Reply to Obama is anti-Catholic because he went to Harvard?

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "Obama is anti-Catholic because he went to Harvard?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=TheManWithAUsername][quote=Anonymous]No one as far as I know has ever suggested that when a church enters into transactions wholly unrelated to the communication of its message (such as renting apartments to members of the public), the anti-discrimination laws are inapplicable.[/quote]
That's the whole point. The hospital isn't communicating the Church's message. That's why everyone keeps giving these hypotheticals.

If you don't like PP's example, I'll give you all (yet another goddam) one:
Church of White Supremacy. Unquestionably, its core principle is that blacks are inferior as employees and undeserving of medical treatment. They start a hospital, and naturally enough they don't want to hire blacks or treat them. How is it different?

(That's right, martyrs: you have goaded me into typing this up again. You have won.)

[quote=Anonymous]Second, as I tried to explain on another thread, the Smith (peyote) case does not state the controlling law with regard to generally applicable laws that infringe on religious exercise.[/quote]
I thought that was interesting, as I said in that thread. As I said there, it also looks like the RFRA precedents would give the Church little hope here. Note that that's really outside of the question most people seem to be arguing, whether the Church should be exempt.

[quote=Anonymous]Providing women with free birth control is hardly a compelling governmental interest, since anybody who can afford a cell phone can afford birth control.[/quote]
You know that's not the only way to define the interest. It may come down to how the interest is defined, but you could just as easily say that the interest is to ensure that the large majority of people are comprehensively covered. You mentioned the Quaker/tax case before; why is the interest in getting the tiny amount of money that is one pacifist's tax contribution to the military so important? These lines between compelling and not are getting pretty fine.

But you didn't do the other part of the analysis. How does this "substantially burden" the exercise? This is a pretty far cry from the peyote case in that regard. That's especially shaky given that, as I understand it, the Church is already operating under similar rules in 28 states.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics