So apparently PrEP is now a religious freedom issue.

[rubytue]

www.kut.org/politics/2022-09-07/texas-judge-rules-coverage-of-anti-hiv-medicine-violates-religious-freedom

A federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday that a mandate requiring most health insurance companies to cover medicine that prevents HIV infection violates the religious freedom of certain businesses.

[isabel]

Oh, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

[mala]

Sept 7, 2022 19:44:11 GMT -5 isabel said:

Oh, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Seconded.

[pixy0stix]

You've got to be fucking kidding.

[wanderingback]

I saw that earlier and wasn’t surprised that it could be spun that way but obviously maddening! Is it going to go to the Supreme Court?

[wanderingback]

Also every time these rulings come out it still blows my mind that our system is set up so that 1 person is capable of ruining people’s lives in an instant.

[seeyalater52]

I’m not kidding when I say I’m terrified that the LGBTQ genocide is escalating. Every fucking day it’s something. They’re trying to kill us off in the name of some warped sense of religion.

[underwaterrhymes]

Sept 7, 2022 20:28:04 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

I’m not kidding when I say I’m terrified that the LGBTQ genocide is escalating. Every fucking day it’s something. They’re trying to kill us off in the name of some warped sense of religion.

Liking out of solidarity. I hate this so much.

[mcppalmbeach]

I hope the people responsible for this die excruciating deaths. Not even sorry about it. It’s disgusting.

[Patsy Baloney]

So wiping out the better part of a generation of gay people wasn’t enough. They have to kill another one along with other high risk folks. My god.

It all makes me so sad and angry.

I imagine preexisting conditions will be next up.

[Patsy Baloney]

Sept 7, 2022 20:44:24 GMT -5 mcppalmbeach said:

I hope the people responsible for this die excruciating deaths. Not even sorry about it. It’s disgusting.

And I hope there’s a hell to torture them for eternity.

[penguingrrl]

That’s fucking psychotic. Every bit of social progress made in the past century is being wiped out so fast.

[goldengirlz]

In addition to how horribly dehumanizing this ruling is for the LGBTQ community, what year is it that people still believe that only gay men are at risk of contracting HIV.

[mrsukyankee]

This is horrifying.

[estrellita]

I can't even form a coherent sentence about how fucked up this is. I'm so damn sick of people trying to hide behind religion to hide their pure hate. Especially when their religion is supposed to teach the opposite.

[hermione]

Enraging.

[Michelle]

It used to be the occasional gaffes that made living in Texas embarrassing. It is now multiple times a day that it is just shameful.

[Velar Fricative]

I understand there are many people of faith who don't subscribe to heinous beliefs and I respect their religious beliefs, but man, it's shit like this over my lifetime that finally just made me cut ties with organized religion. This is just horrific.

[livinitup]

As a social worker who worked to prevent the spread of HIV, I have been well educated in the benefits of PrEP as an important medication.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR TWISTED MORAL IDEOLOGY THAT PREVENTING ACCESS TO MEDICATION IS A RELIGIOUS PROTECTION.

[gretchenindisguise]

I can at least somewhat understand the twisted logic they use to deny birth control, but I do not understand what twisted logic they are using to try to deny PrEP. It’s simply unconscionable.

I guess they are over the whole bs line of “hate the sin love the sinner.”? And once again that whole pro-life thing is revealed as a sham.

Fuck these fucking fuckers.

[Michelle]

The precedent this sets is so dangerous it HAS to be overturned on appeal. It opens the door to denying treatment for STDs acquired outside of marriage, for denying hysterectomies in child-bearing years, for denying tubal ligations for women in childbearing years, and more.

And my GOD - heteros are spreading HIV way faster today than the LGBTQ community. So many levels of anger at this...

[wawa]

Sept 8, 2022 8:54:27 GMT -5 Michelle said:

The precedent this sets is so dangerous it HAS to be overturned on appeal. It opens the door to denying treatment for STDs acquired outside of marriage, for denying hysterectomies in child-bearing years, for denying tubal ligations for women in childbearing years, and more.

And my GOD - heteros are spreading HIV way faster today than the LGBTQ community. So many levels of anger at this...

Do any of our legal eagles know enough about this case to say if this is probably true?  from like a...logic and a "healthcare is good, we should have some" point of view this seems like it HAS to be true, but so do a lot of other things.

I'm working very hard at channeling these screams of rage into something productive...

[StrawberryBlondie]

Sept 8, 2022 8:56:51 GMT -5 wawa said:

Sept 8, 2022 8:54:27 GMT -5 Michelle said:

The precedent this sets is so dangerous it HAS to be overturned on appeal. It opens the door to denying treatment for STDs acquired outside of marriage, for denying hysterectomies in child-bearing years, for denying tubal ligations for women in childbearing years, and more.

