Hobby Lobby: Trying to get DemProgs to understand what it means

Support Hobby Lobby With Your Business… And Help Explain the Truth About Them and the Supreme Court Decision to the Low-Informed

Bookworm Room: Impressed by the ill-informed hysterical reaction that my “real me” Facebook friends had to the Hobby Lobby decision, I explained to them that the decision is very narrow and will not (a) ban contraceptives across America and (b) lead to anti-gay lynch mobs. Here’s a slightly revised version of my Facebook post, which still failed to satisfy their paranoia and inability to understand the law.  I’ve also added a little hypothetical that might open their minds.  (No, don’t say it.  It’s improbable, but not impossible, that a DemProg mind can open).

The Hobby Lobby decision addresses one thing only:  whether an administrative rule conflicts with a long-standing law.

In 1993, a Democrat Congress passed, and a Democrat president signed, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (“RFRA”). RFRA holds in relevant part that the federal government may act in a way that substantially burdens the exercise of religion only if it can establish that its action is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling government interest. Nothing in the Act distinguishes between individuals and corporations.

The administrative rule at issue is the edict from Health and Human Services (“HHS”) mandating that all corporations affected by Obamacare must provide their female employees with unlimited access to all contraceptives available on the market.

Hobby Lobby is a closely-held, family-run corporation. The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, has a strong Christian faith, and is open about the fact that it runs its company in a way that is consistent with the family’s religious beliefs. These beliefs affect every aspect of the way in which Hobby Lobby is run, whether it’s the fact that even the least of Hobby Lobby’s employees gets paid an hourly amount that’s almost twice as much as minimum wage, or the fact that many of the store’s craft products come complete with little crosses attached to them.

Hobby Lobby has long provided comprehensive insurance for its employees. As part of this insurance, it makes available to its employees 16 different types of contraceptives. Moreover, Hobby Lobby has never said (a) that it would stop covering contraceptives entirely or (b) that contraceptives should be outlawed in America. Instead, it made a very narrow protest to the HHS mandate:  It objected to the fact that the mandate would force it to offer, not 16, but 20 contraceptives to its employees.  The additional 4 contraceptives are or can be used as abortion-causing agents.  The Green family’s religious faith means that it is adamantly opposed to abortion, which it considers murder.

The HHS mandate put Hobby Lobby in an impossible position: It could either use its own money to pay directly for abortifacient drugs or it could pay $475 million a year in penalties. It was this dilemma, it argued, that constituted a substantial burden on its exercise of religion under RFRA. Put another way, Hobby Lobby argued that it faced a Hobson’s choice:  directly fund something it opposes on core religious grounds or go bankrupt.  On these facts, the Supreme Court agreed that Hobby Lobby had satisfied the “substantial burden” requirement under RFRA.

There was something else that the Supreme Court accepted as given: For purposes of the ruling, the Supreme Court accepted as true HHS’s claim that forcing corporations to pay for their female employees’ contraceptives (simply because the Obama administration says it’s unfair not to) serves a compelling government interest.

(As an aside, I was thinking about this “unfair” point. According to my DemProg friends, the demand that corporations pay for contraceptives arises because it’s not fair that women have to shoulder these costs, while men don’t. Let’s put aside the fact that the DemProgs can’t explain why it’s fair that corporations must bear contraception costs.  The really important point is that, if the reason to force corporations to shoulder the burden is so that women don’t have to pay more in costs related to their unique biology just because they are women, corporations should also be required to pay for tampons, sanitary pads and, most importantly, chocolate, all of which are costly menstrual necessities that burden women, not men.  Additionally, corporations should be entitled to learn which employees have gone through menopause, so as to scale back on those uniquely feminine costs.  And now back to the Hobby Lobby case…)

With the Supreme Court having accepted that Hobby Lobby had proved that it was being significantly burdened and that HHS had proved a compelling government interest, the sole issue before the Court was whether HHS was using the least restrictive means to advance its compelling interest. Based on this single, limited issue, the Supreme Court concluded that HHS’s birth control mandate did not meet the RFRA test. The Court had a very simple metric for proving this conclusion: HHS itself handed the Court proof that there was a less restrictive way to serve this compelling interest.

HHS created this less restrictive contraception mandate when religious non-profit organizations objected to paying directly for contraceptives and abortifacients. HHS said that religious institutions could avoid the mandate by signing a document stating that their religious beliefs prevented them from complying with the contraception mandate. With this document, the onus shifts to the insurance company to apply the mandate.  (The Little Sisters of the Poor are challenging this workaround on the ground that it cannot apply to self-insured entities.  Likewise, even if the religious entity has a third party insurance company, the insurance company will simply increase its rates, with the result that the money for the contraceptives and abortifacients will still come from the corporation that has religious objections.  The Supreme Court’s eventual decision should be interesting.)

With HHS having already figured out a less intrusive method for getting “free” contraceptives to women, the Supreme Court held that the same workaround that applies to religious non-profits can apply equally well to closely held corporations if the owners have a sincere belief in a core religious issue. And that’s it. That’s the whole Hobby Lobby decision.

My Facebook explanation was clear enough that those who have been brainwashed into being terrified by the Hobby Lobby decision had only two defenses left. The first was that religious fanatics will use the decision to justify myriad things such as banning birth control nationwide, revoking the rule that corporations must pay for women’s contraceptives, and refusing to hire gays (a fear based upon this letter from a religious leader who clearly hadn’t read the Hobby Lobby decision himself).

The second defense, which I’ll address in the remainder of this post, was that the entire decision is wrong because, as a predicate matter, it treats a corporation as a person. “Corporations aren’t people” my DemProg friends cry, as they’ve been programmed to do since the Citizens United decision.  In other words, Hobby Lobby has no conscience and therefore cannot be treated as a conscientious objector.

I came up with a hypothetical scenario — a probable hypothetical scenario — that should have DemProgs insisting that, yes indeedy, corporations can and should be people — or, at least, Leftist corporations can and should be people.

The year is 2026. Since 2020, Republicans have majorities in Congress and a president in the White House. The wars in Syria and Iraq long ago merged, starting a conflagration that constantly threatens to spill over into every region of the world. The result is the Islamist caliphate equivalent of the Cold War, with the U.S. trying to put out small Islamic fires all over the world in order to de-fang the Sunni and Shia monsters without having to engage them directly on American soil.

