“As it turns out, the justices weren’t legally required to consider the science. Quite the opposite: RFRA, a statute passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, grants special treatment under the law to religious people regardless of whether their beliefs are substantiated by evidence.”
Can we get a link to the relevant passage here? Does a belief that is contradicted by science get the same treatment as one which is merely not supported?
Every time she thinks of who she married.
Probably, because TPM doesn’t have a stock photo of Roberts and Atlito standing together singing “Con te Partiro”
Right across the world the forces of ignorance are on the march. From the middle east to the midwest, people believe their deeply held beliefs in ancient nonsense will protect them from a scientific future that requires us to work hard to understand and tame. At the same time we are dumbing down education and not rewarding people who actually work hard to become educated. I fear for our children.
I don’t understand where the Hobby Lobby people are getting their ideas from. I understand the disbelief in evolution because the bible says all animals were created in one day. But where did they get the idea that a specific birth control method causes abortion when scientists say it doesn’t? Do they find some Biblical justification? Did it come to someone i a dream or a revelation? If so, fair enough, but they should state that. I think the RFA requires people to actually prove in some way that the thing they want to do is based on their religious beliefs. (Not everyone can use peyote just by stating it’s part of their religion or anyone who wanted to take it could just state that.) They’d have to at least show that there is some basis for their use of it in their belief system. Hobby Lobby wasn’t asked to show how their religion indicates (scientifically or not) that an birth control methods was an abortion.
If liberals are serious about combating this stuff, instead of using the company names, they should use the individual’s name (in this case the Green and Hahn families). The subject takes on a whole new light that leaves a bad taste in even conservative’s mouths.
I’ve heard of veto-proof majorities. Neither party has had one in roughly fifty years.
Did you have a point?
Yes, and this is the point that needs to be hammered home. Claiming that Plan B is an abortifacient isn’t a religious belief, no matter how sincerely it is held. It’s a scientific claim, and an erroneous one at that.
I fear for all forms of life that don’t reside at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
I keep forgetting that politics is nothing but marketing and branding a product. Thank you for the reminder.
Fire Don Verrilli. He’s out of his league.
I wasn’t referring to parties, but to the whole of Congress, which passed those bills with such majorities.
Did you have a point?
Officially the Catholic Church is opposed to the use of any artificial form of contraception. The method they do approve, the rhythm method, is just as artificial but doesn’t rely on barriers or drugs. To endorse the rhythm method the Church had to engage is a word salad juggling act that would make a Philadelphia lawyer proud.
In Hobby Lobby the five conservative Catholic men on the Supreme Court were able to advance the Church’s official position in opposition to birth control. Of course, Catholic women don’t pay any attention to their priests when it comes to contraception, but the Catholic Church is still a man’s world.
No, the Catholic Church now recognizes the world is round, and many famous scientists have been priests, and many famous priests have been scientists, but it is not a beacon of hope for the scientific community.
Question for the Zealots:
For those who claim that a pregnancy occurs at the point of zygote formation… Is the Petri dish pregnant once the doctor succeeds in getting the spermatozoon and ovum to mate?
According to Ret. Chief Justice John Paul Stevens, RFRA Itself is unconstitutional from the git-go because it violates the establishment clause of the 1st amendment. I posted about this a while ago. Good luck Getting this SCOTUS to consider overturning it though.
But there’s another problem, maybe we’re approaching a crisis point. I think the constitution is past its use-by date. Jefferson thought it should be revised every 20 years or so to keep up with the times. This is complicated by the observation that lots of people “worship” the document itself [might as well worship a cookbook], rather than respect what the document provides: a groundwork for, and philosophy, of governance. But what progressive would want to have a constitutional convention now in this political climate? Or any in the near future. Our current system of “money speaks” and states with a lower population than Phoenix get two senators [to name just two oddities] is verschlampt and undemocratic. Things do not look good from my viewpoint and are bound to break.
Frank,
that is how I read it. May irony RIP.
Isn’t the problem that no one introduced the science at the initial trials/whatevers? I thought the Supes only ruled on the Constitutional issues - and I believe that the 5 old white Catholic guys were completely wrong - but if the science was already part of the lower courts’ findings they’d have to incorporate it into their reasoning?
Of course, the closest I’ve gotten to the Supremes was spotting Diana Ross on the streets in NYC.
Here is the point:
US Constitution, Article I, Section 7
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a law.
The RFRA passed the House unanimously (by voice vote without objection) and the Senate 97 to 3. That is what is known as a veto-proof majority. Do you have any further questions?
He (they) will sit out, just to teach the Democrats a “Lessen” ™.
Wouldn’t you say that the rhythm method is also based on science? After all, it relies on counting, medical observation, and drawing conclusions based on the evidence. How do the Bishops of First Street take that into account?