No. It has been Religious organizations telling Government what they will or won't provide for far too long. They've been hiding behind the "religion" tag and getting the breaks for it.... sorry.

:lol2: What do you care about what they do? Your statement is exactly why this government is out of control. What? Now we need someone to come tell us what we have to think, believe and if we don't tow the Obama Marxist Party Line we are going to be dragged to court or off to the gas chamber? Maybe just re-education camps. I think they are going to tell Obama and the rest of them to "fuck off, see you in court".

I would certainly argue that "presidential edict that churches provide birth control" and "refusal to exempt employers who claim religious affiliation from having to provide birth control like everybody else" are two wildly different things. clearly you disagree.

Please please please explain to me why a first amendment religious liberties question has to be differentiated on state/fed lines?

Also, as far as I know, there is NO challenge to the legitimacy of laws that say that first marriages and second marriages have to be treated equally by employers, either on the state OR federal level - but legally a marriage is a marriage, and if an employer's health care plan says that it includes spouses, that plan has to include ALL legally recognized marriages.

If I understand your point, you are arguing that since marriage (as it relates to insurance SPECIFICALLY) is RECOGNIZED by the federal government, but LICENSED by states, it is completely different from birth control coverage, which is mandated by federal order under Obamacare. Okay, fine. But the first amendment applies EQUALLY to state AND federal laws, and since a religious group can ONLY claim that their religious rights are infringed upon UNDER the first amendment, if religious liberty is the problem with the regulation, it does not matter if the regulation comes from the federal government or from a state government.

But it's the same legal, religious, and constitutional principle. Why do you care very strongly that birth control insurance coverage is a religious liberties question, but don't care at all about whether divorced/remarried spouse insurance coverage is a religious liberties question?

It is an end around by Obama, he called it a compromise, it is clearly not in the eye of those who are paying for the insurance and in this case that would be the employer.



In general they are not, what is different is how and under what angle the different things are being challenged and under what umbrella they are being issued as laws or mandated. The marriage issue is being decided at the state level.

And I don't see it being challenged as a Constitutional Right.

It matters greatly. And in the case of marriage, I don't see anyone challenging it as a First Amendment issue.



It is not the same when you address it as a states rights issue over a federal mandate, huge difference. I don't think the BCP issue is within the scope of what the feds can tell individual businesses to do. It is not as important to me what individual states choose to do on the marriage issue. It is important to me what the Federal government says we can and cannot do when it seems to be a clear violation of their power.

Irony and coincidence are some of my favorite themes...
Given this discussion THIS week, we also have:

National Condom Week 2012

Logic 101: If A implies B, then (not B) implies (not A).

According to the Supreme Court, since the 14th Amendment, the states are prevented from doing anything that the 1st Amendment would prevent the Federal government from doing.

A = The First Amendment prevents the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.
B = The First Amendment prevents the states from enforcing this rule.


Many states require insurance to cover birth control, therefore (not B).

(not B) implies (not A)

Therefore, the First Amendment does NOT prevent the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.

Sorry for the long long long quote-post, but I think this sums up my position pretty well, save the over-the-top slavery rhetoric. Underlines are MY emphasis, Bold is as in article.

Whoops! I thought I popped it in the header. Thanks!

I'm not mad, but yes, I am upset that healthcare is funneled through employers.

I was thinking about this again the other day and realized that to me, the idea of health INSURANCE is not the right way to frame the health care debate.

Insurance is a "gamble" that a private company can earn enough in premiums across its customer base to offset the costs of individuals who get ill.
What the left, as well as much of the developed world, has decided is that, well, "insurance" isn't enough. The societal social contract that frames a developed society, to people of my mindset, says that "we care for the sick". We as a society can afford that. We already do for the uninsured who still get care in emergency rooms - but if we build our system of health care to include those costs as part of a broad tax, roughly equivalent to what everyone is already paying in inflated health care costs, and then guarantee at least basic preventative and curative health care to all citizens, in a unified system, health care costs for EVERYONE will go down just on administrative streamlining alone. Instead of a for-profit cost-benefit, health coverage becomes a civil right. We all pay into a BIG insurance pot (either included or separate from income tax) - instead of under Obamacare, into a bunch of separate private mandated insurance pots - and then ALL get out of it what we need.
Personally, I trust a single-payer system staffed by doctors and civil servants to have the best interest of patients in mind more than I trust a for-profit company to do so, and thus I believe that healthcare through employers is just as broken as insurance purchased on the open market.

I think that single-payer is by far the ideal system for health care.

First off, this debate belongs in the Healthcare thread, but ...
I'll play the devil's advocate here ...
Do you have any data to back that up?
Virtual impossibility. Perhaps overall, but when those who cannot afford are added, the cost will/must come from others.

They already do. Caring for an insured person, with both preventative and curative care, reduces health care costs throughout the system, and additionally, in the current system, curative care is already available for all but chronic diseases for the poor and uninsured, ostensibly for free, at great cost to the system. If we include caring for the currently-uninsured under the same umbrella as those that are currently insured, on top of the administrative savings for having one insurance framework to work under as opposed to a wide range of companies to deal with. I'm not saying that the ONLY reason healthcare costs so much more in the US than in the rest of the developed world is that our insurance system is broken, but it's a major driver of increased health care costs in America.

Ibram and Happy Monkey, you speak well. I understand your arguments and analogies. I also agree with your complaints and your conclusions. One way of saying the main reason I'm unhappy with the whole argument about infringing on the religious freedom of .. heh.. an institution? They have freedoms? anyway... it is this.

I feel it is ****** inconsistent for such organizations to claim a religious freedom exemption for one subject and to overlook different subjects that are of comparable importance. Picking and choosing which of your religious sensibilites are offended strikes me as ... insincere.

You gave good examples with marrried versus divorced employees, and with straight versus gay employees. Additionally, claiming to be a religious institution for this topic, but not for other aspects of the law (tax exempt status anyone?) seems just plain opportunistic. It seems insincere.

Religious freedom, Constitutional issue specifically described.

Marriage issue, states issue, marriage not specifically described in the Constitution and not being challenged from that respect.

Pretty clear to me.