The military is more central to American life and survival than ever. Defense costs have therefore skyrocketed, so Republicans went looking for new ways to equip the military. To this end, they noted that America’s business class was arguably benefiting most from the military’s efforts, because businesses were able to carry on and profit primarily because the military kept the Islamists far from American shores. It therefore would be logical for corporations to subsidize a significant part of the war effort.

Based upon this reasoning, in 2022, the Republicans successfully passed a new law, known as the Act for an Affordable Military (“AAM”). The Acts’ supporters affectionately call it “Adopt A Marine.” Its detractors refer to it disdainfully as “America’s A Monster.”

AAM goes far beyond traditional military funding, which relied upon tax revenues funneled to the Pentagon. Instead, AAM directly engages corporate America as an essential part of equipping the American military. Immediately upon the Act’s passage, the Pentagon was tasked with creating rules under AAM (a 3,200 portmanteau document written in vague and broad terms) that would shift onto corporations primary responsibility for equipping troops.

The Pentagon immediately issued a rule mandating that henceforth every corporation will be responsible for outfitting Marines with everything a Marine at war could need:  uniform, pack, weapons . . . the whole megillah.  Moreover, the number of Marine Gear Kits (or “MGKs”) that a corporation must assemble will be equal to the number of employees the corporation has. Thus, a corporation with ten employees must put together 10 MGKs, a corporation with 50 employees must put together 50 MGKs, and so on. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision, this kind of . . . ahem . . . “tax” (i.e., forcing taxpayers to purchase a product, even if they don’t want it themselves) is perfectly legitimate.

Corporations that fail to comply with the MGK mandate will be assessed an annual tax equal to $10,000 per MGK, with no maximum cap. That means that, if a corporation with 50 employees refuses to put together its designated MGKs, it will pay an annual penalty of $500,000. A corporation with 30,000 employees could find itself on the hook for $300,000,000 annually.  Again, the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision legitimized this “penalty” for failure to “pay” the “tax.”

Something else has changed now that the Cold War against the new Caliphate is being carried out by Republicans:  The DemProg peace movement is resurgent. Two of the most active peaceniks, Sol and Luna Giggleweed started out in their home office in 2020 (when Republicans finally re-took Congress and the White House following Elizabeth Warren’s ill-fated four-year presidency), designing, creating, and marketing bumper stickers, window signs, mugs, toilet paper . . . anything that could advance the pacifist cause.

With business booming, the Giggleweeds incorporated, calling their new business “Pacifists United Together Zone” or “PUTZ.” They now have 50 full-time employees working in their green-compliant factory in San Francisco’s SoMa district.

Thanks to the Giggleweed’s business acumen, you can now walk into any trendy store and buy one of PUTZ’s $25 king-size mugs emblazoned with “Live Peacefully or Die.”  If that’s too expensive, for $10 you can get a set of 10 bumper stickers reading “Peace : The New Caliphate Wants It Too.” PUTZ also manufactures the usual complement of sweatshirts with peace signs on them; posters urging people to “Visualize World Peace” or “Pray for Israel’s Destruction”; and the ever-popular Naughty Underwear set, in both multigender and cisgender versions, with “Make Love, Not War” glitter-stamped on the crotch.

For the Giggleweeds, peace isn’t just a gimmick to make a motive; it’s also their core ideology. Both Sol and Luna attended the Bush-era anti-war protests, and they oppose Republican-led wars with every fiber of their DemProg beings.

Significantly, even the Giggleweed’s faith is driven by their pacifism. They are ardent members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (aka “PCUSA”).  In 2018, PCUSA’s governing board formally voted that “We, the PCUSA, oppose all wars, except for those wars dedicated to Israel’s destruction.”

Nobody quite knows how it did it, but PCUSA asserted that this vote reflected a core religious principle derived from the Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles.  PCUSA’s revised doctrine is immune to challenge thanks to the tattered remnants of the First Amendment (which, in 2018, was amended to state that “Except as to matters of human sexuality and gender identity, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .”).

PUTZ employees are as devout as the Giggleweeds. Indeed, many of them came to the Giggleweed’s attention during the Bush War protests.  Without exception, all of the employees belong to PCUSA or affiliated faiths. Their strong anti-war beliefs (unless, of course, the war is waged against Israel) infuse every aspect of their lives.  They are grateful to work at PUTZ, a corporation with a business model that puts pacifism on the front line, so to speak.

For these reasons, the Giggleweeds and their PUTZ employees were horrified when AAM became law and, even worse, when the Pentagon explicitly passed to corporations the responsibility for providing MGKs. PUTZ therefore joined with PCUSA and other like-minded churches and mosques, which are also on the hook for MGKs, to object to the mandate that they directly invest in MGKs or pay a substantial penalty to help fund the “Republican Anti-Caliphate War Machine.”

The Republican establishment was unmoved by anti-AAM protesters. Instead, it took great pleasure in reminding the protesters and litigants that, thanks to agitation from this same cadre of people in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, Congress in 2016 (Year One of Elizabeth Warren’s disastrous administration) amended RFRA to state explicitly that it does not apply to corporations, regardless of the corporation’s size or whether it’s publicly traded or closely held. There is no way out for the Giggleweeds and PUTZ: they either put together MGKs for the Marines, or they pay $500,000 so that someone else can put the MGKs together for them.

To the Giggleweeds and their ilk, the Republicans have only one thing to say:  It’s always nasty when your own chickens come home to roost.

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Hobby Lobby Wins SCOTUS Decision

It has been a tough week for President Obama at the Supreme Court!  The Obama administration lost 4 out of 5 decisions and 2 were rare 9 to 0 decisions, and today ObamaCare’s loss to Hobby Lobby was added to tally.  However, today’s decision was very narrow and some pro-life and religious groups question whether it was a win in the long run in their battles. You be the judge…

By Marion Algier – Ask Marion

Attorneys Who Defended Hobby Lobby Celebrating

American Thinker: Hobby Lobby 1, Obamacare 0

The Supreme Court upheld the religious freedom rights of Hobby Lobby, the closely-held corporation owned by believing Christians who objected to being required to supply the abortion pill to their employees.

Steve Ertelt of Life News reports:

…the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

“HHS’s contraception mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion,” the decision reads, adding that the “decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion saying that government itself could provide the coverage for contraception and the abortion-causing drugs if a company declines to do so.

The Hobby Lobby decision only applies to companies. Non-profit groups like Priests for Life and Little Sisters are still waiting for a ruling about their right to opt out of the mandate.

