Lyle Denniston has a summary of the oral arguments in today’s contraceptive case and you can also read the transcript here. Denniston seems to have the sense (shared by several other reports I read) that the day did not go well for the government’s case, despite the spirited question by the three women justices of the lawyers for the companies. It will be quite telling if a 6-3 verdict splits along gender lines.
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Today the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case in which two private non-profit companies Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties are claiming that the health insurance plans they provide to their employees should not have to provide contraceptive coverage if doing so violates the religious beliefs of the companies’ owners.
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A US District Court judge in Michigan became the latest in an unbroken string to strike down a state’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution’s equal protections clause.
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You may have heard of the Christian school teacher in Louisiana who ridiculed a student in her class who happened to be Buddhist. She seems to be a real piece of work and what was worse, was backed up by school and district authorities.
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Via Jonathan Turley, I came across this shocking story of pregnant women in police custody who, when it came time to deliver their babies, were shackled to the beds. This is even if they are not accused of anything remotely dangerous. One woman has sued to stop this barbaric practice.
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My older daughter was born in Sri Lanka. It was not the practice at that time there for fathers to be present in the delivery room and so I was not there when she was born but saw her soon after when she and her mother were back in their room. My younger daughter was born four years later in the US and this time I was present at the delivery.
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A US District Judge in Kentucky has become the latest to rule in favor of same sex marriage. But this ruling is of a different kind from those in other states that ruled that the state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, although the impact is the same.
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On Tuesday, February 25, 2014, Central California US District Judge Stephen V. Wilson ruled that a veterans memorial monument that the city of Lake Elsinore proposed placing in front of the city’s minor league baseball stadium showing a soldier kneeling in front of a cross was unconstitutional because it violated both the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause and the Establishment and No Preference Clauses of the California Constitution.
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Today comes word that US District Judge Orlando Garcia has ruled that Texas’s ban on same sex marriage, as specified in Article 1, section 32 of the Texas state constitution, is unconstitutional, saying that “the prohibition on same sex marriage conflicts with the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process.” The order was stayed pending appeal. Texas thus joins Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah in this action, and other states have similar cases pending.
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The Affordable Care Act requires employers that provide health insurance to employees to provide contraceptive coverage for women. Religious organizations that oppose contraception have argued that this violates their religious beliefs and have gone to court to say that they should be exempt under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that prevents the government from taking actions that would “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless there is a “compelling governmental interest” and the action is the “least restrictive” it can take.
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