Adventists Encourage the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby Decision

[CGMedley]

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America is encouraged with today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the most anticipated case this term in which religious liberty and the right to healthcare intersected. Today’s decision, in what is referred to as the Hobby Lobby case, reaffirmed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which safeguards the broad religious liberty protections available to all people of faith.

Read more

http://www.adventistreview.org/church-ne...-lobby-decision

[Gregory Matthews]

Sorry: The rights to SDA healthcare, as practiced by our clinical institutions have not be upheld/expanded, or however you might want to say it.

Have you personally read the 95 page set of documents related to the decision of the Court.

I have read them and am just beginning to process them.

Look in the religious Liberty section for my post on this subject.

[Gregory Matthews]

The SDA Church believed that the provisions of the Affordable Care act might infringe on the rights of the SDA Church and it believed that the First Amendment and the RFRA both gave the denomination that protected its rights.

The ruling of the court today did not address the First Amendment issues that the denomination believed protected it. So, on this aspect, the Court did not provide any benefit to the SDA Church. As far as the First Amendment is concerned, things remain exactly the same.

In regard to the RFRA, the Court did not rule in any manner as to the legality of the RFRA. Without ruling on its legality it simply acted as if the RFRA was legal. There was legal justification for doing so. The Hobby Lobby case did not ask that the Court decide the legality of a law. Rather, it asked the Court to decide the legality of a HHS regulation.

The legality of a regulation could be decided on the basis of the statute known as the RFRA. If it had been the RFRA that had been called into question, the Court might have decided it on the basis of the 1st Amendment.

The NAD announcement correctly states that the Court decided this case on the basis that the Hobby Lobby corporation was a closely held corporation--in this case a family corporation. It does not necessarly follow that SDA clinical corporations are closely held corporations. They may be. This might follow. But that should be a subject for future litigation.

[Stan]

I would be interested in WHO at the GC/NAD is encouraged?

I doubt it is the religious liberty folks..

This ruling is not about birth control, it is about employer to have the freedom of only approving the medical procedures they approve of for the employees.

I repeat is is NOT about birth control.

A dedicated consciences Jehovah's Witness now has the ability not to allow their employees to have blood transfusions.

What if you work for a Scientologist? Are you ok with no Psychological help or medication?

An Orthodox Jewish employer, not providing insurance for certain emergency surgeries on the Sabbath??

The list goes endless. That is my concern. You can only have the medical procedures your employer approves off?

[bonnie]

I would be interested in WHO at the GC/NAD is encouraged?

I doubt it is the religious liberty folks..

This ruling is not about birth control, it is about employer to have the freedom of only approving the medical procedures they approve of for the employees.

I repeat is is NOT about birth control.

A dedicated consciences Jehovah's Witness now has the ability not to allow their employees to have blood transfusions.

What if you work for a Scientologist? Are you ok with no Psychological help or medication?

An Orthodox Jewish employer, not providing insurance for certain emergency surgeries on the Sabbath??

The list goes endless. That is my concern. You can only have the medical procedures your employer approves off?

What you have suggested may very well happen. You are right,this isn't about birth control. It is about a elective

deliberate act and demanding another pay regardless.

The examples you give involve medical procedures to protect the life of another.

Hobby Lobby is not refusing insurance coverage for birth

control,they have refused for something they see as morally wrong.Because you or others determine their stand according to their conscience doesn't dovetail with theirs doesn't make this true...... it is about employer to have the freedom of only approving the medical procedures they approve of for the employees.

[Gregory Matthews]

Quote:

. . . it is about employer to have the freedom of only approving the medical procedures they approve of for the employees.

Current labor law does not give the employer the right to say to an employee: " I will pay you $25 per hour, but only if y0u will agree that you will not spend what I give you on "wine, women and song."

The Affordable Care Act says that certain employers must provide health care coverage to their employees. Should the employer then be able to say: Fine, I will give you health care coverage, but you will only have contraceptive coverage if you agree to use only the 16 forms of contraceptive coverage that I want you to use.?