Note that this ruling only applies to closely-held corporations, but does not rule out applying the same religious freedom reasoning to publicly-held firms and nonprofits.

Ed Lasky points out:

The fact that both these decisions [Hobby Lobby and the forced union dues case] were 5-4 points out the danger of Obama picking the next SC Justice with Reid in control of the Senate. If the opportunity present itself, he will abolish the filibuster for SC nominees, too.

Memo.com: The Supreme Court Gets It Right

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court has stepped up to defend Americans' most basic freedoms from the full-frontal assault by the rampaging band of leftists running America. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, a Christian business that objected on religious ground to Obamacare's mandate that they must cover certain contraceptives.

Hobby Lobby is among about 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives. Some, like Hobby Lobby, are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude abortifacients.

Justice Samuel Alito said the decision is limited to contraceptives. "Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer's religious beliefs," he said. He suggested two ways the administration could deal with the birth control issue. The government could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said. Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was part of the majority, also wrote separately to say the administration can solve its problem easily. "The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it," Kennedy said. He said that arrangement "does not impinge on the plaintiffs' religious beliefs." Everyone's rights respected and problem solved. Easy peasy.

Of course, Obamacare was never about health care or health insurance. It was only and always about government power and control. Over you. That's what the contraceptive mandate was all about: social engineering, abortion made even easier to get, and with the government holding the strings of control over all of it.

Thank goodness the Supremes ruled on the side of religious liberty. It's about time. But that 5-4 split is too close for comfort. As we head into 2016, don't forget that the Supreme Court---like all of our courts---hangs by a thread, and with it, our most basic freedoms.

Huffington Post:  If Hobby Lobby Wins, Pro-life Christians Lose

We now know with certainty that the Supreme Court will announce its Hobby Lobby decision on Monday. This weekend, the craft and home décor store, along with numerous evangelical institutions that have filed briefs in its support -including my former employer the National Association of Evangelicals--are hoping and praying God will favor them with a whole new expansion of religious freedom and the protection of human life. I'm praying for the opposite.

Along with nearly 50 other for-profit corporations, Hobby Lobby is demanding the same religious freedoms and protections that each of us has. Hobby Lobby was not endowed by its Creator with certain unalienable rights. It does not have a soul. It cannot have faith. Yet its owners (and their lawyers) insist that it should not have to comply with the contraceptive coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act on religious grounds. The Obama Administration reasonably granted an opt-out to houses of worship and other religious nonprofits. Hobby Lobby wants similar treatment.

Evangelical intervention on behalf of the multi-billion dollar corporation, which donates generously to their causes, is wrong for many reasons but here are two major ones: If you are pro-religious liberty and pro-life and family, you can't support allowing a for-profit corporation to use religion to deny contraceptive coverage.

First, supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are helping the Christian faith but are actually harming it. In fact, a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby weakens religious freedom.

When anyone can use religion to claim an exemption on anything, religion loses meaning. Rather than a personal belief embedded in our souls, faith would become a set of arbitrary rules any corporation could choose from to skirt the law.

Is this what evangelicalism needs? I spent nearly three decades in governmental relations at the National Association of Evangelicals defending the free-exercise of religion and the right to life, among many other traditional values. Coming to the aid of for-profit corporations who want to ride on the backs of religion is not one of these honored principles.

Indeed, it is a kind of corporatism invading the body of Christ -- concern not for the "least of these" but the richest of those among us. Is this what Christ would do?

When corporations are allowed the same exemptions that have always been reserved just for churches--whether on health benefits, hiring, or land use--those special protections become less clear and more open for interpretation.

If a for-profit corporation is eligible for legal exemptions on grounds of religious freedom, it puts government in charge of deciding what is or isn't religion. You can just imagine the lawyers who will find work forever litigating these claims. I know, from experience, that their concern for what should be "legal" is not the same as what is "spiritual" or truly serves the interests of the Church.

What if a corporation owned by Jehovah Witnesses refuses to cover blood transfusions? If Christian corporations are allowed to use faith to refuse contraception coverage to women who work for them, what's to stop a Christian Scientist business from refusing to cover any health benefits?

Second, the supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are being "pro-life." They are wrong. A massive study conducted in 2012 showed that contraception coverage without a co-pay could dramatically reduce the abortion rate.

That study, conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine, of 10,000 women at-risk for unintended pregnancy found that when given their choice of birth control methods, counseled about their effectiveness, risks, and benefits, with all methods provided at no cost, about 75 percent of women in the study chose the most effective methods: IUDs or implants. Most importantly, as a result, annual abortion rates among study participants dropped up to 80 percent below the national abortion rate.

Well, you might ask, based upon some of the charges being made, aren't the contraceptive methods being funded through the Affordable Care Act, abortifacients? Not if you believe medical science.

In the words of Jeffrey F. Peipert, M.D., Ph.D., the Robert J. Terry Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine, "these contraceptive methods work by preventing pregnancy (fertilization) from occurring in the first place. For instance, the intrauterine device works primarily by preventing fertilization. Plan B (or the progestin-containing, morning-after pill), along with Ella (ulipristal acetate), delay the release of a woman's egg from her ovary. The egg does not get fertilized, which means the woman does not become pregnant."

In sum, Evangelicals supporting Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court are not actually being pro-religious freedom or pro-life. If they win at the Supreme Court, these causes will be damaged in the long run

Technorati Tags: Hobby Lobby,Contraception,Christianity,SCOTUS,Religion,Religious Freedom,ObamaCare,Sebelius,Abortifacients,Pro-Life,Evangelicals,Small Victories,Supreme Court

Obamacare’s Tough Day in Court

Divided Supreme Court Hears Hobby Lobby’s Challenge to the Contraceptive Mandate

By: Roger Aronoff  -  Accuracy in Media  -  Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom

Since its passage, a number of lawsuits have attempted to undermine Obamacare as a law, with varying degrees of success. The individual mandate challenge failed before the Supreme Court in 2012, despite what seemed like positive reception to the challenge during oral argument. Hobby Lobby went before the Supreme Court on March 25 to challenge the religious liberty implications of the contraception mandate portion of the law.

While the media have largely focused on the Hobby Lobby challenge, a few blocks away, the D.C. Court of Appeals was hearing another argument about Obamacare—one that, if passed, could well have the effect of ending this law as we know it. And it has liberals running scared.

In the piece “Forget Hobby Lobby. The Bigger Legal Threat to Obamacare Still Has Life,” Alec Macgillis writes for the New Republic, “If the contraception challenge succeeds, it just means that that one sliver of Obamacare is struck down. If this other challenge succeeds, both sides agree that it would blow up the entire law.”

