So, how long before the smear campaign against the SCOTUS justices who made this HL decison?

2seaoat wrote:"Precisely because 'we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference,' " wrote Anontin Scalia, quoting from Braunfeld v. Brown, "and precisely because we value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not protect an interest of the highest order. The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind."


Just saying......the court is entrusted with doctrinal consistency and continuity, and this really can be limited to JUST this case and fact pattern, but the lack of doctrinal consistency is stunning.   I really do not have a big problem with this case limited to JUST this case, but after years of lawsuits, I am afraid the Supreme Court has stepped exactly where our founding fathers did not want them to step under the Establishment Clause.......Where the Catholic majority is giving credence to a concept of abortion with the morning after pill, yet fails to recognize a religious ceremony of native Americans........big problems for the Supremes, and there will be plenty of time to qualify this decision, but I agree with the characterization that the Supreme Court just walked into a minefield where Government will decide which religions are sincere and worthy......not the place we want our court.

2seaoat wrote:We would not be here had the SCOTUS had the cahones to shoot down this crap law in the first place.

The law was always clearly constitutional.   This decision if completely limited to the facts presented which the court bent over backwards to explain the same, is perhaps not as clear, but it is constitutional for now.  The rubber will hit the road in attempting to apply this twisted contortion act to other facts and then come out with doctrinal consistency.......it is literally a minefield, and that is without addressing the huge equal protection issues which the court did not even want to go near.

I always accept the law of the land, but here I think there must be additional cases to qualify exactly what just happened beyond the artificial baffling mechanism of this case standing only on these facts.........no corporate lawyer in America is going to accept that as they prepare their pleadings using this very case as precedent.......it will be interesting.

Sal wrote:It's not only Constitutional, but the Court went out of its way to explain that one way to fill the gap would be to extend to these women an accommodation the Obama administration offered to employees of religious nonprofits like universities and hospitals.

It's not that this can't be overcome.

It can and will be.

It's that this is a really bad ruling that sets a horrendous precedent.

2seaoat wrote:Tex,

I disagree.  Every person who serves on the Supreme Court is very gifted.  Without exception most of these men are brilliant and achieved legal scholars.  People attack justice Thomas, but he is extremely bright, but he is rather lazy and follows Scalia religiously.   Scalia is brilliant.   He is leading the charge to scale back the abuses of government on search warrants and probable cause.  Roberts is probably the most common sense and gifted justice the court has seen in thirty years, and they are working to scale back the power of government.   They just got this wrong.   Not so much in the limited decision, but the doctrinal inconsistency which will be extremely difficult to back out.   To suggest that these men put their religion before their decisions based on law I think goes too far, but certainly the majority of the catholic conservative justices have very strong moral frameworks, and I think this case has caused a collision with their otherwise stellar logic.

2seaoat wrote:Tex,

I disagree.  Every person who serves on the Supreme Court is very gifted.  Without exception most of these men are brilliant and achieved legal scholars.  People attack justice Thomas, but he is extremely bright, but he is rather lazy and follows Scalia religiously.   Scalia is brilliant.   He is leading the charge to scale back the abuses of government on search warrants and probable cause.  Roberts is probably the most common sense and gifted justice the court has seen in thirty years, and they are working to scale back the power of government.   They just got this wrong.   Not so much in the limited decision, but the doctrinal inconsistency which will be extremely difficult to back out.   To suggest that these men put their religion before their decisions based on law I think goes too far, but certainly the majority of the catholic conservative justices have very strong moral frameworks, and I think this case has caused a collision with their otherwise stellar logic.