The Supreme Court has spoken: The answer is yes, but only in certain cases. We shall have to wait and see how it may be expanded.

[Gregory Matthews]

The Court did not give Hobby Lobby a Constitutional right. It only established a statuary right.

Congress could fix it by enacting the following law: The RFRA shall not be construed to apply to closely held non-profit corporations in which less than 95% of the employees are family members.

That would in effect vacate the Supreme Court ruling of today.

Yes, I am aware that it would result in further litigation.

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, Congress could fix that and many other things that need to be fixed. But the current impotence of Congress to accomplish anything meaningful, no matter the issue, makes that very unlikely for the foreseeable future.

[Tom Wetmore]

I think the reason for any positive assessment of this case is that the the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was not weakened, as noted in the news reaction posted above. Even though the issue at hand was not directly of concern to the Church, defending religious freedom for all is, even for those with whom we may fundamentally disagree.

While these two cases involve "family owned businesses" or in technical terms, a closely held or close corporations, the troubling aspect is that the range of possible companies that this could encompass is very broad. While many of these are small businesses in a real sense, a substantial number can hardly be described as "Mom and Pop" family businesses. The basic definition of a close corporation is a corporation the stock of which is held by a relative small number of individuals (typically fewer than 35) and that is not publicly traded. There are often significant restrictions on the transfer of closely held stock. This is a common corporate form for family businesses, but can be the incorporation of what might otherwise be a joint venture or partnership or other very conventional business owned and operated by unrelated individuals. The size in terms of monetary value of the company and number of employees is irrelevant. Some extremely large companies, multi billion dollar, remain in this form and never become publicly traded companies.

I would expect as the legal process continues to refine the law of this case by considering the widely divergent types of corporations beyond the family owned type, that it won't be extended much beyond the precise facts of these two cases. However, that is the risk. Hopefully the "law" of intended consequences will not gain any ground.

[Gregory Matthews]

Quote:

Even though the issue at hand was not directly of concern to the Church, defending religious freedom for all is, even for those with whom we may fundamentally disagree.

This is where it get sticky:

Whose rights do we want to defend? Are they the rights of the family members who owned Hobby Lobby? Are they the rights of the 13,000 employees (mostly not family members) of Hobby Lobby? Or, do those employees not have any rights that may be decided by this litigation?

In any case, this litigation, as decided by the Court, did not involve Constitutional rights--contrary to the expectation of the owners of Hobby Lobby. Rather, as decided by the Court, it was a simple case of the meaning of the statute.

The courts, to include the Supreme Court, are generally deferential to established case law. In this case, the Court did not believe that certain previous case law was applicable, which is believed might have resulted in a different decision. O.K. But, such may not be true for the next case that comes along.

The decision settles the case for those directly involved in the litigation. It remains to be seen how this will expand beyond those involved to others. I strongly believe that the expansion of this decision will require future litigation.

[BobRyan]

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America is encouraged with today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the most anticipated case this term in which religious liberty and the right to healthcare intersected. Today’s decision, in what is referred to as the Hobby Lobby case, reaffirmed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which safeguards the broad religious liberty protections available to all people of faith.

Read more

http://www.adventistreview.org/church-ne...-lobby-decision

Sounds good so far.

[Gregory Matthews]

Quote:

Today’s decision, in what is referred to as the Hobby Lobby case, reaffirmed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which safeguards the broad religious liberty protections available to all people of faith.

Not quite.

The RFRA was not under assault in this case. The Supreme Court did not publish a decision that stated that the RFRA was Constitutional.

What the Supreme court did was to interpret the meaning/application of the RFRA.

The best that can be said is that the Supreme Court acted as if the RFRA was Constitutional. It did not decide on the RFRA's Constitutionality. As such, the Constitutionality of the RFRA may be litigated in the future.