In a new court filing, attorneys for two Guantanamo Bay detainees have invoked the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed certain corporations to ignore the Obamacare contraception mandate if their owners object to it on religious grounds. The motions, filed with a Washington, DC, district court on behalf of Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan and Emad Hassan of Yemen, ask the court to bar military officials from preventing Gitmo inmates from participating in communal prayer during Ramadan.
"Hobby Lobby makes clear that all persons—human and corporate, citizen and foreigner, resident and alien—enjoy the special religious free exercise protections of the [Religious Freedom Restoration Act]," the lawyers argue.
A spokesman for the Department of Defense told Al Jazeera America on Friday that the "Defense Department is aware of the filing," and that the "government will respond through the legal system."
Gee I wonder if the Justices who were supposedly trying to protect the non-existent religious freedom of corporations recognized the can of worms that they were opening?
I also wonder how all of those Right Wing supporters who touted the decision as a victory for religious freedom will feel if it helps these prisoners get more of their own religious freedoms back?
Yeah I somehow doubt that Chad and Christie Christian will be terribly thrilled with their newly protected religious freedom being extended to people who pray to Mecca five times a day and think that Jesus was a great prophet but no son of God.
I hope more non Christians file suit over this. Americans need a wake up call.
ReplyDelete,,,and the illegals were turned round for the third time in Murietta? I hate what our country has become and have totally lost any kind of faith in SCOTUS following the constitution, let alone the GOP. This country is imploding.
ReplyDeleteI practice a religion that does not believe in killing, so I do not believe in war. My taxes are used to fund our Department of Defense to buy guns and other weapons used to kill people. Given the ruling from the Supreme Court, I shouldn't have to pay taxes to support something that violates my religious beliefs. Be careful, Supreme Court, because you have opened a can of worms, you have poked the hornets' nest, you have created a precedent for anyone to claim that their religious rights are being violated when they have to pay taxes, stop at the red light, wear a seat belt, pay for insurance, lie, or do just about anything that could fall under this same ruling.
ReplyDeleteGood point, so aa a Christian I can quote Jesus saying, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," and argue, "well, Caesar has long been dead so no more income, federal, state or city taxes for ME! The Bible said, only him!"
DeleteThey have opened a HUGE can of worms.
Hobby Lobby (all other closely held for profit corporations primarily owned by religiously inclined people) has to pay taxes which are pay for the drones to kill civilian children in Afghanistan. Hobby Lobby did not petition the court for relief from those taxes on religious grounds because
Deletea) no way in hell the SCOTUS would let them out of funding WARs
b) babies in Afghanstian dying doesn't bother Hobby Lobby's owners, what bothers them is the possibility that a women might make medical decisions about her own body.
Unfortunately you are not a corporation. The present SCOTUS would support you if you incorporate yourself and then refuse to pay war taxes.
DeleteBeaglemom
They'd have a difficult time claiming their religion objects to paying taxes since Jesus stated to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Unless they don't follow the teachings of Jesus. I'd like to know what religion they would claim to follow that considers the paying of taxes a sin. Tithing is just a tax levied by the Church instead of the State.
DeleteThis was bound to happen and these detainees now have every right to pray and the right-wing will have to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteActually, from my perspective they should have had the right to pray all along. Just because they are "prisoners of war" doesn't mean they haven't any rights.
DeleteHad any government in the second world war told our people they couldn't pray there would have been such a stink raised!
And by what right does our government say they CAN'T pray?
I agree with you Leland, and was surprised that we are keeping them from praying. I don't agree with that at all.
DeleteWho knew? We deny prayers to prisoners now?
DeletePosted by jkarov on Malia's page:
DeleteThe below is VERBATIM when Reagan addressed Members of the Congregation of Temple Hillel and Jewish Community Leaders in Valley Stream, New York, October 26, 1984:
Quote:
We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain.
Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever.
Church and state are, and must remain, separate!!!!!
All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.
At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions.
And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral.
End quote!
THERE you have it, Leland etal! HEAR that, Gitmo? TP? GOP? $ARAH???
The request is for "communal" prayer for the month long Ramadan. This might get an OK from the court, if they can prove praying separately during Ramada violates a sincere religious belief and the government can not prove there is a compelling reason for forcing solitary prayer.
DeleteBut prisoners of war are not necessarily subject to US law. There are international conventions about POWs that are in effect for the people held at GITMO.
Actually they aren't being denied the right to pray.
DeleteThey are being denied being allowed to pray in one big group altogether. For security purposes. They can pray all they want individually.
OT but too good not to share, from ESQUIRE on the maggot's pitch to join The View:
ReplyDeleteSo wonderful. Subjects and verbs that not only do not agree, but do not seem ever to have been introduced to each other.
The profound reverence paid to one's own idiot clichés.
The word-like collection of letters—"groundedness"—that seem to have been translated from the original Moron.
And, especially, a citation of the "American work ethic" from a woman who quit her actual job halfway through the gig and who has been on the grift ever since John McCain, that fathead, foisted her on the world. America is, indeed, amazing.
