Did you just forget
this, and that you
responded to it?
Yeah, and? That still wasn't an explanation specifically to what exercise was being affected. Believing something is a sin is a belief, it is not the free exercise of religion the government can affect.
I mean, sure, if you define "exercise of religion" as exclusively "praying and going to church," then the contraceptive rule doesn't burden any exercise of religion (except insofar as it might make praying or going to church awkward, since the person praying or going to church believes he or she is engaging in sinful behavior).
It's not exclusively that. It's also not drinking wine or eating pork, it can be eating Matzot on Passover, it can be eating the body of Christ cracker, it can be not getting an abortion, not having pre-marital sex, not using contraceptives. The key part here is it is things the person does for themselves directly that is an exercise of religion.
There's a very good reason no person familiar with the law has raised the argument you're trying to make: it has no legal, factual, or policy basis.
Wrong. Reynolds v US did just that. Thomas Jefferson did as well.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which
lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,
that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
Reynolds is where Scalia got that quote from I posted earlier.
"to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."
This is exactly in line with my argument.
APK responded to this, but there's a difference between requiring an employer to compensate its employees in a specified manner on the one hand, and the employer not interfering with how its employees spend their compensation, on the other. If the government commands me to purchase X and provide it to you, that results in a very different analysis for me than if I simply paid you and you purchased X. I don't care what you do with your money; I just care what I do with mine.
First off, as I already explained, they aren't being commanded to purchase contraceptives, as I explained. Secondly, it is no different as I explained as you're still giving money through third parties.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out it isn't a sin to buy contraceptives, even for Hobby Lobby. It's the
use of them that is the sin. Hobby Lobby can go to Walgreens and buy contraceptives and throw them in the trash and that would not be sinful.
So even if Hobby Lobby directly bought contraceptives, which they aren't, nothing about their religion has been violated. It's only if and only if people use them as their intended function (say, instead of water balloons
) where it's an issue for them. But someone else using a contraceptive doesn't affect Hobby Lobby's exercise of religion. They can still refuse to use them for themselves!
Hobby Lobby's argument is that they are being forced to contribute to their use (which they can't actually prove, only assume), but this argument is true just by paying wages itself.
It's also hilarious to see someone argue there's a distinction between the employer reducing ones wages to pay for employer insurance versus not and letting the employee buy it on his own. You're simply changing the tax credits and nothing else.
Why on earth couldn't you? Must buying milk and eggs be an exercise of religion in order for tithing to be an exercise of religion? Or, must buying milk and eggs be an exercise of religion in order for declining to buy alcohol (because one believes consuming alcohol is a sin) to be an exercise of religion? Obviously not.
I don't understand what you're saying here at all.
When a person does, or refrains from doing, something that the person believes he or she is bound by God's commands to do, or refrain from doing, that person is exercising religion. When a person does, or refrains from doing, something which the person believes is permitted but not required by God's commands, that person is not exercising religion. "Spending money" could fall in either of those categories, and so may be an exercise of religion, or not, depending on the facts of the particular situation.
I didn't say spending money can never be religious (though I think some argument can be made with the caveat that spending and charity aren't the same). I said in the context of the issue, it's always or never.
If you believe contraceptives are a sin, then if you spend money on it indirectly, you believe it doesn't violate your religious exercise. You can't argue spending it indirectly in this manner matters and this other manner does not.
Hobby Lobby hasn't argued their taxes covering federal workers insurance that covers birth control violates their exercise of religion, but they're arguing them covering their own workers insurance that does that does. That's an inconsistent position. Either both do or none do!