The argument for the plaintiffs is as follows: In order to provide the 60th vote, which was necessary to get the bill through the Senate, Ben Nelson, the then-Democratic senator from Nebraska, insisted on a clause that said that federal subsidies could only go to people who signed up on exchanges set up by the states. The purpose was to incentivize states to actually set up exchanges.

Then, the plaintiffs argue, the IRS wrote a rule in 2012 which reinterpreted the law to say that federal exchanges could give out subsidies as well. “The alternative policy under the IRS’ rewriting of the rule creates a bizarre circumstance where it’s almost impossible to fulfill the Act’s purpose of having state-run exchanges, because it eliminates any tangible incentive for these people to go ahead and adopt the exchanges,” argued Michael A. Carvin, the plaintiffs’ attorney, before the Court of Appeals on March 25. “So they’ve created a situation which has predictably resulted in only 14 states doing what Congress clearly wanted 50 states to do, which is to set up their exchanges.”

Arguably, however, the mostly Republican governors who have refused to set up exchanges also did so for political reasons.

Carter-appointed Judge Harry Edwards had a Hillary Clinton moment during the oral arguments. He demanded that Carvin “forget the subsidies” argument and explain why it was important whether the federal government or states control the exchanges. He demanded loudly, twice, “What difference does it make who does it? Forget the subsidy.”

But we can’t forget the subsidies. They are at the heart of the law, and its practice. The Washington Post has reported that “About 85 percent of those signing up for insurance in federal-run exchanges have qualified for financial assistance to purchase coverage.” In other words, this amounts to a massive federal redistribution of wealth for millions—85% of enrollees. (Let’s ignore for a moment that we have no idea how many enrollees actually purchase their insurance after “selecting” it. If they know, the federal government isn’t telling us.) “Without those subsidies, the insurance would be less affordable, leaving those with the greatest health needs with more motivation to purchase coverage,” writes the Post. “That makes for a worse risk mix, driving up the cost of insurance to cover the sicker pool of people, creating what’s known as an insurance ‘death spiral.’” The federal exchange is already at risk of a death spiral if it cannot entice enough of the young and healthy to sign up.

The case could also undo the individual mandate. “Were the case to succeed, it would mean that dozens of state governments opposed to Obamacare could significantly narrow its scope by refusing [to] set up exchanges, thus preventing residents from claiming subsidies,” explains the Washington Examiner. “In those states, employers wouldn’t be penalized for failing to offer qualifying insurance (which is triggered by workers seeking federal subsidies), meaning that anti-Obamacare states could become more attractive to businesses trying to get around the employer mandate.”

“It would also increase pressure on Congress to undo the individual mandate.”

Judge Edwards said that this was a transparent attempt by Carvin and his plaintiffs to “gut” the law. Indeed, those opposed to the lawsuit seem more concerned with saving the law than looking at the Act’s original language. MacGillis cites Clinton-appointed Judge Paul Friedman in his earlier ruling that “Plaintiffs’ proposed construction in this case—that tax credits are available only for those purchasing insurance from state-run Exchanges—runs counter to this central purpose of the ACA: to provide affordable health care to virtually all Americans…Such an interpretation would violate the basic rule of statutory construction that a court must interpret a statute in light of its history and purpose.” “Under the challengers’ logic, Judge Friedman added, the exchanges administered by the federal government ‘would have no customers, and no purpose,’” writes Macgillis. Is it really the Courts’ purview to decide whether a government program should survive, as opposed to whether the law is being executed constitutionally and legally?

Indeed, according to The Wire, without federal subsidies, “Many of those people would fall in to the hardship gap and not have to buy insurance or pay the individual mandate.” There are two other cases besides this one “challenging the authority of the IRS to rewrite the statute and allow subsidies to flow through the federal exchanges,” according to Forbes.

Never afraid of punditry, MSNBC abandoned all pretense of journalism and called this discussion of the Senate’s original intent a “drafting error.” Adam Serwer writes that “The Affordable Care Act managed to have two bad days in court on the same day,” adding that the argument means that “Congress was handing Republicans an Obamacare self-destruct button.”

But, he offers hope to his liberal readers: “If the government loses before the panel, it can ask for the D.C. Circuit to hear the case ‘en banc,’ before the judges on the D.C. Circuit.” Then it could go to the Supreme Court.

Why is the ‘en banc’ ability important? Because President Obama has stacked the court, of course. “After the Democrats nuked the filibuster, Obama was able to make four appointments to the court,” writes Serwer. “Though judges’ opinions don’t always track with those of the party that appointed them, thanks to the changes to the filibuster, more Democratic appointees than Republican appointees would rule on the matter.” In other words, partisan politics would play out if the entire bench were to hear the case.

A decision is supposed to come in late June, and looks like it will be in favor of the plaintiffs. But, the Washington Examiner warns, oral arguments can be misleading. “As always, it’s hard to predict judicial outcomes based on oral arguments, a lesson that was made abundantly clear when many observers predicted that the Supreme Court would strike down the individual mandate only to see it upheld,” Philip Klein writes.

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

Hobby Lobby vs Sebelius Goes Before the Supreme Court

INFOGRAPHIC: What Exactly This Hobby Lobby Case Is About

If the contraception mandate passes, it will ruin a core U.S. ideology

 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Affordable Care Act,Contraception,SCOTUS,Supreme Court,ACA,PPACA Medicare,Mandates,Religion,Christianity,Sebelius,Ideology,Americana,Rick Warren,Thoughts,Constitution,Founding-Ideals,Freedom,Hobby Lobby

The anti-bossy campaign is just the latest example of the Left’s obsession with gender, sex, and sexuality as a way of remaking society

The Razor: In America, it used to be that boys were boys and girls were girls, except for a handful of boys and girls who didn’t conform to the norm.  Boys were at the top of the heap; girls had a carefully carved out, limited sphere of influence and opportunities; and sexually non-conforming people were ignored or abused, depending on both their ability to blend in and their community’s ability to cope with their differences.  Both women and sexually non-conforming people were routinely denied equal treatment under the law.

The women’s lib and gay rights movements were originally sold as a way to ensure that women and gays (and, eventually, the whole LGBTQ spectrum) received equal treatment under the law.  That was originally understood to mean equal access to education, employment opportunities, and house; equal pay for equal work; and freedom from overt, violent discriminatory practices — and that was it.

