The Washington Examiner editorial writers weigh in thusly:
On Jan. 20, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s secretary of health and human services, issued new regulations under Obamacare that require employers, including religiously affiliated organizations like hospitals and churches, to include coverage of contraception and abortifacients like the morning-after pill, in their employee health insurance plans.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It’s not clear which part of “no law” Obama and Sebelius missed, but that is exactly what the new HHS regulation does because it forces millions of American Catholics and evangelical Protestants who object to abortion to support practices that violate their most deeply held religious beliefs.
[…]
America’s devotion to religious freedom has been so strong for so long that the country recognizes the primacy of religious principle even in areas like military service, with conscientious objector status for Quakers, and in civic rites such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance, from which Jehovah’s Witnesses are exempted. No wonder the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called the regulation “an unprecedented attack on religious liberty” because it forces individuals and institutions “to sell, broker, or purchase ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection.”
Americans have a wide divergence of opinion on issues like abortion, but virtually everybody agrees that no man or woman should be forced to violate his or her religious beliefs by supporting practices he or she finds objectionable. This is a civil liberties issue that was resolved centuries ago by the First Amendment.
For what it’s worth.
Incidentally, does the fact that this was a HHS dictate and not a law passed by Congress, have any technical bearing on the idea of a First Amendment breach?
Does this law require anyone to take contraceptives or have an abortion? Is it the fact thtat the law would enable someone to do so? It’s a nasty bit of social engineering, but I need more facts to give a fair answer, which I’m more than willing to do.
Administrative law is still law isn’t it?
Congress gave HHS the authority to make such rules, so no. It’s a law made by Congress being used to implement the infringement.
Does this law require anyone to take contraceptives or have an abortion?
BOHICA!!!
Yes. But the text of the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law”. And they didn’t, in this case. Sebelius just kinda dictated it.
It requires those with a religious objection to them to pay for them.
Congress makes a law that allows another part of government to ignore the Constitution; to, in essence, allow that other part of government (in this instance, the Executive) to seize unto itself powers not granted under the Constitution. I’d say the blame for the technical violation points back at Congress making an un-Constitutional law.
1st Amendment’s been incorporated anyways.
MarkO: See previous incredibly long thread for your answer. Or not.
Which answers both Pablo and Jeff.
Replace “abortion” with “slavery” and then do a few thought experiments. How about imagining a hardware merchant who thought slavery was abhorrent being required by law to sell iron collars, manacles, and chains? Or someone who ran an auction service being required by law to allow slave traders to ply their goods in his auction house, despite his personal feelings about slavery. “Does this law require anyone to own slaves, or to sell them?”
A better question: Does this law require someone to be a participant in abortions regardless of–or in spite of–their religious convictions?
Jeff, this is a regulation issued under the authority granted HHS traceable to a passed law, i.e. PPACA. It is no different than the authority vested in the hundreds (thousands) of other federal agencies and departments where the law is codified into governing regulations as specified in the passed laws.
No, Jeff it wouldn’t matter if it were a staute, an administrative rule, or an executive order. The First Amendment would still prohibit the governmental action.
Contra MarkO, the “free exercise of religion” includes not being compelled to offer a service that is religiously abhorrent.
And providing birth control is abhorrent to Catholic doctrine just as much as using it, as far as I understand it.
There’s no wink-wink-nudge-nudge “you’re only providing it, not using it directly” out clause in the Church’s moral positions.
Thus, mandating it from a religious institution is inhibiting their free exercise of their religious beliefs.
(From a libertarian point of view and also from the Constitutional one, it’s none of the Federal Government’s god-damn business. Since insurance is always in-state thanks to state regulations, there’s no Commerce Clause power in a legitimate sense, and of course the libertarian viewpoint is that the state has no decent power to tell employers in what form they must offer compensation packages.
All the stupid rule is, as Megan McArdle aptly noted, is a transfer of compensation from salary to a new benefit. Thus, to give “free” birth control to those who want it, every employee gets less salary and more “coverage” … for a regular benefit that isn’t remotely like real “insurance”.
Purest bullshit.)
I wonder what CAIR is thinking right now.
Chances are pretty good they’re thinking how they can press their advantages with Obama to subvert American support for the Jews, and take a chunk out of the Christian devils later.
nothing heals a broken heart like
time love and tenderness
Does this law require anyone to take contraceptives or have an abortion? Is it the fact that the law would enable someone to do so?
The answer to both questions is ‘no,’ though you’re closer on the second question than on the first. Rather than the objections being based on the fact that somebody would be able to have an abortion, it’s instead based on the fact that people will be forced to pay for abortions for others. To force somebody, whose religious conscience moves them to protest against abortion and to discourage its use by others, to then contribute money to facilitate the very procedures they advocate against? That’s what’s so objectionable.
