Hobby Lobby
Home state editorial: SCOTUS nominee Gorsuch is “perfectly qualified but fatally flawed”
There’s a fine editorial today in the Aurora, Colorado Sentinel on the nomination of Coloradan Neil Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. In it, the authors offer a powerful takedown of Gorsuch’s extreme views on religious freedom, which were best evidenced in his actions in the infamous Hobby Lobby case. Here’s a powerful […]
Contraceptive mandate at the Supreme Court – again
Just weeks after hearing argument over states’ TRAP laws (“targeted regulations against abortion providers”), the U.S. Supreme Court ventures back into the reproductive rights arena tomorrow morning, taking on yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. The case, Zubik v. Burwell, is an effort to further push the limits of religious liberty already […]
Justice Ginsburg explains everything you needed to know about religious liberty in two sentences
Credit Ian Millhiser of Think Progress with the excellent headline that appears above as well as the following story that appeared on the group’s website yesterday: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Holt v. Hobbs, establishing that a Muslim inmate may grow a half-inch beard “in accordance with his religious […]
Shocking post-election result: GOP support for “over-the-counter” contraceptives evaporates
As was explained at some length in this post earlier this year, there are several reasons that the support voiced during the 2014 campaign by Senator-elect Thom Tillis and other conservative candidates for access to “over-the-counter” contraceptives was a disingenuous batch of baloney cooked up by GOP campaign consultants. …the trick lies in the conservative […]
Still time to RSVP for Thursday’s luncheon on the Supreme Court
It looks like we’ll have a sizable crowd, but some seats still remain for Thursday’s NC Policy Watch Crucial Conversation luncheon: The State of the U.S. Supreme Court with Ian Millhiser of the Center for American Progress. Millhiser is the Senior Constitutional Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress and the Justice Editor for […]
RSVP today for next week’s luncheon on the Supreme Court
Seats are going fast for next week’s NC Policy Watch Crucial Conversation – “The state of the U.S. Supreme Court with Ian Millhiser of the Center for American Progress.” Where do things stand in the after math of the disastrous Hobby Lobby decision? What’s is on the Supreme Court docket for the fall? What can […]
Hobby Lobby wins and women’s health loses at Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court decided today that “closely held” corporations that object to contraceptives on religious grounds can deny this preventive coverage to female employees. There will be a great deal of constitutional banter on this opinion but, not being a constitutional scholar, I will make a few practical points. First, when HHS wrote this popular […]
Hobby Lobby: The best eight lines from Justice Ginsburg’s dissent
As reported in numerous places — click here for Ian Millhiser’s quick take at the for the Center for American Progress — the widely-dreaded Hobby Lobby decision came down today from the U.S. Supreme Court. In response, the good folks at Mother Jones posted the following article. On Monday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned a blistering […]
Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court: What you need to know
When you hear the name Hobby Lobby, fabrics and knitting needles may come to mind, but soon the for-profit, 13,000 employee, big box craft company will likely be known for something of greater import. That’s because on Tuesday the company will present its challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate to the U.S. Supreme Court, […]
The limits of “personhood”
In this excellent post, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick takes a look at the insidious movement to extend and expand “personhood” and argues that the movement’s underlying tenets, taken to extremes by courts and legislatures, wind up demeaning the very essence of being human. As Lithwick notes, corporations are people — at least for purposes of political expression […]
Supreme Court rejects another challenge to the Affordable Care Act
The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected another challenge to the Affordable Care Act, this time refusing to hear Liberty University’s bid to have the provision requiring employers to provide adequate health insurance for their employees overturned as unconstitutional. In Liberty University v. Lew, the Fourth Circuit had previously upheld the employer mandate. “We find that the […]
U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear contraception mandate case
The Supreme Court agreed today to hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate in two cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius. Salon summarized the dispute at the heart of both cases: The owners of Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores that plays religious music for shoppers, provides […]