Brilliant writing...

[Chris James]

I fully agree with the with the points made in this opinion piece from the L.A. Times. The Hobby Lobby decision by SCOTUS is going to raise hell from those who claim to guard the gates of heaven. If discrimination is a valuable commodity in American Christianity then we need to rethink their place in our Constitution. Nothing says we cannot amend the First Amendment to remove complete religious freedom.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-lgbts-from-work-20140715-column.html#page=1

If he had not been assassinated by racist bigotry then who knows what Dr. King would have said about inclusion and protection for LGBT people. He was not pro-gay at the time of his death, but he was a man who could see the worth of change in society. And how many of the ignorant have become enlightened by his words over the years? Many have changed over time, except maybe for a few justices on the Supreme Court. Men in dark robes are starting to look more like Darth Vader all the time and they are leading this nation to the dark side.

[Cole Parker]

I thought that decision was one of the worst the Court has ever made. Five old men deciding not on the law, not on the Constitution, but on their religious underpinnings. Just dreadful! They should be ashamed of themselves.

c

[vwl]

First of all, the Supreme Court decision was not based on a Constitutional issue; it was based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed unanimously by the House and 97-3 by the Senate. That Act provides special protection to religious beliefs -- it was based on a tribal right to use peyote in ceremonies -- that the government had to have a compelling reason to burden on a person's exercise of a religious belief and that it was the least intrusive way to accomplish the goal.

The court decided that the administrative agency's implementation of the ACA overstepped the bounds -- the penalties were huge -- and infringed on Hobby Lobby's owners' exercise of their religious beliefs. No one disputed that the Hobby Lobby owners had a sincere belief that abortion was wrong and that four of the 20 required contraception measures constituted abortion, in the owners' views.

I think the court was very careful in distinguishing this case from a racial or sexual orientation case in which the government has a compelling interest and that there are reasonable ways to accommodate that interest.

We are citizens, not subjects of an administrative agency.