Welsh does not hold that an exemption is required. For military service, Congress passed exemptions. If Congress passed exemptions to Obama’s mandate that were not vetoed or passed over veto, the would be valid exemptions. But nothing in Welsh or any other case holds that exemptions have to be passed.I edited my post substantially while you were replying. Perhaps you’d like to address those points.
Yes, it is. I agree. Therefore, with the **Welsh v. United States ** precedent in mind, I am certain that religious objections to the contraceptive/abortafacient mandate will be upheld on the same grounds that conscientious objection to military service is upheld. Although the case did not involve a religious plaintiff, so he was incarcerated for resisting the draft, but this case DID uphold conscientious objection religious or otherwise to a generally applicable law.
Conscription does not specifically target Quakers and/or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet their objections to conscription are protected under the 1st Amendment, according to jurisprudence.
It does not have to the least restrictive means under the constitution, only RFRA.I saw your previous post in which you cited the Universal Military Training and Service Act, and in which you cite it being a statutory requirement, however, you still have not eliminated the requirement that the mandate must be the least restrictive means of achieving the interest. Requiring Catholic hospitals to enable an act that is illicit according to Canon Law. Preposterous.
Alright we’re back to connecting the dots here.The Supreme Court ruled on what the constitution requires. Congress cannot override a Supreme Court decision on what the constitution requires with a statute, but they can add to what the constitution requires with a statutue. As Roberts wrote for the Court, "Under RFRA, the Federal Government may not, as a statutory matter, substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, “even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” §2000bb–1(a). " RFRA’s requirements are statutory, not constitutional. [emphasis added]
And you wrote, “Also both before and after RFRA Scalia is consistent and takes into account more than just universal applicability, i.e., he **includes compelling governmental interest **and least restrictive means. Scalia also affirms RFRA’s applicability to federal law.” [emphasis added]
Not necessarily. In FOP Newark v. City of Newark the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that when government makes exemptions from its policy for secular reasons and has not offered any substantial justification for refusing to provide similar treatment for religious reasons, then the government’s policy violates the First Amendment.There is no constitutional need for a compelling interest, only a statutory need.
No, he’s wrong. If one has no freedom to follow the conscience, then there is no real freedom of religion at all. Further, the Constitution came before the state and acknowledges our God-given rights, hence the state has no right to abrogate the rights given by a higher power. That higher power is far higher than the Constitution or the government that comes after and from the Constitution.Is Justice Scalia right that a generally applicable law that requires a person to violate his conscience is not a violation of freedom of religion? Or does his opinion represent an assault on freedom of religion?
law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0494_0872_ZO.html
We must always look into the morality of laws. People with no God or faith can only gage right and wrong by what is legal and illegal. Abortion is legal, but definitely wrong, and we need to have a constant prayerful presence at abortion facilities…even if it “bothers” people. This is a simple example, there are many other examples but this is a big issue. We all know abortion is wrong. I am a nurse…if abortion is the law for me to participate in, I will go to jail that night I guess.God’s laws are always above man’s laws. I would put peaceful civil rights rallies as not just sitting back and taking it because it is law. We all know slavery was law, segregation was law, woman not voting…it just goes on. I’m just not one to sit back and allow politicians decide what is right and wrong for the people who have no back boneEveryone must obey the government when ever their wright or wrong so i would`t see it against religion.
Religion for me anyway is more or less a human word for recalcitrance of faith.
My country of origin is the United States. But my religion is Catholic. Not the other way around.We must always look into the morality of laws. People with no God or faith can only gage right and wrong by what is legal and illegal. Abortion is legal, but definitely wrong, and we need to have a constant prayerful presence at abortion facilities…even if it “bothers” people. This is a simple example, there are many other examples but this is a big issue. We all know abortion is wrong. I am a nurse…if abortion is the law for me to participate in, I will go to jail that night I guess.God’s laws are always above man’s laws. I would put peaceful civil rights rallies as not just sitting back and taking it because it is law. We all know slavery was law, segregation was law, woman not voting…it just goes on. I’m just not one to sit back and allow politicians decide what is right and wrong for the people who have no back bone
I’m bummed that no one has responded to this post. I think that ultimately this will be the test…compelling government interest. I can’t for the life of me figure out how mandating coverage of birth control is a compelling federal government interest.Since I’m not the ablest scholar of legalese, I have to preface my argument here by saying I honestly don’t fully understand the implications of the aforementioned ruling. However, it seems to me that as Fr of Jazz has in my view correctly observed, the Obamacare contraceptive mandate does not seem to apply to fit the exeception provided by Scalia and is unconstitutional insofar as:
I can’t identify the compelling state interest identified by coercing through the power of the state religious institutions that provide services to the general public to provide a commodity that is already commercially ubiquitous, and often, free of charge. Bottom line, access to contraceptives does not seem to be an issue in the United States.
- Compelling state interest?
I think the stat being bandied about over “98 percent” of Catholic women using contraceptives for contraceptive purposes (which I don’t believe, but one that proponents of the mandate seem to find persuasive) lends sufficient credence to the notion that access to birth control is not a problem. If this IS a compelling state interest there are better ways to pursue it, rather than going after the ministries or organized religions like the Catholic Church and others.
This does not seem to be the narrowest and least burdensome way of discouraging unplanned pregnancy, because it forces institutions to enable acts that it defines as morally reprehensible. Something akin to a religion teaching, as a hypothetical example, “Smoking is evil, but here take this voucher and buy free cigarettes if you want.”
- Narrowest and least burdensome way?
A narrower way of discouraging unplanned pregnancy might be for the government to mandate abstinence only education in parochial AND public schools, since abstinence is the only way completely eliminate the risk of becoming pregnant and/or transmitting sexually transmitted diseases.
How about providing lavish tax breaks to encourage more couples to marry before they have children?
Or how about incentivising unwed mothers to put their unwanted children up for adoption?
According to the National Council for Adoption there are 1.3 million couples waiting to adopt a child. Because roughly the same number (1.3 million) of children are being killed by abortion, only 50,000 children are available to these loving parents. For every available child, thirty are killed.
If the government wants to grow it’s tax base, which is a KNOWN state interest, I would suggest re-criminalizing abortion and sending these children to the matching number of families waiting to adopt.
Those are just THREE ways. My point is that this mandate is far from the least burdensome way of pursuing this interest.
3. Obama’s about face: only insurance companies that service religious employers have to provide free access to contraceptives and abortafacients:
This doesn’t protect conscientious employers who are members of churches that condemn the use of contraceptives and abortafactients, eg the Catholic owners of a hardware store or a bed-and-breakfast.
Objections?
It’s not about covering birth control. Once the government gets the Church to cave on this relatively innocuous [to the public] issue, the way is clear for the government to dictate other policies to the Church, like mandating SS"M" and women priests. And actually, once the Catholic Church is made to knuckle under, other churches will be a piece of cake.… I can’t for the life of me figure out how mandating coverage of birth control is a compelling federal government interest.