Since then, equal treatment under the law has become a picayune, limited goal.  Instead, the Left is using gender and sexuality as a way to remake society entirely in opposition to heterosexual males, the ones who created Western society in the first place.

The latest push to remake society is the effort either to ban the word “bossy” or to turn it into an undiluted positive when the word is applied to girls.  This, of course, ignores the reality of bossy little girls.

Girls are bossy, something that comes about because they model themselves on their mothers.  Despite decades of Leftist marriage, gender, and sexuality rejiggering, for most children, Mom is the Big Boss in the house.  (Indeed, considering the soaring number of single moms, she’s the only boss in the house.)  The vast majority of little girls identify with mommy.  That’s a fact that no gender theory will ever change.  So if Mommy is bossy — as she has to be in order to run a household with children — then a little girl’s logical assumption is that, to be a grown woman in training, she too must be bossy.

And what about the claim that we’re all wrong to say it’s obnoxious when girls are bossy?  I couldn’t disagree more.  It’s incredibly obnoxious when girls are bossy.  What’s appropriate coming from a grown woman with responsibilities is profoundly irritating whether a 4-year-old lisps orders to her friends, a 10-year-old hollers imprecations at her brother, her a 15-year-old, in a strident whine, tells her parents what she wants them to do.  It’s obnoxious not because the 4, 10, and 15-year-old are female, but because they haven’t yet earned the right to boss anyone around.  The issue is age, not sex.

Even as the Leftist/Progressive/Democrat establishment seeks to make it so that every girl’s fecal matter is perceived as perfumed, the relentless attacks on boys never end.  Fortunately for me (’cause I’m lazy), I don’t have to go into detail on this topic because Matt Walsh has already done so, saying what I would say, only doing it better.

So let me just skip ahead to a discussion of the Left’s latest attack on America’s last bastion of masculinity:  the military.  The military used to be the place where you sent your boys to become men.  Now?  I don’t know.  The military is still overwhelmingly male, but the Obama administration, even though it cannot change the numbers, is doing its best to change its manly ethos.

Gays can openly serve now, which puts a great deal of pressure on young men.  While the Left will freely acknowledge that women shouldn’t have to shower with men who view them in a sexually predatory fashion, and that women in the military are at risk of becoming victims of violent sexual attacks from predatory men, the Left refuses to acknowledge that gay men can be equally predatory to other men.  (And lesbian women are often predators to other women.)  Under the new paradigm, shying away from showering with an aggressive gay man or lesbian woman isn’t logical self-preservation and respect for ones own sexual integrity; it is, instead, homophobic and the people holding such views must be re-educated and/or destroyed.  It’s an interesting social experiment, but a disastrous burden to place on an institution that has as its primary task combat training and preparation to fight off enemies of unspeakable savagery.

Placing women in combat is also a de-masculinizing effort (yes, it’s a neologism) on the Obama administration’s part.  Training standards will have to be lowered because it’s the extraordinarily rare woman who can compete head-on physically with men.  Men are bigger and stronger.  They have stronger bones and joints.  Their skin is tougher and has fewer nerves, meaning it’s less sensitive to pain.  They get less breathless.  They can pee standing up or into old water bottles, and they don’t have periods or get pregnant.  They are vulnerable to rape (see the above paragraph), but less vulnerable, especially because cultures other than America subscribe to the Red Army’s approach to despoiling conquered women.

The only way women can compete equally with men is to lower the standards for men.  This means that young men will not be challenging themselves as much.  To the extent many join the military because men need challenges, the military becomes less attractive.  Additionally, young men aren’t fools.  They know that women will create physical and emotional drags on a combat unit.  Only in the Ivory Tower, surrounded by theory, would people think that women with their different biology are identical to men for all purposes, including combat.

Having turned the military into a Progressive experiment for gays and women, now what do we do?  We bring transsexuals into the military.  Although the number of transsexuals in the military will of necessity be small (there aren’t that many around), I suspect the transsexual-infused military will be a different animal from what it currently is.  Libby, one of my wonderful commenters, found this interesting tidbit about transsexuals:

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention report on suicide attempts among transgender and non-gender conforming adults (Jan.2014)  found that the while rate for suicide attempts in the general US adult population is about 4.6%, in transgender people, the rate is 41% (46% for trans men).

transsexuals are deeply, deeply unhappy people, who wear their own bodies like a painfully ill-fitting outfit.  I feel nothing but compassion for their anguish (an anguish that gender reassignment may do nothing to help).  Having said that, I am appalled that our president somehow thinks that the military will be the group therapy environment these troubled souls need.  He is using America’s front line defense against a dangerous world to normalize that which, statistically and biologically speaking, isn’t normal.*

There is nothing closer to who and what we are than are gender and sexual orientation.  A wise friend of mine thinks that Islam’s entire beef with the Western world is the fact that, as Westernism creeps into Muslim communities, women fight to leave the harem, the burqa, and the hijab.  All other insults to the religion are tolerable, except for the one that shakes up the relative values between men and women under Islam.

The Left understands this, but it heads in an opposite direction from Islam.  Rather than attacking women and gays to gain control over culture, it attacks heterosexual males.  This is why, beginning when they’re just little children, America’s males are systematically demeaned and insulted.  They are also deprived of opportunities to express their masculinity in positive ways and, instead, are reduced to expressing it through computer games, random violence, and perpetual dorm-style sloth and slobbery.  If you want to see the end of a sustained Leftist attack on men, you need only look to the American black community, where men have been rendered useless.  The government fulfills all the functions women need (shelter, food, health care, and child care), leaving the men responsible only for spread sperm.  No wonder, then, that black men have developed a culture focused on the size of their weapons (both of which, ironically, are tucked in the pants):  guns and penises.

_____________________________

*No, I’m not saying people on the LGBTQ spectrum are “perverts” or “sickos,” or that they should be ridiculed, humiliated, discriminated against, hanged, beaten, imprisoned, or anything else.  I don’t believe that.

What I do believe is that love and physical desire are a combination of mind, biology, and culture, and that, when it comes to consensual adult relationships, it’s my business to stay out of it.  When I look at people, I judge them on values other than their sex partners, values such as individual freedom versus government control, stable relationships versus promiscuity, hard work versus parasitism, kindness versus cruelty, etc..  I do, however, reserve the right to look down upon people if their choice of sex partner is their only value.

