When it comes to appointments to the Supremes, there is supposed to be — as all pretend — no litmus test to be applied. There actually is one, however, and the Democrats do a much better job reading the results of said litmus tests. Their appointees turn out true blue, for the most part, while the Republican appointments are hit and miss.
Nevertheless, elections matter, and nevertheless, who makes the appointments matters also. In the Hobby Lobby case just handed down, a significant protection for our religious liberties was kept intact, and here is the breakout.
Voting for the majority on this case were the Republican appointees:
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (George W. Bush)
Antonin Scalia (Ronald Reagan)
Anthony M. Kennedy (Ronald Reagan)
Clarence Thomas (George H.W. Bush)
Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. (George W. Bush)
In the dissent, we find all the Democrat appointees:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Bill Clinton)
Stephen G. Breyer (Bill Clinton
Sonia Sotomayor (Barack Obama)
Elena Kagan (Barack Obama)
I am not withdrawing prior criticisms of the Republican appointees, particularly on issues like abortion. They should have done a lot better than they have. At the same time, it is a matter of grateful astonishment to me that we have had almost six years of Obama, and we still have a Court capable of a decision like this one. It is quite possible that we will make it through the next two years of Obama’s tenure without him being able to move the Court leftward at all. I am very grateful to God.
Also, by the way, if you live within driving distance of a Hobby Lobby, go in there and buy something random, like a glue gun, just to say thank you.
And if you do buy a glue gun, buy one of the big ones. The little ones don’t get hot enough to be effective. #thingsIknowmoreaboutthanDougdoes
I was very surprised by the decision; I expected Roberts to betray us again.
I am very glad for this.
Now, back to my regularly scheduled civil disobedience.
They can take my glue gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hand. Which they won’t be able to do, because, you know, glue.
Ah yes, a court decision curtailing women’s access to healthcare on the whims of their employers’ opinion, handed down by five white Catholic men. Religious liberty indeed.
While I must admit I was very happy to see the results of the case, I still cannot gin up to much optimism. It seems nearly impossible to remove the Albatross that is Obamacare, and there is little precedence for removing bureaucratic institutions once established. The idea that we can Supreme Court our way out this quagmire is wrongheaded. Certainly a Supreme Court that is faithful to the law is good, but let us not believe the canard that we can stop a government hell-bent on our oppression by declaring laws unconstitutional. Voting Republican does little, when so many politicians… Read more »
I’d say go find a nice poster of the First Amendment and get Hobby Lobby to custom frame it for you.
kylealden, Clarence Thomas might object to your characterization.
Kyle, Justice Thomas isn’t white. And not being forced to pay for something is not the same thing as “curtailing.” Unless you are curtailing my enjoyment of a new BMW through the failure of your check to arrive. Again.
I will be happier buying the glue gun when they start selling Hanukkah cards and craft supplies without telling customers “we don’t cater to you people.” My half-Jewish daughter looks visibly like one of those people.
Doug/David – my error, though not much of a dent in my point. The five justices in the majority represent an ideological monoculture and between them have a notable underabundance of legs to stand on when it comes to telling women what is and isn’t a reasonable expectation of a health care plan. Doug, health insurance is compensation. It’s regulated compensation, and one of the requirements (until today) has been a minimum set of provisions for women’s reproductive health. Hobby Lobby has no business telling women how to make health care decisions. Do they think they have the right to… Read more »
(Meant to type “public option” in the above. I don’t see an edit function here.)
Kyle,
It’s not just surgical interventions that a Christian Scientist would object to, but all medical intervention. And no, Christian Scientists shouldn’t be required to offer health insurance to employees.
Yes Ree, I’m aware that the crazy runs deeper than “surgical intervention,” which is basically my point. The crazy runs deeper than “certain types of contraception,” too. I fundamentally disagree about your latter point, but that’s no doubt not a productive conversation. Suffice it to say, they’re currently not required to provide health care, but if they do, they shouldn’t be able to opt out of requirements a la carte. Just as a Christian employer can’t opt out of paying Medicare taxes just because they may hypothetically find it morally repugnant. Or like I can’t opt out of paying federal… Read more »
Hobby Lobby’s argument was that by doing the purchasing themselves, they had agency and the law was therefore causing them to sin. Presumably they wouldn’t have a problem with paying their employees cash and then they go out and do whatever they want, including buy BC pills.
