substantial burden upon them. if all of those criteria are met, then the government would face a burden of demonstrating that there is a compelling government interest in coercing this individual into violating their religious conscience. so actually, this is much narrower than the existing state of the law. ted, what s your response to that? do you think if i go in and i m getting married to another woman and i go in and i ask for a wedding cake or a photographer, all that, and because of this bill someone might have been allowed to say no, my religion is that i don t believe in gay marriage so i m not going to provide that service to you. is that what christianity and what your belief in christianity says is the right thing to do, ted? no, not at all. jesus came to rescue all of us as sinners. and we were sinners when he rescued us. and we continue to sin to some degree until we see him
that the government action is a substantial burden upon them. if all of those criteria are met, then the government would face a burden of demonstrating that there is a compelling government interest in coercing this individual into violating their religious conscience. so actually, this is much nair roar th narrower than the existing state of the law. do you think if i go in and i m getting married to another woman and guy in and i ask for a wedding cake or a photographer, all that, and because of this bill someone might have been allowed to say no, my religion is that i don t believe in gay marriage so i m not going to provide that service to you. is that what christianity and what year belief in christianity says is the right thing to do, ted? no, not at all. jesus came to rescue all of us as sinners. and we were sinners when he rescued us. and we continue to sin to some
not substantially burden a person s exercise of religion. that seems to me what that bill is written to do, is to give people in their mind the right to ban gays, to ban others if you disagree with their beliefs. all of that language that you read is nothing new to the way religious freedom acts have been classically understood and interpreted. these have been around for a long time. all arizona is doing in all of these cases where any of these things have gone before courts. most courts have said, religious freedom restoration should be understood this way. thankfully, there are protections to ensure there is no abuse. so, as i said, if any of these terrible things could happen, they would already be happening. thankfully, there are things like the three-part test, which we codify within the 1062. along with compelling government interest and least restrictive means that are there to ensure none of these things can happen.
government interest you re protecting. what the administration says in this case it is a compelling government interest that this mandate apply to everyone. then you look at all these exemptions, exemptions for employers that have less than 50 employees, exemptions for certain grandfathered plans. if you look at how many people they re exempting clearly there is not a compelling government interest that applies to everyone. so they should let the nuns off the hook. just let the nuns do what their conscience dictates. they know what that means much better than anyone else does and certainly than an obama administration lawyer does. do you think they re going to do that? it is a close case. i don t think it is a close case on the merits but you never know what the supreme court is going to do. at the moment there is an injunction against the administration in forcing this on the nuns applied by sonia sotomayor. temporary injunction since new year s eve. the good news is it is still r
will it be a big fight but move us toward single payer? jay, happy new year to you. you are an optimist. they re both right. now we re at the place where we re going to improve it. we ve had so much controversy, it s still so incendiary in certain communities, the health care issue, but what s lost is finally our government is saying it has established that it s not just going to be concerned with health insurance for the eld elderly, for the very poor, for children, it s going to be concerned there s compelling government interest and health insurance for all americans. i read e.j. s column and he s right. it s here. it s happening. we re going to go forward and make it better. i think the challenge for democrats particularly will be educating and bringing in the large communities that are underserved by the latino i ll point out the gallup, who has been conservative in their ratings of president obama s approval ratings, nonetheless shows that we see