SERIOUSLY?
ReplyDeleteHouse Republicans To Waste 3.3 Million Taxpayer Dollars On Special Benghazi Investigation
House Republicans claim that the nation can’t afford to spend money, but they are about to waste 3.3 million taxpayer dollars on their special Benghazi investigation.
USA Today reported:
House Republicans are planing to spend as much as $3.3 million for this year’s operations of the special committee they created in May to investigate the September 2012 Benghazi attacks, a bigger budget than the House Veterans Affairs and Ethics Committees were given this year.
According to a committee document provided by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office, House Republicans want a $3.3 million budget for this year’s operations of the 12-member select committee on the Benghazi attacks.
...Speaker Boehner’s select committee on Benghazi will be the seventh congressional investigation of the attack in the last two years. The country doesn’t need another Benghazi investigation. Voters aren’t clamoring for another Benghazi investigation. The only people who want to keep investigating Benghazi as the Republicans who are trying to avoid running on their meager records this fall.
...Republicans have claimed that the nation can’t afford to pay for extending unemployment benefits, but they are throwing away millions of dollars on bogus Benghazi investigations.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/07/house-republicans-waste-3-3-million-taxpayer-dollars-special-benghazi-investigation.html
Can we keep on topic, please?
Delete>>Can we keep on topic, please?
DeleteCan you kindly go fuck yourself please.
$3.3 million going to Benghazi instead of the V.A.?
DeleteSomething good may yet happen as a result of the Hobby Lobby ruling. But more than this, the government should either charge these men or let them return home. Our war is over.
ReplyDeleteSend the Scotus justices who voted for it go and explain it to them in person. This is only the beginning of the slippery slope.
ReplyDeleteA little update on that horrific display of racism and disrespect on the 4th of July in Nebraska. The disconnect is stunning.
ReplyDelete...Norfolk resident Dale Remmich created the controversial float and defended it in an interview with the Norfolk Daily News.
"I am not a hate-monger. I am not a racist. This float was not disrespectful of the office of the presidency. I am sorry if there was misunderstanding about that," Remmich said.
The Nebraska Democratic Party had denounced the float as one of the "worst shows of racism and disrespect for the office of the presidency that Nebraska has ever seen."
Remmich also tried to clear up a misunderstanding about the float. He said the mannequin depicted himself, not President Obama.
"I’ve got my bibs on, my walker, I’m covering my ears and I’m turning a bit green — I intended it to look like a zombie who has had enough," he explained.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-outhouse-parade-float-rules
The rural Norfolkan who created the float in Friday’s Fourth of July parade — which has generated considerable discussion ever since — said the point of the parade entry was to express displeasure with President Barack Obama’s oversight of the Veterans Administration and the treatment of individual veterans....
...“The float was political satire and an expression of political disgust — no more, no less,” Remmich said. “There was no racism involved, no hate for anyone.”
Remmich said he felt a need to more fully explain the intent behind the float because once a photo of it was posted on the Internet on social media sites, a wide-ranging discussion began, including those who believed the float to be racial in its message.
http://norfolkdailynews.com/news/parade-float-generates-discussion/article_223f5e42-0518-11e4-a7db-001a4bcf6878.html
Controversial Nebraska parade float creator speaks out
Remmich said, “I tried to use political satire as best I could, but to be honest with you it's mostly political disgust, simply no more or no less.”
http://www.ktiv.com/story/25951696/2014/07/07/popular-anti-obama-float-in-4th-of-july-parade-upsets-resident
ass covering BS from a mind stuck in toddler-hood
DeleteHe's blaming President Obama for not being nice to veterans??? What ever did George W. Bush do except make more veterans who continue to need medical care? And what about the GOP in Congress and their consistent votes to withhold money from VA hospitals and from veterans in general? This guy is trying to make excuses for his overtly racist and very "morally objectionable" float. I hope he's shamed forever. What a jerk and what a town of jerks to allow this to happen!
DeleteBeaglemom
O/T but this is such bullshit. Who the fuck is she to be an 'expert' on women. She's sending women to the back of the bus as far as I can tell. Geeze.
ReplyDeleteFox & Friends’ Professional Advice to Women: ‘Don’t Talk Too Much’
...When she advised women to keep their points concise and not “fill the air with words,” Steve Doocy suggested, “Don’t talk too much.”
“Exactly,” Hewlett replied.
Watch video below, via Fox News:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-friends-professional-advice-to-women-dont-talk-too-much/
Gee, were they addressing their friend Sarah Palin? All she does is "fill the air with words," words that make no sense and offer nothing that is positive.
DeleteBeaglemom
Boy, it didn't take very long for the consequences of a moronic Court decision, to make themselves known.
ReplyDeleteIts easy to predict a flood of lawsuits to spring forth from the action of nearsighted, senile old men.
It should be remembered the five justices voting for Hobby Lobby are all Catholic males.
ReplyDeleteThanks SCOTUS for opening the door for Sharia Law!
ReplyDeleteI believe Gitmo is a military prison run by the military so good luck with that.
ReplyDelete