Live in 45 minutes

The legal staff at American Atheists is doing a live ask questions thing about the Hobby Lobby ruling in 50 minutes from now, 7 pm Eastern time, 4 my time, midnight UK time.

Update: here is the video link.

I know what I want to ask. On p 3 of the Hobby Lobby ruling we are told that the purpose of granting rights to corporations is to protect the rights of people associated with the corporation, including shareholders, officers and employees. What’s to prevent a group of shareholders and/or employees from counter-suing to seek protection for *their* rights? [Read more…]

A chance to air their nostalgia

Emily Bazelon at Slate takes a look at some of the more…eccentric far-right arguments in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood briefs against the Obamacare rule that employers must provide contraception coverage as part of their health care plans.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, the companies whose suits the Supreme Court will hear later this month, have been careful to frame their objections narrowly. They’re not refusing to pay for all birth control. They just don’t want to fund “items” like the morning-after pill and the IUD, which they say effectively cause abortion by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the uterus. Many scientists say that’s not true. But the companies are trying to take a limited, reasonable-minds-may-differ position. [Read more…]