If people want to kick in $100 to their local right-to-life campaign, that’s their business. But when the government steps in and says these same people have to kick in $100 to pay for abortions, that’s everyone’s business.
As an aside: you can only imagine how far apart the Lovely Bride and I are on this one. Pray for me.
Dear God please help Mr. Squid and his lovely bride navigate this difficult time with grace and humor and understanding such that their bond grows all the stronger for it.
She’s been mad at me ever since I introduced her to the libertarian argument against abortion. I think she thought we were all on her side. Now she just clams up any time the subject arises. She says she just doesn’t want to fight, but I suspect the truth is that she doesn’t want to risk being persuaded. Or risk facing up to the fact that she’s married to a budding theocratic stormtrooper who’d like nothing better than to force her and all her friends into a real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale. One or the other.
Lets not lose sight of the fact that this “mandate” is forcing the Church to do this in their institutions with their employees – this is not some sort of eeeevil Papist plot to forbid abortion across the land, or make people hide their contraceptives from the Swiss Guard.
But I am just some dumb Methodist flyover country hick. I am probably not qualified to see the nuance in this HHS idiocy. Well, Juris Doctorate aside….I mean, it came from a non-Ivy institution, so how much could it count?
Don’t sell yourself short, John. You live in Chicagoland, after all. Surely you are privy to all sorts of skullduggery.
There should be no power for HHS to mandate private insurance companies to cover ANYTHING.
Unless you’re cool with being forced to pay for clitorectomies and such.
Just like a typical guy that Squid —always trying to figure out how to maneuver her and her best friend into the sack.
Geez, di. Don’t give them any ideas!
Topic Adjacent:
cupcakes for a cure it truly is an age of wonders
That they should start hospitals so they can refuse treatment to Jews and infidels?
No time to be other than repetitive.
The goal is to eliminate as much of the private sector as can be done leaving more government control of whatever little is left. Been rinsing and repeating since the beginning of the progressive era.
LTC John @ 21. I’m finding that the PW crowd is noticeably highbrow with all the J.D.s floating around here. Defining “highbrow” as they didn’t stop thinking once they passed the bar.
CW2 RI Red, Esq.
Sir.
Not to diss all of the other high-brows who are posting. They obviously got more schoolin’ than I. Me. I . I before e except after c.
I wonder what CAIR is thinking right now.
They’re celebrating that they’ve been able to make common cause with anti-theist atheists and prevented retired General Boykin from appearing at a West Point Prayer breakfast.
Who’s the other J. D. around here? I was under the impression that LTC John was our token lawyer.
isn’t Mr. Mikey a lawyer person too?
also I think Mr. Benedick is too
Mikey is a lawyer, too.
I can’t believe that West Point folded like a cheap umbrella.
First the Citadel, now West Point bowing to political correctness.
And after Notre Dame let our lefty president give a commemncement speech, my kid’s can all go to public universities.
Herr Ernest Writer, methinks thou protesteth too much.
Highbrow birthday Csik: Három csík megyei népdal
“There should be no power for HHS to mandate private insurance companies”
let’s take epa as an example. when nixon started it there was an obvious problem to the average citizen. so epa went after all the low hanging fruit. well 40 years later there ain’t no low hanging fruit to be had. so the solution would be for congress to take back their power over this area. will they do it? not on this path.
I haven’t cracked a con law book in almost twenty years. And that was when I was double-majoring in history and political science.
I think you’ve been in the vin again, Coq.
West Point didn’t. Boykin withdrew so as not to cause them unnecessary grief. He just explained that on GBTV while on “The Coming Caliphate” panel with Frank Gaffney and Erick Stakelbeck. There was also some talk of other projects he’s working with Glenn and Co on.
We should have a one lawyer on the thread at a time rule.
Thanks, Pablo. All I heard was two other generals grousing about CAIR making West Point their bitch.
Gen Boykin’s a good shit. He’s not laying down and he’s not rolling over. And he’s got CAIR’s number.
It sure sounds like it. Good generals know when to have contingency plans.
i liked boykin’s point of making your views known to the civilians.
sdferr, that’s so high-brow I can feel my hairline receding. What’s left of it, that is.
Ernst, the vin is the only thing that gets this coq through these trying times.
Glenn Beck was stupid on the radio today. I think he caught terminal case of N[ewt]DS.
He just hates progressives.
Has Glenn been hanging out with Hannity? Hannity is always stupid, but today was gold standard, even for him.
“I think he caught terminal case of N[ewt]DS.”
yea the federal gov’t finances scream moon colonies
I don’t think Newt has the chops to pull this off – i used to – but his weird jew food thing pretty much confirmed that he can’t stay on topic to save his life.
