Civil & Human Rights

(Update) ‘Culture Warrior Day’ at the U.S. Supreme Court

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On New Year's Eve, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gave respondents until Friday to file a response to petitions filed by the state of Utah in the marriage equality case, and from the Little Sisters of the Poor in the contraceptive coverage mandate of "ObamaCare" case from Colorado. Those responses have now been filed.

Early reports from the Washington Post: Obama administration asks Justices to lift delay on birth-control rule:

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Friday that a group of Colorado nuns does not need a special injunction against the new health-care’s law provision providing contraceptive coverage for employees because the group can easily exempt itself from the requirement.

The government asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lift the temporary injunction she issued New Year’s Eve for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Colorado nonprofit organization that provides services to the elderly. The Affordable Care Act, new provisions of which went into effect Jan. 1, requires employers who provide insurance coverage to include contraceptive services.

But nonprofit organizations such as the nuns’ may opt out of the requirement simply by certifying that they have religious objections, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. wrote in a response to Sotomayor filed Friday morning.

The “employer-applicants here are eligible for religious accommodations set out in the regulations that exempt them from any requirement ‘to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for contraceptive coverage,’ ” Verrilli wrote.

“They need only self-certify that they are non-profit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services.”

“Religious freedom” prudes win a small victory.

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Late in the afternoon on New Year's Eve, the US Supreme Court quietly dropped a small bombshell regarding the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate. 

Just before presiding over the Times Square countdown on New Year’s Eve, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary injunction to a handful of Catholic nonprofit groups, including the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged. They say that the Obama administration’s accommodation on birth control coverage still violates their religious liberty. Sotomayor asked the government to respond by Friday. After that, the Justice, who oversees the circuit where the case was first filed, will either issue a further ruling herself or refer it to the full court. 

The decision applies only to the organizations in question and doesn’t affect the broader contraceptive coverage regulations in the Affordable Care Act, which have already gone into effect for millions of American women. But it may signal that the broader court is receptive to arguments that filling out a form for an employee to get birth control directly from an insurer is a substantial burden on religion. 

Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the lead attorney on the case, told msnbc of his clients, “They’re saying, ‘I can’t fill out permission slips for abortion, sterilization or contraception under any circumstances.’” (The mandate does not cover abortion, but some Catholic and evangelical groups have contended that the scientifically undocumented possibility the IUD and emergency contraception will disrupt the implantation of a fertilized egg is the same as abortion.) 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s New Year’s Eve

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

For those of you who still watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve, you saw U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor start the ball drop.

Sotomayor
Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News

But before Justice Sotomayor joined revelers at Times Square, she had a busy evening issuing orders in appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several groups of Roman Catholic universities, schools, and charity organizations on Tuesday afternoon began filing a series of requests for the Supreme Court to delay enforcement of the contraceptive mandate in the new federal health care law. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports, New challenges to birth-control mandate (UPDATED):

UPDATE 11:21 p.m.  In a case from the Tenth Circuit Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor temporarily blocked enforcement of the mandate against the institutions in that case, while she awaits a response from the federal government, due by 10 a.m. on Friday.  Four separate applications were filed from different federal Circuits, but not all sought immediate relief.

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The Court has already agreed to hear constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on birth control and other pregnancy-related services, in the cases of Sebelius v.  Hobby Lobby Stores (docket 13-354) and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius (13-356). The Court has not yet scheduled those cases for oral argument.  Briefing in those two is now in progress.

Advanced directive? Maybe not, if you’re a lady with a Holy Fetus inside her

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I had not planned to do any blogging over the holidays but then there was this whitehot-rage-inducing item in the news today:

Marlise Munoz, 33, is in serious condition in the intensive care unit at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, hospital officials said. She is unconscious and on a ventilator, her husband told CNN affiliate WFAA, but she wouldn't have wanted her life sustained by a machine.

"We talked about it. We're both paramedics," he told WFAA. "We've seen things out in the field. We both knew that we both didn't want to be on life support."

Complicating an already difficult situation is that Munoz is also pregnant, about 18 weeks along, WFAA reported. Texas state law prohibits withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient, regardless of her wishes.

Fruity or Oaky? Rambling Thoughts on White People Problems

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

My coffee table book is too large for my coffee table.

My Internet connection is too slow.

My dishwasher doesn’t really get the dishes clean.

iPads should have a USB connection.

I can’t remember all of my passwords.

Will Wall Street gambling hurt by 401K’s performance?

My car is annoying. The on-board computer tells me when to add air to the tires, when someone’s seatbelt is undone, and when it needs to go to the shop for service.

I hate it when I find a good recipe on the Internet and then can’t find it again.

Cable TV is too expensive for what your get. NetFlix is the way to go– or just plug the laptop into the flat screen TV.

I give my dog a daily dab of Greek yogurt with her dog food because she farts too much.