So, rather than sit in judgment on LGBTQs, what I’m trying to say is that non-heterosexual orientations are statistical anomalies and that it is impossible to build a culture around a biological statistical anomaly.  It won’t stick.

Technorati Tags: Society,Sex,Sexuality,Norms,Religion,Fundmental Transformation,Wake-Up

Washington State’s Pending Legislation Seeks To Prohibit Barbaric Muslim Practice Of Young Female Genital Mutilation

Bare Naked Islam:

State of Washington 63rd Legislature 2014 Regular Session
HOUSE BILL 2190
AN ACT Relating to female genital mutilation; amending RCW 26.44.020; adding a new section to chapter 9A.36 RCW; creating a new section; and prescribing penalties. More

Read the entire bill here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/2190.pdf

An estimated 130 million young girls have undergone sexual mutilation, mostly in Muslim countries, but now, apparently in Great Britain, Europe, and the USA, too. 

Wake-up America… Wake-up Democrats… It is your party’s politicians, including those in the White House, who support the Muslim Brotherhood and the spread of Islam in this country and are then feeding you the crazy notion of a war on women by Republicans… You are being used and had!

Video: Female Genital Mutilation must end

Technorati Tags: Islam,Washington,Muslims,Democrats,WOW,Africa,Females,FGM,Women,Egypt,Fear,Ignorance,Middle East,Real War on Women,War on Women,Violence Against Women,Labia Majora,Labia Minora,Clitoris,Sexual Organs,Customs,Rituals,Religion,Female Circumcision,Wake-Up,Female Genital Mutilation,Sharia Law

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Video: Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Pirro On Obamacare Contraception Mandate: YOU LIED!

“And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick?” – Judge Jeanine Pirro

By Caleb Howe

On Fox News’ Justice With Judge Jeanine on Saturday, host Jeanine Pirro in her opening statement addressed the Obamacare contraception mandate and the nuns made famous recently by Justice Sotomayor.

It seems all to obvious, and Pirro puts it in stark terms. But this is a clash of religions and those are rarely settled easily. On one side, the Catholic Church and their fundamental religious objection to providing contraception. On the other, the Liberal Church and their fundamental religious devotion to giving every single living human being on the planet some form of contraception.

The Obamacare acolytes do not care about religious freedom. Well, not Christian religious freedom anyway. It is merely an inconvenient part of American life they tolerate so long as it doesn’t get in their way. But when that free exercise clashes with their fervent devotion to contraception and abortion, you can bet they won’t be willing to budge an inch. Lip service only lasts as long as the lips have nothing to yell about.

Pirro lays the fight right at President Obama’s feet, where it belongs. Here is the transcript of the above clip:

I want a government that respects religious freedom. Mr. President, now that you’re back from your Hawaiian vacation … how’d you hitt them? How’s that handicap? You come back and you try to take away from the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious organization that cares for low income elderly who are dying, their right to exercise their First Amendment freedom of religion. You promised the Catholic Church you would not, under Obamacare, force those with religious objection to provide contraception to employees, which of course is contrary to their fundamental beliefs and their exercise of their religion.

In spite of your promise, you are spending millions in legal fees to force the Little Sisters of the Poor who spend their lives serving the sick and the elderly to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacients to their employees? Pray tell, Mr. President, might you have lied to the Catholic Church? And now you’re going to court to sanction one home $6,700 a day? What don’t you understand about the Little Sisters of the Poor? Now, I don’t care if you’re pro-choice or pro-life, you have a fundamental right to practice your religion. You have a fundamental right to the First Amendment, freedom of religion.

And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick? Hell, even a convicted muslim felon in federal prison can exercise their freedom of religion. They can’t be punished for exercising their religion. And you go after these nuns to force them to violate their religion or put them out of business? Am I asking for too much? We’re only talking about your word. Religious freedom, the First Amendment. Mr. President. It’s 2014, and we are not getting off to a good start.

 

Technorati Tags: Little Sisters,New Year's Resolutions

European Parliament Outlaws Circumcision; Israel Calls It "A Moral Stain"

JoshuaPundit: A resolution to outlaw male ritual circumcision, calling it a “violation of the physical integrity of children” was passed overwhelmingly by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The Jewish rite of Brit Millah was compared in the resolution to the female genital mutilation (FGM) common in a number of Muslim and African countries,although no specific recommendations or resolutions condemning that practice or recommending that member states outlaw FGM was passed.

The resolution Called on member states to "adopt specific legal provisions to ensure that certain operations and practices will not be carried out before a child is old enough to be consulted,” which targets Jews specifically since only Jews ritually circumcise their male children when they are eight days old, symbolic of the Covenant of Abraham.

The State of Israel's Foreign Ministry was quick to respond:

"Circumcision of male children is an ancient religious tradition of two important religions, Judaism and Islam, and it is also common among some Christian circles," the Foreign Ministry staid in a statement.

"Any comparison of this tradition to the reprehensible and barbaric practice of female genital mutilation is either appalling ignorance, at best, or defamation and anti-religious hatred, at worst."

The resolution, the statement continued, is "an intolerable attack both on the respectable and ancient religious tradition that lies at the base of European culture, and on modern medical science and its findings. This resolution casts a moral stain on the Council of Europe, and fosters hate and racist trends in Europe. We call on the Council of Europe to act without delay in order to annul it."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry statement also said that the claims that circumcision harms the health of young boys are false and runs contrary to scientific evidence.

Needless to say, the European Parliament won't annul it.
My friend Carl has the right of it.

"Whenever the gentiles want to attack us, the first things they attack are circumcision, Torah study and ritual slaughter. Not necessarily in that order."

He's got that right.

Technorati Tags: Circumcision,Choice,EU,Europe,Religion,You be the Judge,Traditions,cleanliness

Vatican Court: No Communion For Nancy Pelosi

JoshuaPundit: The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, the highest court at the Vatican has ruled that House minority leader Rep.Nancy Pelosi should not receive communion as a Catholic until she changes her advocacy of abortion on demand.

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal said that Pelosi should be denied communion because she is not in a state of grace.

The Cardinal cites Canon law 915 which states that Catholics who are continue to openly continue “in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

Cardinal Burke said Mrs. Pelosi fits the definition.

“Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied,” he said, the Western Center for Journalism reported. “This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic.”

“This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must — in safeguarding and promoting the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn, in safeguarding and promoting the integrity of marriage and the family,” he said.

In other words, Cardinal Burke is calling Rep. Nancy Pelosi a class A hypocrite.

