So far today, they have announced two wins from SCOTUS... the first:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday voted 7-2 to uphold rules established by the Trump administration that would allow employers with sincerely held moral or religious objections to deny their employees access to free contraceptive coverage.
The rules broadened a carve out to the contraceptive coverage mandate included in the Affordable Care Act, the health-care overhaul commonly known as Obamacare. According to government estimates, the religious exemption would lead to possibly as many 125,000 women losing their coverage.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the opinion of the court, wrote that the Trump administration “had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the Little Sisters of the Poor is exempt from an Obama-era mandate to provide contraception in their healthcare plans.
The case, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, marked the Catholic religious order’s second time before the Supreme Court, after nearly 10 years of legal dispute. It arose when the New Jersey and Pennsylvania state governments sued the Trump administration for exempting the Little Sisters from the contraception mandate.
The exemption, issued in the form of a 2017 executive order from President Trump, stated that the religious order is protected from “undue interference from the federal government.” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar recommitted to that position the following year with guidelines exempting religious nonprofit groups from contraception requirements outlined in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
Note: Can anyone here in a concise way, explain the difference between this case, and hobby lobby which was just a few years ago? In a cursory perusal, they look pretty much the same, why would the supreme court take up this case, so close to the last?
The Second Win coming from the issue of Religious Schools being targets of law suits from teacher's whose lifestyle themselves, conflict with the teachings of the schools..
Supreme Court shields religious schools from discrimination suits brought by teachers
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled 7-2 in favor of two religious schools that argued they should not have to face employment discrimination lawsuits brought by former teachers.
The case concerned the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws that protects religious employers from certain lawsuits brought against them by employees.
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Wednesday in favor of two religious schools that argued they should not have to face employment discrimination lawsuits brought by former teachers.
The case concerned the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws that protects religious employers from certain lawsuits brought by employees. It was brought by two Catholic schools in California that were hit with discrimination lawsuits by teachers whose employment was terminated.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
“Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate,” he wrote.
These religious cases always give me some pause due to the infiltration of Islam and Shari'a Law. We need to work on getting Islam classified as the political system it is, rather than a religion it masks its political processes in.
What say you?
Like it or not, all religion is a way of life.
LIke it or not, Christianity can exist in tandem with a legal system and provide good separation of church and state. However, it also can be a full system.
Islam, similarly, can exist separately, but is pushed stronger by it's leaders to overtake culture and political systems while isolating from nonmuslims.
It is normal for anything that is a "way of life" to conflict with other ways of life. If there is a learning here, it is that this goes both ways. Religious institutions get broad latitude in how they run themselves, and they get no say whatsoever in whatever legal matters.
The hobby lobby case was about religious exemptions for coporations, specifically "closely held" organizations that are united in a religious stance.
The first case here is about executive authority to recognize and moderate such matters.
The second case is about whether private schools can discriminate for hiring purposes based on religious beliefs.
While they seem similar, the actor is very different in all three.