Sheldon needs to cut his losses.
This is over.
He may hate proggs, but he still spent half an hour defending Mitts not caring about the poor ‘cuz of the saftey net stupidity.
I don’t hate Beck, but he do have his off days…
That was the other thing. The Jew food thang. It was a CPAC robocall. Newt said he knew nothing about it. Let it go.
I don’t believe that Mr. lee… Newt was personally vomiting bibble babble about how Wall Street Romney was forever assaulting religious freedoms. It was silly Romney’s a lot of things but he’s fairly sensitive to questions of religious practice I would imagine. Especially after his family was exiled to fucking Mexico.
The statement was perfectly reasonable. He was bitching about the media treatment of it and it being taken out of context. Then I was watching CNN with it’s “Romney struggles to explain comments” chyron…
If Gingrich was completely unaware of the kosher robocall, why is he using the same shit on the stump?
Rush was saying Romney ran a butt load of ads, and 98% were negative. Newt, with a much smaller volume, ran, OK I don’t remember exactly, but it was like 54% negative ads.
Whatever though, pick your poison and await your fate.
yes Romney is a very negative person it’s part of the reason I hate his stupid guts but mostly it’s cause a vote for Romney is a vote for pretending we can kick the can on entitlements forever and ever and I won’t do that
“The statement was perfectly reasonable.”
I found it horrifying. Not the “I don’t care” part, it was his causal attitude with the entitlements part I found distressing.
Remember, if you don’t vote for Newt, you’re actually voting for Obama.
It’s the new math. ;-P
Oh, and in case anyone forgot, I’m a Santorum guy now. I hope I get a chance to vote for him.
I gotta go, I finally have a little work, and now I have little time. Later on…
“we can kick the can on entitlements”
cannist. what’s next kicking cupcakes? cupcake entitlements have feelings. ax the madison wi crowd.
As I pointed to on this thread, the kosher meal thing was first broached by Dems in 2007. had to be them feeding it to CPAC.
I’m hoping for meteors to hit both Newt and Mitt. But that aisde, I don’t have a problem with anyone’s bullshit being called bullshit, nor do I have a problem with defending someone who’s being victimized with bullshit even if I don’t care for the victim.
I’m just anti-bullshit. It’s sort of a principle thing.
If we’re both on the same page as to who the “very poor” are, I’m not particularly troubled with the statement. Granted, we may not be. But without some evidence that we’re not, I’ve got enough reasons to oppose Romney and I don’t need to make this into another one.
“had to be them feeding it to CPAC.”
or mitten’s guys. more fun that way for a bottom dealer.
Mr. newrouter it may be sooner than we think that we look back sadly and fondly on the glamour and majesty of the bygone cupcake epoch
America is becoming a harder and less refined and grittier place and god bless us.
“If it needs repair, I’ll fix it”
you fix stupid assumptions mittens? go harvard sheesh boom.
to heck with class divisions. frosting allocations newt, mitt, rickron?
make mine buttercream!
I have no problem with a safety net. The generational safety hammock, otoh…*
really shouldn’t we be goofing on the ivy league: liz warren, timmyg @ treasury, baracky, mrs. O!, summers, clintons, mittens, friedman et al. the whole effin ivy is a bunch of losers. in another dimension an ivy “education” would be a monty python skit.
The poor in America have fat kids, AC, TV, and a car. The very poor are mostly Mexicans that sneaked into the country after dark.
Having said that, re-read the blockquote @65
“the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling”
because of “ivy leaguers” like you
I read the “very poor” as the unemployable. The infirm, the handicapped, the terminally stupid.
It’s funny, ’cause I think of the very poor as people like Mitt Romney who haven’t got a clue about their own nation’s political philosophical origins, nevermind grasping the purposes of the magnificent government he so much wants to grasp in his power hungry little hands. And for all we can tell, never will.
95% of people aren’t struggling you condescending McCain-like whore … they’re not all hoping and praying that a shallow one percenter catalog model from massachusetts will ride to their rescue
they just want whatever useless fuck what happens to occupy the white house to stop raping people
What sdferr said.
What a gift to the opposition, Willard.
the 1%
link
Ok, How about a little Lawrence Summers during the Clinton daze.
From Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. Page 80.
Nice work there Larry. How about you pony up a percentage of all that was lost due to your bullying, say just 1%. A token of remorse to show good faith.
Anybody else think there’s a connection between the “I’m not concerned about the very poor” kerfuffle and Romney’s just announced support for indexing the minimum wage to inflation?
If I’m right that they are linked, that’s an ominous portent for a Romney administration. Because it suggests that his instinct (or the instinct of those to whom he listens) is to seek to curry pardon and favor with the Left when they act offended.