Obama law demands that employers supply birth control insurance. Religious based companies protest this.
Now if a religious company is screaming about religious freedom over this, are they not denying their employees religious freedom? Or is it an employee’s obligation to know and abide by their employer’s morals and ethics? They are not forced to work there by law, they chose to apply there. Or does economics create force? It may have a simple answer or not. Does a person or entity have the right, under certain circumstances, to dictate ethics/ morals to those they employ???
I can see how being forced to buy something that violates your religious morals is a violation of religious freedoms.
I can’t see somebody refusing to buy something for you that doesn’t violate your religious morals is a violation of religious freedoms.
“I don’t have any particular religious beliefs for or against X. Therefore if my employer doesn’t buy it for me, it’s a violation of my religious freedoms.”
How does that make sense?
Religion is nobody’s business.
What is a religious business, legally? It seems an organization run/owned by those sharing a religion must choose between not being a business and getting constitution protection which includes tax exemption or being a business and paying taxes and doing whatever else it is that other businesses must do.
Here is one link:
msnbc.com/msnbc/birth-control-coverage-stake
Its a slippery slope if ever there was one for both sides. How far will laws go to dictate who you hire and how much can law protect employee rights. Religion can really cause some employment issues. You live in sin?? Well we won’t hire you or you are fired. Illegitimate children, not married, drink liquor, homosexual, etc etc.
We don’t have to cover you, hire and you are fired. Religious freedom in the corporate world. Or you have no choice at all on employees or how they are paid or how much benefits you give them. You can’t fire a person if they are useless or reward a superior employee because that is discrimination against others etc,.
A precedent is about to be made that has some interesting and problematic issues. I am leaning to upholding the law but, without clear limits it can be just as bad.
I don’t know the law or precedent on this, but it seems who a business hires should be based on what they can know just by interacting with people and not by data about them that’s unrelated directly to their work history. So those who act like a drunk may get fired, etc.
On a more basic level of rational I’m in favor of forcing businesses to provide birth control - despite whatever fallacious argument against they may come up with. Why businesses and health care ever got intertwined is a long and ridiculous story of corruption and stupidity, but they are, and I prefer they be accountable for all types of health care despite its managements/owners personal objections, whether they be objections to birth control or health care in itself.
The government is not a religious entity, which I believe is the primary importance of the First Amendment, and the government can’t be an autonomous agency with no access to the outside world, be it religious or not. It taxes all individuals and businesses, and it has other requirements of all businesses and individuals. The policy responsible for determining those taxes and requirements will from time to time be largely due to religious individual law makers and voters, which can’t be helped. The subtle goal, similar to what I was saying in the above paragraph, is to just not explicitly state that the reason for those policies is religious. Which is why law makers opposing laws towards businesses and birth control are claiming to do it in the interest of First Amendment religious freedom, not religion itself. But they have nothing going for them, legally, when using that claim concerning businesses.
An honest, legal way for all involved to allow businesses who object to birth control to avoid the law, is to alter the law to allow any business that wants to replace birth control with money to buy whatever it si the individual employee wishes to legally purchase; such as birth control, or to just make that the standard for all businesses. The fact is the law makers don’t need a reason to do so, they simply need to pass the legislative requirements, the law makers should actually avoid giving a reason, because that’s the only way in which it become unconstitutional.
snicker honest and legal, does not go with govt or especially politicians…
First amendment is the tricky part. Have you heard that our government is putting on the table that corporations can be considered a voting citizen? Thus this brings in freedom of religion for them.
Getting a foothold on religion gives corporations a leg up on gaining citizen status. Now think of where that can lead.
This is not just about birth control laws. I think the Supreme court should be weighing what could occur due to this. On one hand the government gets another foothold on dictating and infringing on privacy or what I mentioned above. I am fairly certain I am missing other issues connected to this.