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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3806 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Supreme Court sides with Hobby Lobby on contraception mandate

So bear with me a second...

1) The ACA is a tax (according to the Roberts Court)

2) Money is speech (according to the Roberts Court)

3) Religious exceptions trump the paying of a tax (according to the Roberts Court)

So it doesn't take a genius to make the next leap. That is, how can anybody be forced to pay any taxes now, given that almost everything the Federal Government does is offensive to someone's religious beliefs? If I'm a Christian Scientist entrepreneur, can I simply not pay for any health coverage? If I'm a Quaker, can I refuse to pay the portion of my tax that goes to DoD? And so on.

Ah, but I suspect not. I think a far simpler explanation is that these extreme right wing Catholics who make up the 5 member majority on the Court are letting their ideology control national policy just a tad too much, eh? Remember back in 1960 when JFK had to give a big national speech assuring mostly conservative voters that he wouldn't let his Catholic faith or his allegiance to the Pope trump national interests? Well that got flipped on its head sometime in the last half century. It's a joke (unfortunately, a joke of which we're all the butt) that this is all done in the name of originalism. Separation of church and state is dead, flat out dead.





ButterflyEffect  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wait, holy crap. This just got a lot better. The company's retirement plan invests in contraception manufacturers.

veen  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

John Oliver made the same point last night. This is insane, how can this even make it to the Supreme Court?

b_b  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There's no rule by consensus here like in your country. Five ideological pigs can dictate their whim to the rest of the country. The Constitution is like the Bible; there's always a way to justify any position with it, if you don't mind tortured logic.

starrychloe  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  
JakobVirgil  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Anti-Papism?

There is statistical over representation of Catholics

b_b  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So.... We have a nine member court with 6 Catholics and 3 Jews; all 9 are Ivy League grads. Not exactly a cross section of American legal scholarship.

JakobVirgil  ·  3805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It is a strange way to stack a deck. I assume catholics to end abortion and The Jews to continue it?