Tag: Supreme Court

Alito: What Could Go Wrong?

What’s Wrong Today:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is.”

This saying has been around for about 20 years. According to Barry Popik, “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway” was first cited in print in May, 1993 in the Virginia Pilot by Jerry Alley.

The sentiment applies to the Supreme Court now that the Hobby Lobby decision’s slippery slope reasoning is out there being reviewed by lawyers. On July 3rd, just three days after Mr. Justice Alito issued his decision, lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees filed motions asking the DC District Court to intervene after the prison’s military authorities prevented them from praying communally during Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims. The banning of communal prayers at Guantanamo is one of a series of recent measures against detainees who are on hunger strikes.

The lawyers argued that, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision, the detainees’ rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Requests for Temporary Restraining Orders were filed this week with the Washington DC district court on behalf of Emad Hassan of Yemen and Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan. The filings were made by a UK-based human rights group Reprieve.

The detainees’ lawyers said courts have previously concluded that Guantanamo detainees do not have religious free exercise rights because they are not persons within the scope of the RFRA, but the lawyers now argue that the Hobby Lobby decision changes that:

Hobby Lobby makes clear that all persons – human and corporate, citizen and foreigner, resident and alien – enjoy the special religious free exercise protections of the RFRA

Which is exactly what Mr. Justice Alito said in his ruling. Despite his claim that it was a narrow ruling, the ruling itself is big enough to drive a truck through. Meet the truck, folks.

More from Cori Crider, an attorney for the detainees and a director at Reprieve:

Why are the authorities at Guantanamo Bay seeking to punish detainees for hunger striking by curtailing their right to pray? If, under our law, Hobby Lobby is a ‘person’ with a right to religious freedom, surely Gitmo detainees are people too

This is one of the unintended consequences from the Hobby Lobby decision: While the owners of Hobby Lobby certainly did not have Gitmo detainees in mind when they took Obamacare to court, it’s clear the ruling has become far bigger than its original purpose. Citizens United argued that “corporations are people,” Hobby Lobby focuses on religious rights and the idea that the government cannot force those corporate people to do things that are against their beliefs.

That could mean anything from refusing to teach evolution in school to ignoring laws designed to prevent discriminatory hiring practices against LGBT people.

The Defense Department did not directly address whether the men were being punished for their hunger strike. US Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III:

We are committed to religious freedoms and practices for the detainees, keeping in mind the overall goal of security and safety for detainees and staff

The overriding question is if the RFRA is compatible with the First Amendment. It seems to create a special privilege for religious groups that are not enjoyed by anyone else. How is this not itself an establishment of religion? If corporations can say: “but, it is against my religion” to escape the equal application of the laws, isn’t that a special right being bestowed based on religious belief?

Having the Supreme Court actually expand the RFRA beyond the protections put in place by the First Amendment only compounds the problem. Writing new rules to create certain forms of religious privilege seems dubious at best.

Try this thought experiment: Imagine atheists who have a family-owned corporation. Call them the Browns. They hold exactly the same views of birth control and abortion as the Greens, but their beliefs are based on their personal moral views, and not on any religious teaching. Would they be exempt from this mandate?

This isn’t Ms. Justice Ginsburg’s slippery slope, it’s a cliff.

The Supremes have now defined religious freedom not in terms of our own behavior but in terms of our ability to control the behavior of others. The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of more Corporate power, not religious freedom.

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Corporations Celebrate Their Independence Day

Happy Independence Day, corporations!  You’re way more important than women!

Indeed, way back on June 30th, tweeter Scott Wolledge was prescient. The Supreme Court wasn’t done celebrating the religious rights of corporations over those of individuals. After ruling Hobby Lobby had the right to refuse to provide company health insurance coverage for contraception it (erroneously) believed was a form of abortion, the Supreme Court went further and ruled that corporate beliefs about ANY contraceptive trumped all women’s individual rights. From MoJo: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Less than a day after the United States Supreme Court issued its divisive ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has already begun to toss aside the supposedly narrow interpretation of the decision. On Tuesday, the Supremes ordered lower courts to rehear any cases where companies had sought to deny coverage for any type of contraception, not just the specific types Hobby Lobby was opposed to.

The Affordable Care Act had listed 20 forms of contraception that had to be covered as preventive services. But Hobby Lobby, a craft supply chain, claimed that Plan B, Ella, and two types of IUD were abortifacients that violated the owners’ religious principles. The science was against Hobby Lobby—these contraceptives do not prevent implantation of a fertilized egg and are not considered abortifacients in the medical world—but the conservative majority bought Hobby Lobby’s argument that it should be exempted from the law.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion, using many qualifiers in an attempt to limit its scope, but orders released by the court Tuesday contradict any narrow interpretation of the ruling.

The Supremes decided that non-profit organizations objecting to birth control coverage were (somehow) being crushed by the “substantial burden” of having to inform the government that they wanted an exemption. So, SCOTUS gave Wheaton College an injunction against having to fill out the required paperwork to acknowledge that they wanted to opt out. More from the NYT:

In a decision that drew an unusually fierce dissent from the three female justices, the Supreme Court sided Thursday with religiously affiliated nonprofit groups in a clash between religious freedom and women’s rights.

The decision temporarily exempts a Christian college from part of the regulations that provide contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The court’s order was brief, provisional and unsigned, but it drew a furious reaction from the three female members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The order, Justice Sotomayor wrote, was at odds with the 5-to-4 decision on Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which involved for-profit corporations.

“Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “Not so today.”

The court’s action, she added, “undermines confidence in this institution.”

So, corporate personhood trumps human personhood. Worse, the religious rights of a corporation outweigh the individual rights of a woman who knows that birth control is a necessary medical expense for her. And filling out a form is too a harsh requirement for Wheaton College. The idea that what constitutes a “substantial burden” should be determined by the party alleging burden is absurd.

This is a 4th of July that doesn’t feel like most others.

We are a divided people on a day that celebrates our unity. It must change.

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