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Warpy

(111,254 posts)
1. Yes, they're governing according to the wishes of aristocracy and theocracy
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 01:35 PM
Jul 2014

and they're making a lot of unconstitutional, bad law.

Civil rights were always meant to rest with the individual. The Five Goons have completely forgotten this.

 

Voice for Peace

(13,141 posts)
2. This is Bill Moyers' -- since it's not specified in the video title
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 02:10 PM
Jul 2014

it's helpful to give a short explanation or intro.. might
get more views. Might not, of course. Anyway, thank you
for posting this. The current Supreme Court is scary bad.

Dustlawyer

(10,495 posts)
8. That is one of my all time favorite movies because it is so realistic to my 25 years of
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 08:01 PM
Jul 2014

practicing law! It is on my tattoo "And Justice for All" frames the Lady Justice because it sums up my experiences in my career. I am living through the BP Deepwater Horizon litigation and I am seeing shit so over the top it make this movie look like a wonderful system of Justice!

This Supreme Court doesn't care about precedent, the 99%, and they lied about not being "Activist" Judges. Just fucking LIED! Your inclusion of the clip was perfect because the Supreme Court just raped every woman in the U.S. and they would like to do it again!

BrotherIvan

(9,126 posts)
11. I'm going to have to watch it again
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 11:07 PM
Jul 2014

They don't make them like that anymore. I also thought of The Verdict when Paul Newman meets with the bishops and they try to pay him off. There was no justice or logic in the HL decision. None.

I'm sure your experience with BP, once you are able to write about it, is something people need to know. These corporations and the politicians and judges they own are a cancer.

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
6. One of the big problems with RFRA is that it puts courts in the position of either
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 05:56 PM
Jul 2014

accepting a plaintiff's or defendant's claim that a belief is a religious belief, that it qualifies for protection under the First Amendment because it is a religious belief and not just a favorite idea of the litigant.

Presumably, a court is not bound by the First Amendment to accept just any claim that anything a plaintiff does not want to fund or do or support or any law a defendant does not want to comply with is based on religion.

Is a court qualified to decide whether the belief is a religious one? whether it is sincere? whether RFRA applies to permit these people to practice their religion as they believe they should?

What about Mormons and polygamy? Will our laws on that be changing on that under RFRA?

Can a Mormon claim that his wishing to marry more than one woman is a sincere belief and therefore he is exempt from generally applicable laws prohibiting him from such marriages?

BrotherIvan

(9,126 posts)
12. But applying it to a corporation is the problem
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 11:09 PM
Jul 2014

Once they decided that corporations = people, then all else followed. First it was that corporations needed free speech. Now corporations have religion.

It is my understanding that the RFRA was meant to apply to individuals only. When the SC decided that not only could a entity have a belief, it could impose that belief upon others is when it all went to hell.

BrotherIvan

(9,126 posts)
15. I have to admit ignorance
Sun Jul 13, 2014, 02:09 AM
Jul 2014

But what I have read about it, liberals supported it to help Native Americans to prevent roads on sacred lands and using peyote. Protecting the rights of the individual is good in my book, the problem is we have rabid religious cults in this country who are capitalizing on every possible loophole to force their beliefs onto others.

I have no problem with what people wish to do in their homes, their bedrooms or their churches. The minute they wish to impose upon another individual, that must be stopped. I don't understand why all these supposed "chosen ones" want to force us heathens into their circle. According to them, I'm going to hell so what do they care?

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
16. You're right about the Native American issues, but RFRA was an overly broad solution
Sun Jul 13, 2014, 03:27 AM
Jul 2014

The Hobby Lobby case illustrates what can happen when you're focusing on a narrow class of problems but you try to address those problems with general language. There were probably few or no members of Congress who thought that the RFRA would cover a Hobby Lobby-type situation; but, to be fair, there were probably few or none who thought it wouldn't. They just weren't thinking about it at all.

There are specific statutes about Native American use of peyote, about exempting Amish from Social Security, about allowing orthodox Jews who are Air Force chaplains to wear yarmulkes while in uniform, etc. That's the better way to deal with such conflicts.

BrotherIvan

(9,126 posts)
17. That makes sense
Sun Jul 13, 2014, 08:48 AM
Jul 2014

I agree with you. I still believe the HL decision was twisted logic in that it assumed that corporations could hold religious beliefs. From that one assumption, the argument that corporations could then discriminate based on religion followed. We shall see how bad it gets. I don't think for a minute it will stop at contraception.

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
13. Very good point! I had the same reaction.
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 11:42 PM
Jul 2014

Although the immediate reaction naturally focuses on access to contraception, the decision does throw a spotlight on the more general problems of implementing the RFRA as amended by the RLUIPA.

Alito's opinion for the majority stated that "the scope of RLUIPA shows that Congress was confident of the ability of the federal courts to weed out insincere claims." This view may herald a new wave of court decisions examining a litigant's asserted religious beliefs and giving them a thumbs up or thumbs down. Traditionally, courts have resisted plunging into that thicket. Of course, activist judges like the current majority have no problem taking on that role. One can assume that adherents of mainstream Christian denominations will always win and other people will often lose.

In some cases, of course, the sincerity of the asserted belief is clear. You raise a good example concerning polygamy. At least one breakaway Mormon sect have continued to preach and practice it even when that meant fighting both the law and the much larger "regular" LDS church. That decades-long history is good evidence of sincerity. In those instances, the activist judges will have little to go on except the very thing they have always criticized most harshly when accusing liberals of activism. They will rule based on personal preference. Those five don't feel comfortable with contraception but they do support strict monogamy (even if it turns into serial polygamy). Therefore, opponents of birth control (and, down the road, perhaps opponents of racial integration and opponents of environmental regulation) will be granted exemptions from the law, but people who want to engage in polygamy or use drugs in religious rituals can forget about it.

elleng

(130,882 posts)
7. Thanks for posting this, DreamSmoker.
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 06:03 PM
Jul 2014

Last edited Sat Jul 12, 2014, 06:33 PM - Edit history (1)

I posted this Greenhouse column in Good Reads a few days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101697256

navarth

(5,927 posts)
9. Thanks.
Sat Jul 12, 2014, 10:06 PM
Jul 2014

Thanks for the reminder....I need to go hang out at Bill's site and check up on the latest. kick.

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