Ed Brayton Argues That The Hobby Lobby Ruling Will Be Mostly Irrelevant Soon

Opinion • July 2014 • Views: 1,674

I hope he’s right about this. I felt like posting his entire argument here, but that would be against the rules. Anyway, I’d like to know what you think of his idea. I’m no legal scholar, but I think it might work.

This thought suddenly occurred to me Monday night as I was prepping for a Google Hangout to discuss the Hobby Lobby ruling: The majority opinion gave a roadmap for how the Obama administration can essentially moot the ruling unilaterally. In fact, they can do it today if they want. Let me explain.

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10 comments

blueraven Jul 1, 2014 8:05:58pm

That is a rather simplistic argument. I mean, the House is threatening to sue Obama over executive action, among their complaints are changes in the regulations over implementation of the ACA. Of course no fix would pass through Congress, so…
Also, I doubt the insurance companies would like this suggestion very much.

But even if a way to mitigate the effects of this HL decision can be found, the damage is done.
Corporations now have religious rights. More cases will pop up over this. That can not be easily fixed. So no, I don’t think this will be irrelevant any time soon, if ever.

uncah91 Jul 1, 2014 8:11:43pm

Well, yes, this is what the administration will do, but it doesn’t make the ruling moot.

1) There are already cases moving their way to the Supreme Court involving organizations that claim even filing the paperwork is a burden on their religious freedom, by forcing them to pro-actively take a step that will lead to a women getting that awful, awful birth control.

2) This only works because insurance plans that now have to cover pregnancy/delivery are perfectly happy to provide low cost birth control to women rather than end up with a bunch of expensive deliveries. But what about the first closely held corp founded by Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, etc. where the cost to the insurance company of what they object to is definitely significant.

3) The whole reason of setting up a limited liability corporation is to put a shield between the business and the individuals who own it. But now the court has said those indviduals rights are violated by what the corporation is required to do. So what about, say, religions that hold that a woman should not work outside the home, are the now free to gender discriminate? There is really a lot of room for this to run now that the precedent is established.

KingKenrod Jul 1, 2014 8:27:43pm

This court ruling means lower courts will be bound by precedent to issue other moronic rulings for years to come. It’s probably a narrow enough decision that progressive courts can work around it, but conservative courts will be tempted to use it for all kinds of bullshit.

CriticalDragon1177 Jul 1, 2014 9:49:29pm

You guys maybe right unfortunately. Hopefully the country will continue to get more progressive as a whole and eventually rulings like this one will be overturned.

goddamnedfrank Jul 2, 2014 3:23:29am

re: #1 blueraven

Also, I doubt the insurance companies would like this suggestion very much.

All your other points are valid, but in reality insurance companies want to provide contraception coverage because it lowers costs. Price Waterhouse Cooper did a study across all forms of BC, and there wasn’t one method that wasn’t at least cost effective, and most were cost saving.

Rocky-in-Connecticut Jul 2, 2014 3:48:11am

This ruling ultimately gives the Court the power to decide which religion reigns supreme. It is catered directly for hard right Christian Supremacists, which goes to show how the very Catholic members of the SCOTUS are in deep denial and ignore recent history in this country. For the hard right, Catholics just might be worse than Atheists. Once religious divisions start being more visible and Evangelicals gain more and more power and ability to force their agenda thanks to this ruling, they will revert to Catholic bashing and discrimination. Count on it.

Perhaps the most powerful tool the Court has is the ability to pick and choose which cases are heard in the first place. Cases brought by Evangelicals I predict will be paid a vast amount of more attention to than other religions.

FemNaziBitch Jul 2, 2014 4:34:18am

Evangelical Whackos are convinced that certain BC options are abortion. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure none of their money is mingled with money that pays for abortion.

aagcobb Jul 2, 2014 4:41:06am

Ed Brayton’s suggestion is exactly what I predicted the Administration will do, which negates the immediate bad effect of the decision. The other implications of the decision vividly illustrate why we need to elect the Democratic nominee in 2016 President, so that the next Supreme Court vacancies aren’t filled by archconservatives.

uncah91 Jul 2, 2014 4:44:18am

re: #7 FemNaziBitch

Evangelical Whackos are convinced that certain BC options are abortion. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure none of their money is mingled with money that pays for abortion.

Of course, this bit about avoiding the money mingling is a fiction. The insurance companies will price the product knowing that women will still get birth control. Even if they have two pots of money on the books, where did the money in the second, birth control, pot come from? Thin air? It comes fro the money people are paying the insurance company.

Skip Intro Jul 2, 2014 9:13:23am

re: #1 blueraven

But even if a way to mitigate the effects of this HL decision can be found, the damage is done.
Corporations now have religious rights. More cases will pop up over this. That can not be easily fixed. So no, I don’t think this will be irrelevant any time soon, if ever.

And they’re “persons” so they have free speech rights too, with “speech” = money. It won’t surprise me at all if this Court, given the chance, grants them voting rights too, with the number of votes based on the number of stockholders. This is the direction the hard right on the Court is headed.

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