Not if they work for the Federal Government, they do not have to follow those rules, regardless of what state they work. And it is being challenged in every state in one form or another, for or against.

No.

Good question. I believe they still provide benefits since the only place I know that you are identified as the second or more wife is in the military. But it does not effect your ability to get benefits. There is a huge difference here when you try to isolate the desire of same sex people to get "married" and the desire of the Federal Government to infringe a rule passed down by the Feds on a Religious organization.

Frankly they just need to change the laws to state all civil unions are subject to the same rules and benefits of a "marriage". Then the radicals who want to tell people who and cannot be married won't get their feelings hurt.

Challenged, and lost, in states like Vermont. And I'm specifically referring to religious institutions like hospitals or schools, not federal institutions.


but IF the catholic hospital knew you had been divorced, should they LEGALLY be ALLOWED to deny insurance to your new spouse? I say, no, they shouldn't. Because the civil institution of marriage (LIKE the civil institution of defining "basic health care coverage") outweighs the selective and exclusionary definition they use. I think CHURCHES, actual proper CHURCHES, can define marriage, or deny birth control, whatever way they want, and if you work for a CHURCH you surrender your rights to having civil institutions recognized, but if you work for a hospital or a college, your employer should be held to the same civil standards as any other secular institution.

So why is a catholic hospital in Vermont being "forced" to cover gay spouses legitimate, but a catholic hospital being "forced" to cover birth control illegitimate?

I would argue that's another "separate but equal" principle, and unconstitutional unless civil unions were the ONLY institution the government recognized.

I think you are mixing the issues all up and trying to say they should all be treated as one thing. They can't, issues dealing with same sex marriage and the issue of the Federal Government telling a religious organization what they can and cannot do, or in this case telling them what they must do are completely different. Why? Because that is what the Constitution says. Many of the other issues are really just legal juggling that will drag on for years in the courts, along with Obamacare.



The Vermont issue is an issue that deals with States Rights and is local to that state. The other issue deals with the Federal Government telling private religious organization what they must do. Completely different.

All I'm saying is, the catholic church as an example is against both gay marriage and birth control, but to say that one of those things, they HAVE to recognize legally, and the other, they CAN'T be forced to cover like non-religious institutions do.

If it's unconstitutional on first amendment terms at the federal level, it's unconstitutional at the state level. But, okay, switch "gay" to "divorced" in my example. As the law now stands, i believe, employers can't pick and choose which marriages they recognize, even if they're a religious hospital or school or whatever. By your logic, the federal government saying that all marriages count as marriages in Obamacare would be equally illegal and unconstitutional, because that's the fed telling a religious institution that it has to acknowledge divorced-and-remarried marriages against their faith. Why is including remarried spouses in mandated health care coverage not a breach of the first amendment, but including birth control in mandated health care coverage unconstitutional?

Again, you are mixing things that happen at the state level and the Federal level. It is not a two way street.

Any First Amendment issue that restricts the Federal Government also restricts the states.

Anything that states are not prohibited from doing by the First Amendment also is not prohibited by the First Amendment to the Federal Government.

Other parts of the Constitution delineate differences in powers between the state and federal levels, but since the 14th Amendment, if you're making a First Amendment argument, Vermont and federal jurisdictions are both subject.

If you want to say it's OK for Vermont, but not the Federal Government, you'll have to use something other than the First Amendment.

And I don't know what, other than the First Amendment, could be a Constitutional block based on religion.

You are late to the party. I am not making those arguments for the gay, divorced, insurance issue. I did not bring them up and don't know if they specifically apply in that case. I am only talking about the BCP issue and what Obama wants the Catholic hospitals to do by the King's edict.

Further, states, Vermont in his case, can't tell the Feds or other states what to do or how to do it. Same goes for the whole issue of civil unions and what various states do about it. It is a red herring in this issue IMHO.

I didn't make any argument that was particular to the gay, divorced, insurance issue. I mentioned Vermont as an example of a state that had already come up, but my point stands if you replace it with a generic state.

A state can't tell the Feds what to do, but if a state can do it, then so can the Feds, as far as the First Amendment is concerned.

And several states already require non-church employers, including Catholic-run hospitals and universities, to cover birth control, exactly as the proposed Federal rule will do.

How?

Tonight I watched part of a documentary on the Loving case, which caused the Federal courts to overturn miscegenation laws against interracial marriage. Listening to the opinion of the judges supporting enforcing the law, wrapping prejudice in the name of G-d, and listening to all of the people who were so sure that segregation and miscegenation laws made sense and were G-d approved, showed me how important a role the Federal government plays.

Because each state's citizen is a citizen of the United States. And while rights flow to the states through the 10th Amendment, the core Constitution itself and the 14th Amendment give the Federal government the right to protect the unalienable rights of it's citizens from the states.

I recommend watching The Loving Story on HBO. Listening to all of these people, some obvious jerks but many well meaning, talk about their belief in the inevitability and 'rightness' of these laws, brings so much into focus. Seen through the lens of history, their arguments fall flat, but in that day a majority either believed them or lacked the will to oppose them.


From here
FYI, the judge's archive page at the Virginia Historical Society makes no mention of the Loving case.

I am fed up with a Christian fundamentalist god always messing with our State and Federal Government. The fact that the concept of separation of Church and State exists proves that god doesn't want the Republicans sneaking in rules about birth control or homosexuality and turning them into laws. This is such major hypocrisy for the "party of less government" that I am astonished. Maintaining the nation's infra-structure and ensuring food and health care for our children is too grievous an oppression by the government, but government mandates on private sexual choices, birth control, abortion, women's rights etc. are perfectly acceptable because that's what god wants. God is horrified by two happily paired off lesbians but indifferent to the suffering of a child. Go figure.

Nor did I, that's the point.

You can't be that dense.

What one state does at a state level has nothing to do with what happens at a national level. What the Fed does as a mandate has to do with all the states at every level, and in this case it violates the Constitution and Obama lacks the power to do it. If I were my state I would give him the finger and completely ignore the fool.

HOW is it unconstitutional to force religiously-identified private employers to insure birth control, but LEGAL and constitutional to force them to insure, for example, remarried employees?

You have NOT yet answered what the difference is.

Simple, your example used state court findings which were confined to what the states did. Obama is using the Federal pulpit, which, IMHO and many others, is an unconstitutional mandate. It is really not all that difficult.