Booman, not for the first time, shows no better reading
comprehension than the judge whose written work he criticizes.
Alito does not say
that taking birth control is immoral, nor does he say anything that entails it,
or even suggests it.
What he does say can
be summarized and fairly paraphrased as follows.
1. That the Obamacare requirement that EGHPs provide coverage
for certain forms of contraception “arrogates to itself the authority to
provide a binding national answer” to the question whether it is wrong “to perform
an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or
facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another.”
2. That “HHS and the principal dissent in effect tell the
plaintiffs [Hobby Lobby] that their beliefs are flawed.”
3. That “courts must not presume to determine the
plausibility of a religious claim.”
4. And that the federal government may not require person A
to do something that enables person B to do something person A thinks, on
religious grounds, would be wrong.
1 and 2 are just hot air.
Alito, a practicing Catholic, does
not like this provision of the ACA.
(This was a 5-4 ruling, by the way. All five are practicing Catholics.)
(This was a 5-4 ruling, by the way. All five are practicing Catholics.)
Prohibitions 3 and 4 are neither in nor implied by the First
Amendment, which says exactly the following.
Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.
Next up, employers who are Jehovah’s Witnesses cutting coverage
for blood transfusions for their employees or their children?
Can they forbid transfusions to their own children, now?
What about others who deny medical care to their children, altogether, preferring
to pray over them or perform other religious rituals?
Such things have not been allowed, up to now.
Are these remarks of his a hint that Alito thinks such
things should be allowed, and will be if and when he and the other Catholics of
the court get a chance to ensure that?
What about moral waivers for fundamentalists on paying taxes
to support schools that teach evolution?
And does Alito agree that if the government cannot compel A
to enable B to do something A thinks would be wrong, neither can the government
compel A to do such a thing?
This could go very far, indeed.
She begins her public protest with a falsehood that is
dangerously close to the truth.
"In a decision of
startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including
corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of
any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely
held religious beliefs," she wrote.
And it is perfectly reasonable to ask how the court,
consistent with their decision, can
stop short of that.
Still, and very significantly, Justice Ginsberg makes the
very relevant and valid points that Hobby Lobby is a corporation, that corporations
do not have religious beliefs, and that they cannot sanely be supposed to
engage in any form of exercise of religion, though of course their stockholders
might.
And it is the corporation that is the employer, not the
stockholders.
And it is the corporation that would be required under ACA
to provide contraception coverage in its EGHPs, not the stockholders.
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