Can I request to henceforth be known as, "YJ the assclown?"

I'm sure they won't pay for a man's vasectomy either, but Obama care didn' try to force them to pay for that even though it can help reduce the risk of testicular cancer (no testicles, no cancer).

"Putin - there is no point in having any sort of discussion with someone of such perverse thinking as you"

I'd rather listen to styrofoam being rubbed together while reading Zizek and Deleuze than have a discussion with you.

" It is horrifying that you are allowed near children for a living, for a variety of reasons"

It's horrifying that you impregnated another human being. I didn't know farts could sexually reproduce. Maybe you're the solution to the global warming problem.

"I'm sure they won't pay for a man's vasectomy either"

Yes they will, actually. Try again.

YJ - you may request it, but your wish shall NOT be granted.

Putin - it's such a pleasure to mute you now, most of all because I know that when I continue to post various things in various places with certain knowledge that they will just piss the fuck out of you, I will not have to read your childish frothing rage in reply. Fuck off, my bear-suited friend. Enjoy your little closet.

How do you know Hobby Lobby will pay for a man's vasectomy? There is nothing in Obama Care that mandates it. And that is the point. Equal treatment. If you force a company to pay for a female contraceptive, you should force them to pay for the male too. Obama Care doesn't do that.

Piss the fuck out of me? Another elative case grammatical gem from the ever loquacious colon infection known as Krellin.

"How do you know Hobby Lobby will pay for a man's vasectomy?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/30/hobby-lobby-viagra_n_5543916.html

Misinformed as usual. And naturally, male "contraceptives" are used for the same purpose as female right? So this is an actual meaningful equivalency, right?

Preventive care costs far more for women than it does for me, genius. So making things fake equal actually disadvantages women, greatly. Not that you care, since they're all "sluts" because they won't sleep with you.

"sometimes jezebel just nails it."
Perhaps (I'll defer to your greater familiarity with its offerings), but the piece you linked to isn't one of those times. It's a screed that would make me blush if its sloppiness had come from someone on my side of the spectrum.

The Mother Jones piece that the Jezebel piece cites (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision) gets the same perspective but without all the name-calling and cathartic (by which I mean irresponsible) excess. A related piece at The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/whats-so-controversial-about-the-contraceptives-in-the-hobby-lobby-case/373709/) is also a better read.

Nevertheless, thanks for posting the link. It's led me to read more about Plan B and Ella, and my objections to them (especially Plan B) have diminished considerably.

So, is is "sloppy-wrong," or "sloppy-it-offends-my-delicate-Christian-sensibilities?"

...just so we're clear on exactly what kind of screed we are dealing with here, in your opinion.

A fair question. I'll preface my answer by saying that, on the one hand, I think the Court's ruling was too broad in the exceptions that it permitted, and I would have liked to have seen it based a little more in the science of what constitutes an implantation-preventing drug or device. On the other hand, I personally think it's fine for explicitly-granted personal rights (in this case, religious free exercise) to trump implicitly-derived personal rights (in this case, women's rights to control their reproduction). We can disagree about that -- and perhaps about whether the definition of corporations as "persons" is acceptable (although that train has long since left the station both in the US and elsewhere) -- but it's a position I think is reasonable. As for the jezebel piece:

It's too uncareful and too much venting, with a liberal sprinkling of unclever epithets for those with whom she disagrees. This offends my sensibilities as a critical thinker and writer rather more than it does my sensibilities as a Christian. The Mother Jones piece offends my political (and, to lesser extent, my religious) sensibilities, but it's a piece with which I can interact because it was infused with a much smaller percentage of raw emotion.

On the matter of factual inaccuracies:
"They bought Hobby Lobby's 'RELIGIOUS LIBERTY!' argument despite the fact that Hobby Lobby doesn't personally object to covering vasectomies for men; their religion only applies slut panic to women. The Court won't classify Hobby Lobby's woman-only scientifically illiterate objections to contraception as 'discrimination' against women."
You know, because Hobby Lobby and Conestoga object to all forms of contraception and want all of them not only not paid for, but also not permitted to be used. I will grant that SCOTUS went beyond what Hobby Lobby asked (apparently, although see this for a suggestion that it didn't -- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/30/morning-after-iuds/11768653/) and that even Hobby Lobby's request went further than the science says it ought to have done, but the author's assertion that Hobby Lobby's relatively specific objections were somehow internally inconsistent (or that they must have been motivated by a desire to do maximum damage to women without touching men) is only possible if she's reading the case with blinders on. It's just not supported by the evidence.

"The five men of the Supreme Court made pains to specify that this only applies to bosses who specifically object to women who want to use a portion of their compensation to obtain a pharmaceutical that will help them not get pregnant."
This is sloppy enough to obscure its intended meaning and to come out looking flat wrong (even if it does serve to spice up the pathos that all AP Lang students have come to know and love/hate). What she meant to say: women who want to get IUDs and Plan B treatments can't use their employer-paid-for health benefits to get them. What she actually said: bosses can tell women how they can and can't spend their money after they've gotten it as payment for their work. Hobby Lobby was not trying to stop the women from using their actual compensation for purposes of buying Plan B and IUDs; it was trying to stop accessible payment for Plan B and IUDs from being part of the actual compensation itself. Or, put another way, Hobby Lobby wanted the money for the drugs to come directly from the female employees' PERSONAL spending rather than directly from the company's CORPORATE spending. It's perfectly reasonable to dispute about whether that's an acceptable thing for a company to want (the SCOTUS dissenters did with a vengeance), but the article misses the subtle distinction completely, with the result that it misdefines (or misconceptualizes) "compensation" and runs straight on to the inaccurate suggestion that the companies were trying to stop the women from using their PERSONAL spending to buy the drugs and devices in question. Maybe that's not what author MEANT, but it's certainly what she SAID.