Obamacare should have been from the beginning aimed primarily at breaking the association between employment and health insurance, but the Ds tried to play it safe. Given that HHS has already found a workaround for those employed by anti-BC businesses, it’s hard to even understand what the fight was all about.
Five Gentiles vs four Jews. This is how close we are to being absolutely ruled (for when the Supremes rule, everyone rolls over and plays dead) by a hostile and alien tribe.
Re: “curtailing”,
Hobby Lobby pays a minimun of $14/hr for full time employees. This is $6.75/hr over the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Plan B costs about $50 out of pocket at Walgreens. In this situation, an otherwise minimum wage employee could afford about one Plan B “treatment” per workday on the EXTRA money that Hobby Lobby voluntarily pays them.
Kyle, they “curtailed women’s access to” four different drugs alllllll the way back to July, 2012. We’re back in the Dark Ages of two years ago, with regard to women’s right to insist that the government force their employer to provide their compensation come in one particular form instead of an equivalent amount of another form to be used any way they choose.
We’re exactly where we were yesterday with women’s access to any legal product they wish to obtain.
Kyle,
Am I correct to assume that you are a male? If so then you should not be commenting about this issue after all it is a women’s issue that neither male judges or men in general can or should be involved with. Please cease any further discussion or judgments about the subject immediately. Shhhhhhh!
Sane single payer like the VA?
If a woman needs the kind of contraceptives Hobby Lobby objects to, a man has been intimately involved, eh?
This decision should help Christian photographers
I have never seen anyone on this board, other than myself, ask Tim H to explain why his statements reflect a serious antagonism towards Jews. I, like everyone else, am a guest here and have no right to ask people to censor their thoughts to please me. However, I find Tim H’s characterization of Jews deeply disturbing, and am much more disturbed that no one on a Christian website has ever expressed disagreement with them. Is anti-Semitism a characteristic doctrine of this flavor of Calvinism, or is this one person’s particular opinion which no other Christian here has apparently found… Read more »
So the (regulated) minimum (options for women’s health) just got a little bit more minimalar, is all.
So…the battle rages on. The men want Obama care abortion because now someone else pays to dispose of their progeny and the women want Obama care abortion because the men are still just too irresistible. And Americans still sow their wild oats on Saturday night and pray for a crop failure on Sunday morning.
I was cheering for this outcome, but find it disturbing as well. There may be no end to the mischief this precedent will cause. What is the end point? There are lots of crazy religions that will take this to its logical conclusion. The blame however doesn’t lie with the Supremes, but with the White House. Why throw the Constitution into chaos over a pack of birth control pills? This is something you can buy with half of a cell phone bill or a week’s worth of Frappucinnos! It’s because the Democratic party is fundamentally about sex (abortion, homosexuality, free… Read more »
Jill I think that most of us see Tim as a flamer. We don’t want to encourage him.
“Five Gentiles vs four Jews.”
More like 5 men with huevos and 4 men without.
On a different note. Now that one buisness gets to follow it’s conscience maybe the baker, the flower maker and the picture taker can be able to follow theirs
Interesting that single payer gets brought up here. Any takers on the notion that the ACA mess was designed to be just that- a mess? Once it’s all there and in place, good luck dismantling it, as bureaucracy is difficult to uproot. How long before they start pointing out that single payer is the only way forward to fix this? Or that it’s what they wanted all along, but nasty conservatives were blocking the way and they had to settle for this?
It’s really not that scary The endpoint and the logical conclusion are the limits of the RFRA, which merely provides that a compelling state interest be met for religious exercise to be burdened
Lifesaving stuff is always going to be seen as a compelling interest. The convenience of no co-pay for a cheap personal choice is not.
Jill, I concur with Robert. The silence toward Tim’s Jew-baiting is a desire not to feed the troll.
I didn’t think ideas/opinions had a penis.
Hi Jill,
I too try to skip over the trippy, trippy troll comments. I did find your comment a little bit upsetting though, since you are a friend and a regular participant in these conversations. Our, “flavor of Calvinism”? Has anything the Pastor or the regular thoughtful commentators said deserved that kind of accusation? I think it was a bit unfair.
