Forums → WEPR → Burwell v Hobby Lobby decision

This debate has inevitably morphed into an argument about the complications that arise from penises and vaginas. Who shall save us now? Moegrecheeee!!!!! Come help us out! Where are you? Moe!!!

This debate has inevitably morphed into an argument about the complications that arise from penises and vaginas.

No, because he gave examples of other groups to demonstrate his point.

You're saying the term can't apply to married people?

Saying that it's *possible* doesn't mean it's *guaranteed* or even *likely*. Ignoring the issue itself doesn't help. Address the question.

Do you know there are people with other problems (unrelated to fertilization) that can be resolved by taking them?

[quote]because all men are evil and will rape you, right? That's an over-generalization based on a prejudiced bias. Just because you have a vagina between your legs does not mean you're going to get raped.

I did address the question. I said that the question is an over-generalization based on a bias. I can't help if you're going to ignore the rest of my statement.

Do you know there are people with other problems (unrelated to fertilization) that can be resolved by taking them?

[quote]Anyway, what's so bad about risk-free pre-marital sex when a woman wants to?

Hobby Lobby does identify itself as a Christian company who identifies life as starting with conception.

Good for them. Their employees, however, may not.

I have always believed that private companies should be allowed to identify themselves under a particular religion,

And identify themselves they can.

and conform to that religion's spiritual beliefs and practices

They cannot force those who do not follow their religion to conform. If they are not going to hire only Christians who have their same beliefs, they cannot discriminate against their employees. Funnily, we don't allow selective hiring based on religion, ethnicity, nationality, or whatever, for extremely similar reasons.

(such as not being open on Sunday.)

That is a business decision, related to the business. The business owners are entitled to make decisions about how they want to run their business. They are not entitled to make decisions about how their employees live their lives.

To my knowledge, they're not stopping ALL birth control,

Nah. They just invest in that exact same type of birth control they don't want to provide to their employees.

Don't like the ruling? don't shop at or work for that company

That's really beside the point. A business is not a person. Corporations do not have religious beliefs. The CEOs are not forced to use birth control if they do not want to. They do not get to make that choice for those they employ.

I don't see why this company should have to pay for some liberal woman's irresponsible sexual behavior.

1) Not only liberal women have sex.
2) Using birth control is the opposite of irresponsible.
3) As a business, they have an obligation towards their employees.

And if the company's beliefs are pro life, they shouldn't be forced to support abortion.

They don't have to.

I thought the motto was government (or who ever else) stay out of my bedroom. Hypocrisy.

The amount of irony in this statement is over 9000.

I do respect and honor other peoples' beliefs and I will defend them to the death.

I respect people's right to believe whatever they want. I do not respect their baseless beliefs which are subject to criticism like any other idea and do not respect their attempts at forcing everyone else to conform to their beliefs.

That statement is a contradiction, as I am pretty sure that, by definition, is what a **** is.

1) There's nothing wrong with casual sex.
2) I'm not sure what definition other people are using, but in my mind, a **** is someone who has sex for favors/benefits instead of money.

The reasoning behind the ban on the emergency contraceptives is because it goes against their stance on abortion.

So because they don't believe in something, they get to force that belief on others. Yet it's discrimination against THEM? Bull****.

Also, do you know how bad chemically and psychologically emergency contraceptives mess you up?

They don't. Emergency contraception/abortion are some of the safest medical treatments out there.

telling them that they have to provide these emergency contraceptives, no matter what their spiritual beliefs?

Their religion isn't law. The law also says that employers must provide healthcare to their employees. No one is forcing those who do not want to use it to use it. The ones discriminating and forcing their beliefs on others are the ones trying to deny others that choice by citing their beliefs.

the company is.

And who's working for the company so that company has profits? Oh wait, the employee is!

Companies aren't some magical benevolent entities that provides for those that happen to reside in its business location. Employees make the company what it is. A company is a name. It isn't a person. It isn't an entity. It cannot have beliefs and shouldn't have the rights of a person.

tl;dr all of it

In a FREE country, an employer should have the right to say "This is what we offer for payment and benefits. If you're fine with that, then great! We'll be glad to have you regardless of your actual beliefs or practices outside of work... if not, then you're free to seek employment elsewhere." As long as they're not forcing anyone to stay at the job, and they're not forcing anyone to accept these terms, then there's nothing wrong with it. It's not a matter of religion. It's a simple matter of being an employer who should be able to offer their prospective/employees whatever they want to offer regardless of how they justify it. I realize those last few lines don't mix well with minimum wage and such, but although similar in situation I don't find min wage and contraception benefits equivocal. Money is basically a necessity to survive in our world and contraception is not. The what ifs of rape and unplanned pregnancy aren't within the realm of things a business should have to accommodate for if they don't want to. Just because something would be better if in practice than what already is doesn't mean that you should have the right to force it into being. I don't know why not wanting to fork out the money for emergency contraception pills equates to trying to control lives. They're not saying that they can't use those pills and still work for them... they're saying that if they want it, then they should have to pay for it. ...slightly different

I'm not sure that Obama should've been able to mandate all of the things that he has with his healthcare ideals.

It's not like they're coming out of the closet with a giant "SURPRISE!!! NO PLAN B FOR YOU!!" without any reason. HL is just like Chikfila in that everyone knows where they stand Christianity wise.

Look at the situation from a different angle. It's being said that employees should be able to glean whatever they decide that they "need" from their employers. ...and that list of things will just continue to grow. I don't think that should be the way things work. In our FREE world, the employer should be able to declare what they offer salary and benefits wise and the employee should have the right to haggle and accept whatever offer from whatever prospective employers they're seeking out.