I am not a Catholic, but I can't help but reflect on the justice of this. Not only is Nancy Pelosi an outspoken advocate of abortion on demand, but she also is a strong proponent of taking away the religious freedom of Catholics and Catholic institutions who do follow Church law in this matter by forcing them to subsidize abortions and abortificants under the diktats of ObamaCare. So not only is she involved in what the Catholic Church considers sin itself, but in attempting to force others into sin.

I'm not sure Rep. Pelosi even goes to confession and receives communion, but she has repeatedly referred to herself as a 'devout Catholic'. She's gotten away with that lie for years, unchallenged. This should destroy that, and I would hope that if it continues to persist,the Church would proceed to excommunication.

Technorati Tags: Catholics,Vatican,Nancy Pelosi,abortificants,Rome,Pelosi,religion,Life,Abortion,Choice,Hypocrite,Common Sense,Catholic Church,Excommunication,Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke,ObamaCare,Christianity

Dr. Robert H. Schuller Has Esophageal Cancer

By Marion Algier – AskMarion

Dr. Sheila Schuller Coleman, eldest child and daughter of Dr. Robert H. and Arvella Schuller, announced that her father had esophageal cancer during her sermon on 8/25/13 at the Shepherd’s Grove church made up of what is left of Dr. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Congregation. You can listen to the info at HopeCenter.org - http://hopecenteroc.org/sunday20130825.htm starting around 1:18:30

Sheila said her father has esophageal cancer. It is about 3 inches long and has spread to some lymph nodes. He will go through chemo and radiation and the prognosis is between 3-months and up to 2-years, obviously the lesser time without treatment.  He will be (has been) undergoing treatment.  It was reported that the elder Schuller decided to pursue radiation and chemo after praying with his wife, Arvella, and other family members.

Schuller daughter, Carol Schuller Milner, told the associated press that the oncologists say her father’s tumor is either at or near stage 4, but it has yet to reach his vital organs and he has been strong enough for treatment.

Milner said her father "doesn't have a lot of energy" but has been "very reflective, very peaceful and truly beautiful."

"He's closer to Heaven than he is to this tangible world," Milner said.

Let us all keep RHS is our prayers.

Robert Marvin, a commenter on the Pens-Open Blog said:

I am a 17-year survivor of this same cancer. However, I am now 70 and was only 53 when diagnosed. The chemo and radiation put me the hospital for 45 days with a very bad pneumonia from which my team of doctors thought I would not recover. I fooled them along with a lot of prayers and positive thoughts. I subsequently had surgery to remove my esophagus in 1998 when the cancer started to reappear. This is a very deadly cancer. Mostly because it is not discovered in its early stages. From my experience, it sounds like a stage two or three diagnosis. I know many survivors of this disease at this stage and at this age. That being said, however, it must be noted that response to treatment is a very individual thing.

But keep up the prayers for Dr. Schuller, Sr.  There is always hope and prayer is powerful.  Just yesterday we heard that actress Valerie Harper is close to remission from brain cancer. Valerie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer earlier this year and given only a short time to live. But she fought back and is winning the battle, her cancer is close to remission; so much so that it was announced that she will be participating in season 17 of Dancing with the Stars.

We have several friends who have beaten the odds through prayer, positive thinking, combining alternative with traditional treatments and shear determination.  Miracles happen every day!!

Dr. Schuller says he has had a wonderful life.  He did what God called him to do and he has no regrets.  It really has been quite the life:

Dr. Schuller began preaching in 1955 from the top of a drive-in movie theater concession stand in Orange County with wife Arvella playing the organ and by 1970 they had launched their TV ministry with the "Hour of Power." The landmark cathedral was built in 1980 and with it were born the long-running Glory of Christmas and Easter pageants and their one season Glory of Creation counterpart.

At its peak, the Hour of Power broadcast attracted a viewership of 20 million around the world.  “But in recent years, Schuller's ministry was hamstrung by a disastrous leadership transition and then a decline in viewership and donations. The once-popular televangelist resigned from the church's board in 2012; about two years after that the ministry filed for bankruptcy”, said Carol Milner.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange bought the cathedral in bankruptcy proceedings and renamed the building Christ Cathedral and their southern campus which included a school, retreat center and small church was purchased by Hobby Lobby who leases it to Saddleback, another OC mega-church.

Four generations of Robert Schullers  - photo by Donna Schuller

Related:

Schuller Ousted from Crystal Cathedral board

Rev. Schuller Retires as Lead Pastor, Takes New Crystal Cathedral Post

Pianist Roger Williams: Schuller Kids Spoiled Crystal Cathedral

Rifts, debt tear at Crystal Cathedral

TEARFUL SCHULLER PLEADS FOR DOLLARS FOR CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL

Crystal Cathedral Put Up for Sale to End Debt Woes

Crystal Cathedral Sale to the Catholic Diocese of Orange Closed Escrow on Friday…

Landmark Crystal Cathedral Gets a New Name — Christ Cathedral… and Slips Into History

The End of an Era: Who Bought the Crystal Cathedral… And What of It’s Parishioners?

Famed Pianist Roger Williams Dead at 87

Faithful Voices: A 'commencement service' for the Crystal Cathedral

Valerie Harper in Remission… Valerie, Snooki, Leah Remini and 9 more join 'Dancing With the Stars' Cast for Season 17

Technorati Tags: Dr. Robert H. Schuller,Esophogeal Cancer,Cancer,Crystal Cathedral,prayer,hope,miracles,Valerie Harper,brain cancer,DWTS,Dr. Schuller,CA,Carol Milner,Dr. Robert A. Schuller,Arvella Schuller,health,Glory of Christmas

Late Term Abortion Supporters In Texas Chant "Hail Satan!"

Video:  Testimony at the Capitol part 2... 7-2-13

JoshuaPundit: This is creepy even to someone like me, whose by no means wants abortion outlawed.

Outside the Texas state capitol in Austin, a Christian woman, an obvious pro-lifer is speaking about her beliefs vis a vis abortion ...and at some points she's almost drowned out by late term abortion fans chanting 'Satan!'.

The capitol of Texas where the legislature meets is located in Austin, which is quite different from most of Texas and is known by most Texans as 'Austin-tatious'. Leftist loons abound.

Since the reality of what late term abortions actually consist of surfaced in the Gosnell trial, a number of states have passed laws limiting late term abortions.

