Supreme Court - Hobby Lobby

[Amskeptic]

The Supreme Court has decided that Hobby Lobby is free to not allow contraceptives to be available through its insurance providers. The court has said that a for-profit privately owned corporation can exercise religious beliefs, something that has been thought to apply only to living, breathing individual human beings, not to artificial corporate entities.

Observations, opinions, reactions?


I am all for *people* who own or work at Hobby Lobby to exercise their religious beliefs in their personal lives. But when does some individual owner get to involve himself in the exercise of other human being's rights to conduct their own personal lives?

The typical conservative answer is "hey, a person doesn't have to work at Hobby Lobby if that person doesn't like the owner's beliefs" and "our government cannot force individuals to violate their freedom of conscience and their freedom of belief."

My answer is "just as my personal beliefs are private, I would appreciate it if the owner kept his personal beliefs private" and "explain how a business owner's beliefs are violated by an employee's private medical decisions far away from the work environment."

How doers this "religious belief" bit work out, anyway? Does the boss get to dictate his beliefs because he is the boss? Can an employee sue the boss for trampling the employee's religious beliefs? How does this work?
Colin

[hambone]

I see no benefit from the modern Corp. model. It is merely resource extraction - and the resource is people in this case....
Condoms, just buy a box at Walgreens. Why get the overlords involved?

[rallybug]

Been reading stories that law experts, professors, etc are contemplating the unintended consequences of the HL decision - the piercing of the 'corporate veil' that protects the business owner's personal property etc if the corporation goes into bankruptcy, for example.

If a corporation's owner can pass their private religious feelings through to the corp, can stuff go in the other direction now?

[Amskeptic]

Been reading stories that law experts, professors, etc are contemplating the unintended consequences of the HL decision - the piercing of the 'corporate veil' that protects the business owner's personal property etc if the corporation goes into bankruptcy, for example.

If a corporation's owner can pass their private religious feelings through to the corp, can stuff go in the other direction now?

This would be a fascinating unintended consequence.

I believe that the "corporation" is our modern dilemma, once we all become aware of its many manifestations.
Colin

[ruckman101]

Job security for the justice department. The wide wide wide range of legal issues surrounding this will be clogging the court system for years to come. Shameful encroachment of religion into the state.

neal

[Amskeptic]

Shameful encroachment of religion into the state.
neal

I get so annoyed by grandstanding moralizers . . . if you are possessed of outstanding morals, live them.
Colin

[Spezialist]

Welcome to the new world order.