> This actually isn't about how employees use their own compensation.
It absolutely is.
Employee pays a health insurance premium, which is a financial benefit, and provides the employee with a health insurance plan. Employee then *chooses* to get contraception, which the health insurance plan (not the employer) pays for. Trying to draw some tangled web of reasoning wherein the above is morally equivalent to the employer actually using contraception, but if they employee pays for that same contraception out of wage/salary money from the same employer than that is not morally equivalent? That web is not close to reasonable.
You only accept that kind of reasoning if you really *want* it to be true a priori, IMO ... or if you accept the voice of an authority (like the Supreme Court) that really wanted it to be true, and assume that since they decided it there must be some reasonableness to it. There's not a slight whit of reasonableness to it, by a very very very long shot.
> The reason why the idea of a closely held corporation is important is connected to passing the test of "sincere belief".
Yeah, I'll believe that when the Supreme Court rules that other corporations *cannot* get this kind of exemption. They haven't said that. Even if they do say that, it's still not very important, considering how many "closely held" corporations there are and how large some of them are, but given the fact that we don't even know that this idea is limited to those corporations until the next court case comes along, it's even less important for now.
> If it weren't for the fact that the government was already throwing around exemptions left and right they probably could have argued "compelling interest".
I don't understand what you mean here. "compelling interest" didn't get struck, there was (in hindsight) no point in arguing it. As long as there's another way to achieve the same interest, and that other way is less intrusive on religion, it makes no difference at all under the RFRA whether it's a compelling interest or not; you still have to take the other way. Did I misunderstand something about the RFRA here, or do I not get what you're trying to say?
no subject
It absolutely is.
Employee pays a health insurance premium, which is a financial benefit, and provides the employee with a health insurance plan. Employee then *chooses* to get contraception, which the health insurance plan (not the employer) pays for. Trying to draw some tangled web of reasoning wherein the above is morally equivalent to the employer actually using contraception, but if they employee pays for that same contraception out of wage/salary money from the same employer than that is not morally equivalent? That web is not close to reasonable.
You only accept that kind of reasoning if you really *want* it to be true a priori, IMO ... or if you accept the voice of an authority (like the Supreme Court) that really wanted it to be true, and assume that since they decided it there must be some reasonableness to it. There's not a slight whit of reasonableness to it, by a very very very long shot.
> The reason why the idea of a closely held corporation is important is connected to passing the test of "sincere belief".
Yeah, I'll believe that when the Supreme Court rules that other corporations *cannot* get this kind of exemption. They haven't said that. Even if they do say that, it's still not very important, considering how many "closely held" corporations there are and how large some of them are, but given the fact that we don't even know that this idea is limited to those corporations until the next court case comes along, it's even less important for now.
> If it weren't for the fact that the government was already throwing around exemptions left and right they probably could have argued "compelling interest".
I don't understand what you mean here. "compelling interest" didn't get struck, there was (in hindsight) no point in arguing it. As long as there's another way to achieve the same interest, and that other way is less intrusive on religion, it makes no difference at all under the RFRA whether it's a compelling interest or not; you still have to take the other way. Did I misunderstand something about the RFRA here, or do I not get what you're trying to say?