In Texas, where a local Dr. Gosnell clone surfaced recently, the House State Affairs Committee passed a pro-life bill to ban abortions in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion facilities accountable for obeying health and safety laws. The law is set to got to the state senate, where it will probably pass, although there have been the usual rabid demonstrations from the Democrats, whom I suppose at this point we could call the party of abortion.

I have no problem with limiting abortions to 20 weeks ( FIVE MONTHS) unless the mother's life is endangered or there are other special circumstances the law provides for. The other provisions, which are going to limit the number of abortion clinics has good points and bad points. It will eliminate butcher shops like Dr. Gosnell's but it will conceivably make it more difficult for some women in outlaying areas to terminate a pregnancy.Planned Parenthood, of course, will still be around.

On the other hand, there's always the option of traveling a bit or simply being more cautious about getting pregnant, and it's also a fact that no hospital is going to refuse to provide and abortion for someone without means or who is the victim of non-consensual sex.
But to hear people who favor abortion on demand chanting 'Satan!' ? That puts things in an entirely different perspective. If this is what it's come to...

UPDATE: Well, well...it appears that a number of these protesters are being shipped in and paid for their loathsome efforts.

Related: 

Watch: Abortion Supporters Chant ‘Hail Satan!’ While Pro-Life Activists Sing ‘Amazing Grace’ Outside Texas Capitol

Anti-Abortion Group Releases 2nd ‘Gendercide’ Video Showing Planned Parenthood’s Alleged Sex-Selection Abortion Assistance

Technorati Tags: late term abortion,Satan,abortion,Texas,liberals,Life,pro-choice,pro-life,God's laws,God,babies,crazies,Dr. Gosnell,Gosnell,murder,choices,creepy

NBC Al Roker Has Epiphany… His 14-Year Old Daughter Can Now Get Morning After Pill

Marion Algier – Ask Marion – Cross-posted at THITW – h/t to TLA

 "Al" Albert Lincoln Roker, Jr., television weatherman and co-host of NBC's Today Show had an epiphany on today’s show (06.11.13), about a week late… or is that perhaps years late?… realizing that his 14-year-old daughter can now go get the morning after pill without his permission or even notification.

America has become a country of low and mis-informed voters fed by a media comprised primarily of either the ‘ideologically motivated’ or equally low and mis-informed people… or both, that for many Americans are their only source of news and information.

I mean really, Al… Albeit ‘Obama Central’', you work in the talk show/news industry; have ‘with it’ first and second wives (Deborah Roberts) and you have young children, a daughter.  Hello??

So which is Al… ‘ideologically motivated’, low and mis-informed… or both?  You be the judge.

Video:  Remember:…Weatherman Al Roker 'Yells Down' VP Joe Biden in 2nd Inauguration Parade (He and media pals… like MSNBC ‘quiver down my leg’ Chris Mathews go nuts)

Court Rules: Girls of Any Age Can Buy Morning-After Pill… Without Parental Consent

The brief order issued by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted two-pill versions of emergency contraception to immediately be sold without restrictions, but the court refused to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step until it decides the merits of the government's appeal. It did not specify why the two-pill versions were being allowed now, though it said the government failed to meet the requirements necessary to block the lower-court decision.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Allison Price said the government was reviewing the court's order.

Appeals on both sides are pending…

CHICAGO, IL – APRIL 05: This photo illustration shows a package of Plan B contraceptive on April 5, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. Credit: Getty Images

This photo illustration shows a package of Plan B contraceptive generic version

TheBlaze: NEW YORK (AP) — Girls of any age can buy generic versions of emergency contraception without a prescription while the federal government appeals a judge’s ruling allowing the sales, according to a ruling Wednesday by a federal appeals court.

The brief order issued by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted two-pill versions of emergency contraception to immediately be sold without restrictions, but the court refused to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step until it decides the merits of the government’s appeal. It did not specify why the two-pill versions were being allowed now, though it said the government failed to meet the requirements necessary to block the lower-court decision.

The order was welcomed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, where President Nancy Northup called it a “historic day for women’s health.”

“Finally, after more than a decade of politically motivated delays, women will no longer have to endure intrusive, onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions to get emergency contraception,” she said in a statement.

The center’s litigation director, Julie Rickelman, said the government has two weeks to decide whether to appeal the 2nd Circuit’s decision on the stay to the full appeals court or the Supreme Court. Even if there is no appeal of the stay ruling, it was unclear how soon drugstores would move the two-pill emergency contraception from behind the counter. She said she hoped the pills would be available without restriction within a month.

“What it does mean is that generic two-pill products are going to be readily available to women without age restrictions, on any drugstore shelf,” Rickelman said. “It’ll be like buying Tylenol. You’ll be able to go get it off the drugstore shelf, no ID, at the regular counter.”

Justice Department spokeswoman Allison Price said the government was reviewing the court’s order.

CHICAGO, IL – APRIL 05: This photo illustration shows a package of Plan B contraceptive on April 5, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois.

The government has appealed U.S. District Judge Edward Korman’s underlying April 5 ruling, which ordered levonorgestrel-based emergency contraceptives be made available without a prescription, over-the-counter and without point-of-sale or age restrictions.

The government asked Korman to suspend the effect of that ruling until the appeals court could decide the case, but the judge declined, saying the government’s decision to restrict sales was “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified and contrary to agency precedent.” He also said there was no basis to deny the request to make the drugs widely available.

The government had argued that “substantial market confusion” could result if Korman’s ruling was enforced while appeals were pending, only to be later overturned.

The Food and Drug Administration was preparing in 2011 to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move.

The FDA announced in early May that Plan B One-Step could be sold without a prescription to those 15 and older. Its maker, Teva Women’s Health, plans to begin those sales soon. Sales had previously been limited to those who were at least 17.

Korman later ridiculed the FDA changes, saying they established “nonsensical rules” that favored sales of the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill and were made “to sugarcoat” the government’s appeal.

He also said they place a disproportionate burden on blacks and the poor by requiring a prescription for less expensive generic versions of the drug bought by those under age 17 and by requiring those over age 17 to show proof-of-age identification at a pharmacy.

Plan B One-Step is the newer version of emergency contraception – the same drug, but combined into one pill instead of two.

Technorati Tags: Roker,contraception,media,MSM,low-informed,NBC,dumbing-down of America,FDA,parenting,children,abortion,Sebelius,HHS,Obamaland,Big Brother,Big Pharma,society,Christians,MSNBC,pharmaceuticals,religion,levonorgestrel-based,culture,morality,ideology