If I open up my own company and I am the single 100% owner of said company... then I should be able to conduct the business of my company however I see fit. It also holds true for the scenario where I only owned 51% of the company... It doesn't matter if they're making me money or not. They chose to accept whatever offer they were given and they're free to leave whenever they choose. If you want better, then maybe you should've aspired to more than working at hobby lobby.... or go work at walmart. If 51% of the shareholders of hobby lobby are of this mindset, then it doesn't matter if there's one of them or 50000 of them. The government shouldn't be able to force the people that run businesses to run them exactly as the government wants. We're so bent up over a business telling people how to live their lives when the government is trying to do the exact same thing.

Should people be free to be ******** that we don't agree with or should we be chained by law to do whatever the government wants us to do as it wants us to do it?

I apologize for the double... but from what I've read here it looks like they employees are basically getting what's not spent on 4 out of 16 contraceptive pills back in cash that they can choose to spend however they choose.

You know what solves everything and makes everyone happy? A collectivized healthcare plan that we all pay into and get what we need out of it. We spend less money, we get the same level of treatment, everyone gets to use it because we're all paying for it, and there are no arguments over whether employer provided healthcare plans must cover various things.

Unfortunately, people are very good at doing what is not the best option. Let's keep choosing to spend twice as much on healthcare, consuming a whole 10% more of our GDP than necessary, because we love the freedom to be stupid.

Edit: Sonatavarius, your post is basically one big repetition of the same point. My question to you is: Why is it only the owner's beliefs that matter? Are the employees not people with their own beliefs?

A normal, healthy relationship between two people where they want to engage in sex is an example that stands out when you feel that my points are a contradiction Pyro. If a person wants to have premarital sex with their loved one, how is that being a ****? That's not a definition of a ****, far out.

Not all men will rape, only a tiny tiny minority will. But that is besides the point, and the reasons you raise are just red herrings because....rape happens. The point that not all men rape, hence contraceptives should not be made available simply isn't valid once you wrap your head securely around the point. Daft.

My bosses' religious stance should not trump my own medical needs and how I take care of my body. Strip the issue down to the bone, and what you have is a corporation that is taking it upon itself to decide the reproductive habits and cycles of their employees, a dangerous precedent. You are free to force people of your own belief to adhere to an anti-abortion stance. But it is not fine if this extends to forcing people who believe otherwise to follow your lead.

And no, they are not shoving their beliefs down the corporations throats. They are merely providing the option on the table. The board members and people of their ilk are not forced to use the contraceptives. But others who feel otherwise should similarly be free to use them and have access to them. Small businesses will receive high amounts of subsidies, and large corporations suck up so much cash anyway, they need hardly think about the cost for paying for contraceptives. I for one, believe in increased worker power, rights and benefits, and this includes proper healthcare.

To address the point about HL paying more than the minimum wage...well, IUDs, which are the most effective and hassle free form of birth control can cost more than $1,000 out of pocket. That's a big big chunk out of any poor sod on the minimum wage. And what about companies who are not as generous as HL? Their employees may well suffer.


Freedom is not an absolute concept to be displayed and harped upon proudly and incessantly. There are limits to "freedom", and such limits certainly end when it goes against the public good, hence the need for the government to act as a mediator. Every one dollar spent on funding for family planning saves taxpayers slightly less than four dollars in pregancy related costs. That in itself is a social good. The goals of the Healthy People 2020 initiative include a 10% increase in the proportion of pregnancies that are intended and a 10% decrease in the number of conceptions that occur within 18 months after a woman's previous delivery. That is what the contraceptive mandate is working towards. The government should force people to run businesses the way the government wants it to, provided it is towards the social good, and provided if the actions enacted by the corporation is tantamount to religious bigotry in the name of so called "freedom".

Anyway, the real hypocrisy is HL allegedly having a 401(k) plan for their employees that invests in funds that invest in companies that produce contraceptives, and not just those 16 they approve of, but even abortion inducing drugs, and Ella B. So well.....it's fine and dandy to spit in the faces of your employees, deny them their rights and preach morality but it's also fine to indirectly invest in the very same drugs you're preaching against. Far better for them to just drop the investment scheme now, and preserve a shred of integrity.

I never said just because someone has premarital sex automatically makes them a ****, but someone who has constant, casual sex is, and that's how you made it sound.
Let me make myself a bit clearer... I am of the opinion that health insurance should only cover necessary medical expenses. For example, if you broke your arm, or if you had a life- threatening disease like diabetes, or something. Birth control isn't really a necessary thing. You can live a perfectly normally healthy life without it. You're also forcing someone to do something against their core spiritual beliefs, which is not cool by any means. If you want an emergency contraceptive, then you can pay for it. You also still seem to be missing the point to where it's EMERGENCY contraceptives, which, as I said before, you can get at any local CVS, and it costs about $30-40.

The government should force people to run businesses the way the government wants it to,

I never said just because someone has premarital sex automatically makes them a ****, but someone who has constant, casual sex is, and that's how you made it sound.

People need to police themselves, instead of expecting everything they ever wanted to be handed to them, that's the issue.

I don't see how this has to do with anything, really. The employees have a right for those insurance coverages, so they should get them

Concerning the "religious beliefs" of a corporation, which is the worst point in this whole situation, I still do not get how this can even work; how a corporation can advocate for religious beliefs. Besides, did you think of the religious freedom of the employees?

As mentioned already the solution might be to have another organisation pay those coverages

who says they get that right? A woman can live a perfectly normal and healthy life without ever using contraceptives, so what gives them that right, and how do you know?

Again, I say that they can choose to live somewhere else, no one is forcing them to work there.

In a FREE country, an employer should have the right to say "This is what we offer for payment and benefits. If you're fine with that, then great! We'll be glad to have you regardless of your actual beliefs or practices outside of work... if not, then you're free to seek employment elsewhere."