liberal tolerance - Justice Scalia at Wesleyan University

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

You have the liberty issue backwards. Letting a company deny legally protected access to contraception through insurance for moral reasons is taking away someone's liberty. It's saying that the religious belief supersedes US Law...which is exactly what the Constitution sought to prohibit.

-spence

btw...this is absurd...companies, institutions and organizations set standards with regard to "standards".. behaviour ,dress codes, fraternization policies, even speech.....etc...all the time....the test is that it apply equally and that noone is treated unequally.....Ms. Fluke is not being treated unequally within the institution....she's not being singled out and denied access to contraception( if she purchases contraception I doubt anyone is going to confiscate it), she just not receiving something free through the institution(or via it's insurer) that conflicts with the institutions policies and morals and what you have pointed out is that now a questionable government mandate is something that she is pointing to and applauding....it should be part of the upcoming argument in the Supreme Court on the subject....it's the government, specifically Congress that that is restricted from implementing these restrictions...not private institutions, organizations and companies...instead of the Rasmussen book, you should grab something on our founding documents and then tell me which "Right" Ms. Fluke is being denied and which "Liberty" had been taken away

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

btw...this is absurd...companies, institutions and organizations set standards with regard to "standards".. behaviour ,dress codes, fraternization policies, even speech.....etc...all the time....the test is that it apply equally and that noone is treated unequally.....Ms. Fluke is not being treated unequally within the institution....she's not being singled out and denied access to contraception( if she purchases contraception I doubt anyone is going to confiscate it), she just not receiving something free through the institution(or via it's insurer) that conflicts with the institutions policies and morals and what you have pointed out is that now a questionable government mandate is something that she is pointing to and applauding....it should be part of the upcoming argument in the Supreme Court on the subject....it's the government, specifically Congress that that is restricted from implementing these restrictions...not private institutions, organizations and companies...instead of the Rasmussen book, you should grab something on our founding documents and then tell me which "Right" Ms. Fluke is being denied and which "Liberty" had been taken away

The constitutionality of the mandate is a separate topic, although the polls I've seen show about 65% support for it in regards to contraception.

The issue still is if it's OK for a religious institution to be exempt from Federal law. There are numerous state laws which offer similar mandates so the First Amendment argument Jim is grasping for doesn't seem reasonable.

Considering Justice Scalia's comments on Indians smoking peyote for religious reasons...I'm not so sure there's a good argument at the Federal level either.

-spence

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

The constitutionality of the mandate is a separate topic, although the polls I've seen show about 65% support for it in regards to contraception.
it's not at all a separate topic...we wouldn't be having this discussion if the democrats hadn't rammed constitutionally questionable legislation through congress which gave a political appointee the broad power to arbitrarily create mandates ....and "rights" apparently....a number of democrats would not have supported the legislation if this were spelled out at the time the legislation was passed and I'm pretty sure that some of them have said that they would not have been on board if they knew that this was going to result...this is insane Spence and you continue to not only support it but make excuses for it....... your poll doesn't mean squat

The issue still is if it's OK for a religious institution to be exempt from Federal law. no, it is whether the federal government can force a religious institution to conform to an arbitrary and questionable federal mandate which violates their religious principles and was created as a result of a questionable federal law, have you forgotten the dubious way in which the law was actually passed??? you are on very weak ground when you refer to it as "Federal Law" There are numerous state laws which offer similar mandates so the First Amendment argument Jim is grasping for doesn't seem reasonable. there's a big difference between what the states can mandate and the Constitutional limits on the Federal Government, another thing that you seem to not understand

Considering Justice Scalia's comments on Indians smoking peyote for religious reasons...I'm not so sure there's a good argument at the Federal level either.

-spence

this is really basic stuff Spence..but somehow, like our Constitutional Scholar-in-Chief, you spend all of your time and supposed knowledge undermining the Constitution...