On Moral Grounds

At the beginning of this year, the United States Health and Human services unveiled a new policy known as the HHS Mandate. The HHS requires that all companies which provide private health care insurance must also provide coverage for employees to receive contraceptive drugs. Of course, this new policy hasn't been so easily accepted by everyone.

Hobby Lobby in particular has chosen to defy the HHS Mandate on moral grounds. The company’s Christian founders claim that the policy violates their Biblical beliefs, and that offering abortion-inducing drugs to their employees would go against their pro-life principles. However, any company that refuses to comply with the mandate will be charged some serious fines, and for Hobby Lobby, this could mean up to $1.3 million for every day they fail to provide the required insurance. Despite the mounting cost, the company has proceeded with a lawsuit that has already reached the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Friday, the court ruled that Hobby Lobby’s appeal would be decided by nine judges, instead of the usual 3-judge panel, and has even agreed to hear the appeal on an expedited basis.

U.S. District Court judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn recently issued the dismissal of a similar appeal made by the ETWN Global Catholic Television Network. ETWN filed the lawsuit for the same reasons as Hobby Lobby, but were turned down based on the court’s reluctance to make a ruling in light of future revisions the HHS has yet to receive.

Despite ETWN’s setback, Hobby Lobby still has a chance at success. Already they've garnered other 37,000 supporters on Facebook alone, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has even promoted a Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day (Jan. 5) to help support the company’s decision.

Proposed Cell Phone Privacy Law: Blog Critique

On Thursday, March 7, AMERICAblog posted a commentary on the recently proposed cell phone privacy law in Texas. According to the blog, this new law, if successful, would require authorities to obtain warrants before securing location/personal information that could be accessed through your mobile devices or mobile providers, as well as requiring service providers to publish annual transparency reports that would reveal whether or not your phone has a warrant issued against it.
Although the proposed law is, as of now, only in Texas, the author's intended audience could easily be the general U.S. public. As stated in the blog, Texas' size means that the law, if passed, would more than likely have some kind of impact on citizens of other states as well.
As far as credibility, the author appears to more or less know what they're talking about. Although not too many details were given on the proposed law, the author takes into account its potential impact in Texas, as well as the affect it would have on the rest of the nation.
The author's argument isn't lengthy, but it presents the information as it is, and get's the point across. Enough evidence is given to support the author's claim that privacy protection is important, and that, if passed, this new law would perhaps encourage the backing of future action for further protection. The author's logic is sound, yet subjective, and their opinion on Republicans is made very clear towards the end (the author basically mocks them and their stand on gun control).
Overall the argument was well presented and factual, yet still an interesting enough read.