Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars joins the Doubtcasters for an analysis of the SCOTUS ruling on the recent Hobby Lobby case. Some popular misunderstandings about the ruling and its implications are dispelled, and the true dangers of the decision are discussed. Also, Luke Galen reviews polling data on where the American public stands on the issue of birth control and offers some predictions on how the SCOTUS ruling may impact individuals and the nation.
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Holy crap, the podcast feed is fixed! Woohoo!
Brilliant!! (The iTunes feed being fixed, I haven’t heard the episode yet, although I’m sure that’s brilliant, too)
Yippeee! A new RD podcast! Thanks! Now get to work on the next one!
The feed worked flawlessly, I use PodCruncher on an IPhone 5s and have not made any changes to the podcast address, it’s the same as it was before you made the server/provider change. So it worked!
I can’t get the download to complete – it stops ~halfway through. Anybody else?
I’m using the RSS feed, the link is
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reasonabledoubts/Msxh/~3/oMb8yxiOQ8w/rd129_get_a_new_hobby_lobby.mp3
LOL! I tried four times to dl the podcast, no joy. No sooner do I whine about it here than voila! the fifth time works.
Must be voodoo or sumpin.
This sooo reminds me of my article “God Loves Abortion”
http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2012/09/29/god-loves-abortion/
Also Andy Schueler’s fascinating piece,
“Life starts at conception but what about personhood?”
http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2012/11/14/life-starts-at-conception-but-what-about-personhood/
Great work guys, as ever.
W3C’s feed validator says there’s still some questionable markup (link).
Something to look into if anyone reports having difficulty with viewing the episode list.
Interrupted downloads via the feed wouldn’t be caused by that though.
Coincidence of the day: This episode came up in my feed directly after the latest episode of Freakonomics Radio, which was titled “What do King Solomon and David Lee Roth have in common?”
I got the new episode with a Mashpodder client. I always enjoy Ed Brayton’s perspective, and the Hobby Lobby case was a great issue to bring him in on. Keep the shows coming!!
I usually have a lot of respect for Ed Brayton but frankly I thought he was an idiot in this episode if he really sincerely believes there isn’t going to be for a push to expand the broad religious exemptions for discrimination against LGBT employees by using the Hobby Lobby ruling. The whole freaking day after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby the Religious Right demanded Obama include broad religious exemptions in his planned executive orders banning anti-LGBT workplace discrimination for federal contractors, citing the Hobby Lobby Ruling as their justification. While the Supreme Court claimed the Hobby Lobby ruling couldn’t be expanded to include discrimination policies, they failed to explain how it wouldn’t and it’s notable they didn’t mention LGBT employees in their defense of their “narrow’ ruling. I also think it was highly irrational that Ed Brayton didn’t even bother to read any of the articles or the arguments the LGBT activist groups used to justify their pulling support for ENDA before he boldly declared them to be wrong. But who cares if 99% of LGBT activist groups have genuine concern about the broad religious exemptions in ENDA or what they actually say? Because clearly Ed thinks he’s the only right one and can’t be wrong about this and I’m disappointed you guys didn’t push him harder on this.
@11. I think this is a bit harsh, but I agree with you in that I found Ed’s analysis to be very optimistic.
Perhaps another viewpoint, in a coming episode, would be a good idea. Especially as we see or don’t see lawsuits that attempt to use this case as a precedent. Even Ed again in six months might end up being an alternative viewpoint to Ed in this episode.
Or even just how dismissive Ed was on the impact this ruling would have on women. It is a ruling for discrimination – just against women.
What Ed doesn’t get about the religious exemption issue in regards to LGBT employees is that once you sign onto a religious exemption for one issue, by what standards do you decide when they don’t apply to others? What standards is the Supreme Court using to decide that religious exemptions applies to women yet somehow doesn’t apply when it comes to racial minorities? Neither the Supreme Court nor Ed ever explains this. Even assuming Justice Kennedy is as gay friendly as Ed makes him out to be, he’s assuming Kennedy’s gay friendly worldviews will over-ride his anti-government libertarian policies. Even with last year’s famous DOMA ruling, the Supreme Court never addressed whether or not marriage was a fundamental right or if marriage should be decided by the states. Judging by their reactions to the Prop 8 case that everyone seems to forget about, the Supreme Court seems to favor the “states’ rights” position when it comes to gay rights as opposed to a big government approach.
Justin pointed me to these objections to the things I said on the show (and to things I didn’t say at all). I’ve written a long post answering these objections in detail, which will be posted on my own blog in the next couple days.
I thought Ed Brayton came across as pretty knowledgeable and the ‘voice of reason’, though I’m in the UK so might not be aware of the full issues. Having said that his interview seemed to go over and over the same ground so much I gave over listening before the end. Sorry!
I appreciated Ed Brayton’s thoughts and his additional more detailed information. My concern about the HL ruling, beyond what was most discussed in this podcast, is the definition of “closely held.” For the moment it might apply to non-traded for-profit organizations. But until the ruling there was no provision for any for-profit organization. The next iteration might include a publicly traded for-profit, whose majority of shares are owned by just a few who share the same religious views.
Considering the judges ages, it seems reasonable to expect two or three seats to change in the next 10 years. If any four of those ten have a conservative, Republican president, with views similar to the court’s, it seems more likely the HL case and its implications will broaden.
@15 Ed Brayton
The post is up over at Ed’s blog:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/07/27/defending-my-recent-reasonable-doubts-appearance/