Congrats, American women, you are now 2nd class citizens to Corporations!

[Bu🤠ns]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/religious-groups-lgbt-hiring-hobby-lobby

Our concern about an executive order without a religious exemption is about more than the direct financial impact on religious organizations. While the nation has undergone incredible social and legal change over the last decade, we still live in a nation with different beliefs about sexuality. We must find a way to respect diversity of opinion on this issue in a way that respects the dignity of all parties to the best of our ability. There is no perfect solution that will make all parties completely happy.

I mean I realize it's just a letter to the POTUS and rather expected but I imagine a few of these righteous religious types have quite the jesus rager right now.

[Suu]

Because there is no slippery slope. Nope. SCOTUS covered their bases, and we won't have to worry about a thing. Just trust in corporations to not take it and run with a reason to discriminate, right? Right.

Yeah fucking right.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

I'm trying to understand why exactly we still need to respect the *entire* diversity of opinions on these issues.

Isn't there a point where the accepted response to certain opinions is just "shut up"?

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

At least 26 states have laws requiring insurers that cover prescription drugs also provide coverage for any Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contraceptive.  These states include: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. An additional two states—Michigan and Montana—require insurance coverage of contraceptives as a result of administrative ruling or an Attorney General opinion. Two states—Texas and Virginia—require that employers be offered the option to include coverage of contraceptives within their health plans. Twenty-one states offer exemptions from contraceptive coverage, usually for religious reasons, for insurers or employers in their policies: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (administrative rule), Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia. (These states are indicated with an * in the table below.) Several states require employers to notify employees of their refusal to provide contraceptive coverage.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/insurance-coverage-for-contraception-state-laws.aspx

States have already been wrangling with this for awhile, now.  Given that I know for certain that Hobby Lobby has a store in Massachusetts, and likely have locations in other states which do require they cover any FDA approved contraceptive, they will likely have to have multiple plans, one which DOES cover birth control, and one which doesn't.  This will likely increase their costs.

Rhode Island has a store in Warwick, they're never busy, because, well, Rhode Island has the least amount of God anywhere thanks to the colonial charter (THANKS ROGER WILLIAMS!). New Hampshire, as far as I know so far, does not. It doesn't seem like a store that would be welcome here, even up in the parts that think they're Texas. You do not fuck with people's rights in New England. The last guy that did that ended up losing 13 colonies and got sent packing across the ocean. 

However, as I brought up before, Marbury VS Madison, whatever is upheld in SCOTUS immediately effects the sovereignty of the states and the states must oblige. If not, Rhode Island could, in theory, turn around and throw Hobby Lobby back to whatever fucking flyover state they came from for violating their state constitution, and they should have done it BEFORE this shit went down, instead of focusing on making calamari the official state appetizer.

Since this was a statutory decision, not a Constitutional one, I don't think this automatically applies at the state level. The Constitution applies across all jurisdictions, but Federal statue only has jurisdiction in interstate commerce. Intrastate commerce still falls to the states. I think this would work like minimum wage--the Federal regulation says that no state can have a minimum wage below a certain level, but other subdivisions of government can implement a higher one if they choose.

Since federal statute (according to 5 power drunk assholes) apparently sets the minimum set of benes businesses have to offer their employees at a level which does not include BC if the company has a religious problem with sluts and the like, states/counties/cities should still be free to up that minimum to include BC as a requirement for operating within their jurisdiction.

Right, in other words this won't impact coverage in Oregon at all, but I imagine employees in Texas and Florida are fucked.

Reading through Zach's thread on FB, though, I'm realizing there are two separate issues. The employees entitlement to the benes, and the companies entitlement to it's free exercise. The bar could just as easily be set at allowing a state to allow more exemptions for the employer, but not fewer.

May just depend on who makes the first move? Many clusterfuck.

[Luna]

Supreme Court has stated that decision includes all birth control.

Religious groups already asking for exemptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBT people.

Yeah, this is going to go well.

[Suu]

Supreme Court has stated that decision includes all birth control.

Religious groups already asking for exemptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBT people.

Yeah, this is going to go well.

But...but...but...FREEDOMS.

[Luna]

Supreme Court has stated that decision includes all birth control.

Religious groups already asking for exemptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBT people.

Yeah, this is going to go well.

But...but...but...FREEDOMS.

You don't get freedoms.  On the plus side, you're a Navywife, which gives you status, as soon as you're pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen making a sammich.

[Suu]

Supreme Court has stated that decision includes all birth control.

Religious groups already asking for exemptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBT people.

Yeah, this is going to go well.

But...but...but...FREEDOMS.

You don't get freedoms.  On the plus side, you're a Navywife, which gives you status, as soon as you're pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen making a sammich.

Nah, they don't want me procreating. No kidding, they gave me a paper bag full of birth control pills on the taxpayer's dime with my coverage.

But it's different, because husband fights for Freedom Fries and Freedom Waffles. Everyone else doesn't deserve free* healthcare.


*Tricare actually isn't free. He pays for it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Supreme Court has stated that decision includes all birth control.

Religious groups already asking for exemptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBT people.

Yeah, this is going to go well.

Eden Foods, Inc, has announced that they will not allow BC/BS to cover ANY form of birth control.

[Junkenstein]

Related:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/hobby-lobbys-other-problem

That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.
"If religious shareholders can do it, why can't creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?" Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, asked in an email.

That's a question raised by 44 other law professors, who filed a friends-of-the-court brief that implored the Court to reject Hobby Lobby's argument and hold the veil in place. Here's what they argued:

Allowing a corporation, through either shareholder vote or board resolution, to take on and assert the religious beliefs of its shareholders in order to avoid having to comply with a generally-applicable law with a secular purpose is fundamentally at odds with the entire concept of incorporation. Creating such an unprecedented and idiosyncratic tear in the corporate veil would also carry with it unintended consequences, many of which are not easily foreseen.

This could get amusing entirely by accident. Guess it's going to be worth watching the next big corporate failure/closure quite closely to see what happens here.

[Suu]

Related:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/hobby-lobbys-other-problem

That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.
"If religious shareholders can do it, why can't creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?" Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, asked in an email.

That's a question raised by 44 other law professors, who filed a friends-of-the-court brief that implored the Court to reject Hobby Lobby's argument and hold the veil in place. Here's what they argued:

Allowing a corporation, through either shareholder vote or board resolution, to take on and assert the religious beliefs of its shareholders in order to avoid having to comply with a generally-applicable law with a secular purpose is fundamentally at odds with the entire concept of incorporation. Creating such an unprecedented and idiosyncratic tear in the corporate veil would also carry with it unintended consequences, many of which are not easily foreseen.

This could get amusing entirely by accident. Guess it's going to be worth watching the next big corporate failure/closure quite closely to see what happens here.

Churches can demand tithe from corporations as well. They should be forced to pay 10% of their income...watch personhood laws change really fucking fast.

[Suu]

"There isn't going to be a slippery slope!"

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/07/wheaton_college_injunction_the_supreme_court_just_sneakily_reversed_itself.html

Womp. Womp. Womp.