…and the anti-abortion lobby is cross that she interrupted an attorney (and compared abortioncontraception to other medical procedures – in a case about medical insurance).
MR. CLEMENT (HOBBY LOBBY & CONESTOGA): Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: When a Federal Government agency compelled employers to provide something as religiously sensitive as contraception, it knew that free exercise in RFRA claims would soon follow. In particular, the agency itself provided exemptions and accommodations for the religious exercise of a subset …
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Is your claim limited to sensitive materials like contraceptives or does it include items like blood transfusion, vaccines? For some religions, products made of pork? Is any claim under your theory that has a religious basis, could an employer preclude the use of those items as well?
The American Spectator is outraged that Justice Sotomayor (and her colleagues Kagan and Ginsburg) might ask questions about the consequences of extrapolation from Hobby Lobby’s ‘religious objection’ argument because AS thought Clement should be given uninterrupted time to develop his arguments about icky old abortifacients (aka contraception) rather than examining the consequential and constitutional aspects of Hobby Lobby’s argument which rely upon the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as granting corporations ‘religious liberty’ rights to interfere with the private lives of their employees (although AS notes with approval Justice Kennedy asking “very difficult questions” of the opposing attorney Verilli, because interrupting the development of Verilli’s arguments is fair game, for sure).
Life News is more outraged by this comparison of one common medical practice with some others, of course, and takes yet another opportunity to misrepresent emergency contraception as “abortion-causing drugs”.
Salon’s coverage is approving of Sotomayer, Kagan and Ginsburg’s lines of questioning, and is generally less hyperventilating.
It appears that Clement wants to use the Supreme Court to present the specifics of some religious arguments against contraception and abortion, while at least some of the Justices are insisting that he focus on his arguments that religious objections in principle should justify exemptions from a general law.
N.B. like Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsburg, my focus is on the consequences of extending religious freedom exemptions to corporations. If you want to debate abortion, this is not the place.
Categories: culture wars, law & order, religion
Friday Hoyden: Emmy Noether 
Hoyden About Town 
Oh they don’t like being called on their shit? Well too bad buddy, too bad. Good on you Justice Sotomayor, may others follow your lead.
Digby at Hullabaloo has some depressing links about the rest of the Dominionist agenda in the USA:
The Hobby Lobby slippery slope: it’s not just about birth control. (They already have the Bible verses ready …)
More troubling than the blatant and completely predictable hypocrisy on the right is the part of the plaintiffs’ argument that isn’t getting airplay. It’s not just access to and payment for contraception that the plaintiffs want to block; it’s also *counseling about* contraceptive options. More info here: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/19/3415983/hobby-lobby-contraception-counseling/
I truly wish my country would haul itself out of the Dark Ages instead of digging itself farther in. When folks back home ask us when we’re coming back from Australia, I point to things like this and ask, “What exactly would we be coming home to?”
I used to read about cases like this in America and just not understand HOW it was possible it was happening.
Now I see how it’s going to happen here.