Carole, you’re right and I over-reacted. I have seen nothing except silence here that made me think Tim H’s opinions might be shared by others. I understand why silence may be the wisest course, but I have to say that it makes feel sick. This is pure emotionalism but there it is: Ten years before I was born, Nazis were putting young girls who looked exactly like my daughter into gas chambers. You can’t look at her without thinking of Anne Frank. And to hear pure anti-Semitism unhinges me–especially when I believe (in this case, wrongly) that nobody cares. Peace.
Thanks Jill,
Peace to you and your daughter. I continue to pray for her and to give thanks for your open and honest communication.
If the failure to pay for someone else’s rights counts as curtailing it, then obviously the failure of someone else to pay for my preferred ammunition is totally curtailing my right to keep and bear arms.
… Kyle, you want to volunteer to pony up for a couple boxes of .22LR? (If you can find any. Utter lack of availability-now that’s curtailment.)
Any takers on the notion that the ACA mess was designed to be just that- a mess? I think that would fall prey to Hanlon’s Razor. For some reason people love to overestimate their opponents. If the failure to pay for someone else’s rights counts as curtailing it, then obviously the failure of someone else to pay for my preferred ammunition is totally curtailing my right to keep and bear arms. The argument against Hobby Lobby is that health insurance is to be understood as compensation as part of employment, and that employers shouldn’t be able to dictate how compensation… Read more »
Jill, you said:
I beg to differ. Obviously you missed it (we can’t all be expected to keep up on all the comments, can we?) but in a previous comment thread I asked Tim H if by chance his last name was Hitler. As I recall that was judged too harsh by some, but perhaps I misremember.
Thank you SCOTUS for narrowly deciding not to take away our freedom to engage in commerce based on thoughts inside our head. We truly live in the land of the free!
Well then I’m wondering if you women that are upset at this would be fine if ALL 9 of the justices were jews? And likewise, Jill, I trust you would be fine with it if the entire Israeli supreme court were anglo-saxon evangelicals?
Somehow, I suspect this is not a two-way street.
Matt, you are correct about the question before the court. But the fact of the matter is, much of the populist rhetoric (including Kyle’s posts here) follows the form of “I have a right to access this, you are not directly providing it to me as a form of compensation, therefore you are restricting my access to it, therefore you are abridging my rights.” If someone does not make that argument, then reductios about buying ammunition are not relevant. But when someone does make that argument, it’s a perfectly sound rejoinder.
Hi Jill.
…..Therefore….
Finish the progression, Jill.
We are at war.
Grace and Peace.
t.
*re populist–this is not the correct word.
Timothy, populist is the correct word if what I meant by it was “populist.” And I’m not Jill. :-)
Of course we’re at war but I’m not really sure what point you were trying to make that you want me to eureka about.
Hi Jane.
Sorry for the mix up.
My point is that their demands will not stop with abortificents; it is not even really about abortificents. They serve a different master then we do and they mean to eradicate us.
cheers.
t
Sure, Timothy. But I was narrowly addressing what Matt said; that doesn’t imply that I think that what I addressed is all that’s at stake.
Jill, Jane, what’s the difference? Especially with a Smith on the end of it!
What is a fair minded person to do in this society when it seems impossible to learn the truth? I have followed this case closely, and I have heard statements that absolutely contradict one another. One writer has asserted that Hobby Lobby offers regular contraception, simply not the morning-after type. Another has asserted that Hobby Lobby has funds invested in pharmaceutical companies that make abortifacients. Does anyone else feel crazy because no one can tell who is lying? There seems to be no consequence for lies on either side of any issue–not even that you’re not believed the next time… Read more »
@JillyJane SmithWorth and @JaneyJill DunSmith.
Sorry for the confusion (:
t
Jill, “What is a fair minded person to do in this society …” Well, when it comes to the compulsory power of government mandating such things, I think that fair minded people must insist that the government mind the professor: “But what are we to do?” said Susan. She felt that the conversation was beginning to get off the point. “My dear young lady,” said the Professor, suddenly looking up with a very sharp expression at both of them, “there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying.” “What’s that?” said Susan. “We… Read more »
And, I would like to request the Pastor Wilson read this new book, and then provide his thoughts regarding it.
Is Administrative Law Unlawful? by Philip Hamburger; University Of Chicago Press (May 27, 2014)
My wife has worked at the Spokane Valley Hobby Lobby for 4+ years. About a month ago, a handful of lib’rul feministas picketed the store over the company’s contraceptive policies.
The store had their biggest sales day since Black Friday.
(And I think they were plumb out of glue guns before noon.) ;-)