It's a farce to claim that Hobby Lobby wasn't objecting to all forms of birth control. They were objecting to 28 day hormonal therapy for christ's sake.

"On the other hand, I personally think it's fine for explicitly-granted personal rights (in this case, religious free exercise) to trump implicitly-derived personal rights (in this case, women's rights to control their reproduction)"

Even if those so-called "personal rights" harm lots of other people. Whatever happened to your freedom ends when your fist touches somebody else's nose?

And corporations having 'personal rights' or 'religion' is a farce. How can a collective of diverse individuals corporately have one religion?

"Hobby Lobby was not trying to stop the women from using their actual compensation for purposes of buying Plan B and IUDs; it was trying to stop accessible payment for Plan B and IUDs from being part of the actual compensation itself. "

It's not a choice for them to make. You can't pick and choose what insurance companies will cover. The employers aren't the insurance companies and the employers aren't specifically paying for any procedure against their will.

And the hypocrisy Jezebel was pointing out was the SC was refusing to apply their fallacious logic to other cases of possible religious exemptions, trying to claim that this would only be applied on a case by case basis. In other words, only birth control.

And whatever happened to the rightwing principle of not interfering with private contracts between other people? I mean you can't discern a consistent principle anywhere with this ruling.

This is functionally not different from a corporation refusing to pay wages because those wages might be used to pay for birth control. There is not a one-to-one relationship between providing insurance that covers birth control and that insurance being used for that purpose. But even the possibility that such funding would be used for that purpose is considered "objectionable".

This ruling is indefensible. Dress it up in any fancy hypocritical language you want. Complain about pathos all you want. This is judicial activism at its worst.

Putin - You do realize that with this ruling Hobby Lobby (and any other businesses) would still be free to include birth control coverage for women if they so choose, right? How do you manage to misconstrue that as "interfering with private contracts"? Forcing companies such as HL to include the coverage when they do not want to would be interfering in private contracts, not the other way around.

HL is not the insurance company, so yes it is interference with private contracts. They're not purchasing the birth control. They are purchasing insurance premiums whose options include birth control. They're putting pressure on insurance providers to dump particular services available to employees, because if the company doesn't purchase the insurance the employees have to get it through the government.

I hope pacifist companies start dumping healthcare coverage for veterans.

"Even if those so-called 'personal rights' harm lots of other people. Whatever happened to your freedom ends when your fist touches somebody else's nose?"
If you wanted to assert a right under the American Constitution to punch someone else in the face, it would sort of have to be an implicitly-derived right, wouldn't it? But more seriously, there are plenty of ways in which parts of the Constitution that are expressly stated can conflict with other parts of the Constitution that are expressly stated: freedom of speech or of the press vs. sedition and treason, for example, or the ban on established religions vs. the free exercise of personal religion. Then it's a question of one having more importance than the other.

If the ERA had been ratified, then you would have two expressly stated rights coming into conflict with each other, and the argument for women's rights taking primacy would (in my mind) be a good deal stronger. But it wasn't ratified, and women's rights to legally access contraception and abortion remain implicitly derived. You can't simply assert the primacy of reproductive rights over and above religious liberty (and swap in a sole-proprietorship business in place of a corporation on this one to help you avoid the "but it's a corporation, not a person" trap), which is one of the reasons that you have to go the "compelling government interest" and "least restrictive method" routes.

As to whether corporations are people, I'm not going to get into that. I'm willing to accept it as a settled matter of law, but I think it needs to be well circumscribed.

"They are purchasing insurance premiums whose options include birth control. They're putting pressure on insurance providers to dump particular services available to employees"
AND
"It's not a choice for them to make. You can't pick and choose what insurance companies will cover. The employers aren't the insurance companies and the employers aren't specifically paying for any procedure against their will."
I'm not sure I see what, as a matter of principle, the problem is. The idea of companies negotiating with insurance companies over the contents of their insurance plans isn't exactly a ludicrous idea. If Hobby Lobby wants to restrict the services that it's paying premiums to make available (even for non-religious reasons, like cost or complexity of administration), it seems reasonable to me that it should be allowed to do so. Likewise if it wants to expand the normal menu services. It COULD also just stop paying the premiums and reduce to zero the services that it's paying to make available, and then everyone would be out of luck. Or perhaps it shouldn't be allowed to do that either?

^I should also note that your point about interference with contracts might (would?) be stronger, Putin, if Hobby Lobby was trying to get the government to legislate a ban on insurance companies' ability to offer contraceptives at all. But of course, that's not what's happening.

Without the mandated BC coverage the insurance companies would choose to offer plans without it (and plans with it). Companies like HL would choose to provide the non-BC plans to their employees. This ruling takes us back to that state. Complain about the decision if you like, but don't claim it is inconsistent with opposing interference with private contracts.

OK OS, remind me to add your name to the short list of people who I should not challenge unless I actually *want* to have a meaningful discussion on the subject at hand.

At this point I wish I lived in the USA, so that I could incorporate myself to avoid student debt on the grounds that it violates my deeply held religious principles that debt should be forgiven after 7 years (see: Deuteronomy 15)

Interestingly, 7 years of inactivity clears a debt off your credit report. If the IRS doesn't collect within 7, they aren't allowed to pursue it. Only student loans seem to be pursuable for decades.

Student Loans are pursuable even post bankruptcy, I believe.

You are correct on that mendax

But student loans in delinquency do not go against your credit.

They still keep your income tax refunds and attach to your personal property.