ectopic/tubal pregnancy. That's right, not for rape, not for incest, and you'd better have money saved up if you're pregnant, because if you need an abortion to save your life, your insurance can deny coverage! Thanks to John Becker, an architect from the same region of the state that gave us boo-hoo Boehner, this bill is just hanging out, waiting for the legislature to reconvene in the fall (yep, the legislature gets time off in the summer, just like those teachers they hate!).

[Ellimenopy]

I can't say that I'm surprised. I'm less concerned with getting employers to pay for birth control than seeing birth control becoming seen as not essential to women's health care.