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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Senate Liberals Narrowly Lose Bid to Reverse SCOTUS Religious Freedom
Victory
via Breitbart Feed
Senate liberals--a mix of almost all Democrats and a few Republicans--missed
by a hair last week in a bid to overturn the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby
decision, which ruled unconstitutional the Obama administration’s heavy-
handed requirement that business owners provide abortion services for
employees, even in violation of their constitutionally protected religious
beliefs.
As reported by Politico:
A Democratic bill to reverse the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby
decision narrowly failed in the Senate on Wednesday, but it sparked more
contentious debate over contraception and religious freedom that both sides
hope will mobilize their voters in November.
The bill in effect says a 1993 religious freedom law at the heart of the
Hobby Lobby case doesn’t apply to legally required health benefits. The
Supreme Court had cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in ruling that
certain for-profit businesses can on religious grounds be exempted from the
Obamacare requirement that the health plans they offer workers include FDA-
approved birth control with no co-pays.
The procedural vote to take up the bill failed 56-43, four short of the
60 votes needed. Three Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk of
Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined the Democrats in support of
the measure sponsored by Patty Murray (D-Wash).
The fact that Senate liberals came so close to overturning the Hobby Lobby
decision is a good indication that the left has been hard at work “framing
” the debate. (Were you following the hysteria flying across the
Twittersphere after the decision came down?) And, per usual, they’ve done
it by fanning the flames of discontent with distortions about what the law
states, what the Court ruled, and what the ruling means.
Let’s take them one by one.
Distortion 1: The Hobby Lobby decision is part of a “vast right-wing
conspiracy” to undermine the rights of women.
Fact: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which provided the basis for
the Supreme Court ruling, was introduced by the late Senator Edward Kennedy
(D-MA) and current Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). It passed the Democrat-
controlled House by voice vote and sailed through the Democrat-controlled
Senate 97-3. President Clinton, a Democrat, signed the bill into law. If you
don’t like the decision, you can blame the left, right and centrists, as
politicians from every political persuasion voted in favor of this
legislation.
Distortion 2: The Supreme Court ruled that employers can deny women access
to contraceptive services and health care.
Fact: This is simply not true. As described by Republican Senators Kelly
Ayotte (R-NH) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) in an excellent op-ed they penned for
The Wall Street Journal: “Contrary to the misleading rhetoric, the Hobby
Lobby ruling does not take away women's access to birth control. No employee
is prohibited from purchasing any Food and Drug Administration-approved
drug or device, and contraception remains readily available and accessible
for all women nationwide.”
“In the Hobby Lobby case, the company's owners--the Green family--offered
healthcare plans that provide coverage for 16 of the 20 FDA-approved
contraceptive drugs and devices, including birth control pills, required
under the Affordable Care Act.”
Distortion 3: With this ruling, employers can deny health care to employees
by simply invoking “religious freedom” without any justification.
Fact: Justice Samuel Alito states in his majority opinion, "Our decision
should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must
necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer's religious beliefs." In
other words, this decision can’t be applied willy nilly under the general
principle of religious freedom. There must be a legitimate claim. In the
case of the Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby, they had a religious
objection to abortion, and 4 of the 20 contraceptive services at issue are
abortifacients. The effort to force them to provide such services, the Court
ruled, represented a legitimate infringement on their religious liberties.
Distortion 4: The nation is unified in its opposition to the Hobby Lobby
decision and would support an attempt by Congress to overturn it.
Fact: According to a Rasmussen poll, the American people support the Supreme
Court decision by a ten-point margin. In a Huffington Post/YouGov poll, the
margin was slimmer at 4 points but still in favor of the decision.
The Left is shrill and vocal and expert at the art of making their unpopular
opinions seem popular. But the fact remains, a plurality supports the
Supreme Court’s defense of religious liberties in the Hobby Lobby case. And
this is the sound and reasonable position to take.
As we argued in our amicus brief filed with the High Court on behalf of
Hobby Lobby, the owners of the company, any company, should not have to
choose between “fidelity to [their] faith or the imposition of unimaginable
fines.” The brief also reminds the Court of James Madison’s words in The
Federalist Papers: “An elective despotism was not the government we fought
for.”
You can expect the distortions, and this fight, to continue. According to
our friends at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who successfully
represented the courageous Green family against President Obama’s despotism
, there are many more court battles ahead. There at least 100 cases now
weaving their way through the federal courts, including one from Little
Sisters of the Poor:
In accordance with their faith, they uphold the unique, inviolable
dignity of all human life, especially those deemed weak or, to some, “
worthless” in society. The federal government’s contraception and abortion
mandate, however, forces the Little Sisters to provide services that
destroy human life, contradicting their very mission to respect it.
The Obama administration and their fanatic allies would see these nuns and
the religious freedom of millions of Americans crushed. Remember, no
abortifacient or abortion mandate was passed by Congress in Obamacare. This
anti-Church mandate is a creature solely of Obama’s regulators, working in
league with the pro-abortion lobby.
In the meantime, we should celebrate the legal victory. A battle has been
won in the defense of the First Amendment right to religious freedom. The
Obama administration has been waging war on several fronts against the
Christian church. This Obama assault, through Obamacare, was without modern
precedent. While girding for future battles, let’s applaud the High Court’
s decision to repel the administration’s overreach, which would have had
Americans either violate their consciences or lose their livelihoods. |
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