And my GOD - heteros are spreading HIV way faster today than the LGBTQ community. So many levels of anger at this...

Do any of our legal eagles know enough about this case to say if this is probably true?  from like a...logic and a "healthcare is good, we should have some" point of view this seems like it HAS to be true, but so do a lot of other things.

I'm working very hard at channeling these screams of rage into something productive...

With the caveat that I only read an article about the decision yesterday and haven't read the actual opinion... Kind of.

It's a district court decision so it has a pretty limited effect (meaning, it's not binding on courts state or federal courts in any other state - I don't think it's even binding on the other federal districts in Texas but I'm not totally clear on that as my state only has one federal district court). But it is likely to embolden people in other states to bring such cases (some of which would say "haha no" but others might decide similarly).

It should absolutely be appealed because the ruling is garbage (both morally and legally) but it would go to the 5th circuit, which is far from a guarantee they won't agree with the district court.

Next stop would be the Supreme Court, and they've shown to be *extremely* deferential to people claiming something violates their religious freedom, so...

TL:DR - has potential to be huge. Might actually not, but absolutely could.

[seeyalater52]

Sept 8, 2022 8:56:51 GMT -5 wawa said:

Sept 8, 2022 8:54:27 GMT -5 Michelle said:

The precedent this sets is so dangerous it HAS to be overturned on appeal. It opens the door to denying treatment for STDs acquired outside of marriage, for denying hysterectomies in child-bearing years, for denying tubal ligations for women in childbearing years, and more.

And my GOD - heteros are spreading HIV way faster today than the LGBTQ community. So many levels of anger at this...

Do any of our legal eagles know enough about this case to say if this is probably true?  from like a...logic and a "healthcare is good, we should have some" point of view this seems like it HAS to be true, but so do a lot of other things.

I'm working very hard at channeling these screams of rage into something productive...

The precedent is fucking horrific. I am not a lawyer but working in health policy I can tell you everyone is scrambled this morning processing the implications. Whether it can stand may depend more on the venue for appeals (5th circuit is… not good. SCOTUS is a sham. It may just come down to ideology more than anything else which is messed up.)

There are actually two legal issues at play here:

The first is the religious freedom claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (fuuuuuck that name.) The law is pretty broad. It seems sort of bonkers on its face that whether someone else takes PrEP violates your religious freedom and certainly opens the door to a lot of other sinister interpretations of medical care and mortality that could have massive trickle down effects. That said, I don’t know that I have faith that the courts won’t rubber stamp this given that latitude that Congress gave in the stupid act to begin with. This sort of thing is literally the point of RFFA.

The second legal issue is just as concerning but hasn’t gotten much play in the media. O’Connor ruled that mandating coverage of things recommended by the US Preventative Services Task Force violates the Appointments Clause. Basically, that the task force who is in charge of saying what preventative treatments must be covered by ACA compliant insurance plans (at no cost sharing) doesn’t have that authority. That would be, uh, awful, because in addition to important medications like PrEP we are also talking about recommendations that cover cancer screenings and other critical preventative care.

There is marginally less panic shout this because it’s very possible that Congress could fix this with a simple legislative patch. Even if GOP controlled one of the chambers of Congress I could see them moving on this. The preventative services provisions of the ACA are some of the most popular and there’s a TON of research showing why preventative care is beneficial and it is very easy for the average person to generalize this as something that doesn’t just impact a hated minority group.

But yeah, nothing good here.

[rubytue]

Sept 8, 2022 6:26:46 GMT -5 estrellita said:

I can't even form a coherent sentence about how fucked up this is. I'm so damn sick of people trying to hide behind religion to hide their pure hate. Especially when their religion is supposed to teach the opposite.

This is why I included no comments when I posted. Words failed me. 

[Deleted]

Pro-fucking-life my ass.

[sonrisa]

Homophobia and transphobia are at the center of this, but don’t overlook the racism and xenophobia aspect.

[shauni27]

Sept 8, 2022 8:56:51 GMT -5 wawa said:

Sept 8, 2022 8:54:27 GMT -5 Michelle said:

The precedent this sets is so dangerous it HAS to be overturned on appeal. It opens the door to denying treatment for STDs acquired outside of marriage, for denying hysterectomies in child-bearing years, for denying tubal ligations for women in childbearing years, and more.

And my GOD - heteros are spreading HIV way faster today than the LGBTQ community. So many levels of anger at this...

Do any of our legal eagles know enough about this case to say if this is probably true?  from like a...logic and a "healthcare is good, we should have some" point of view this seems like it HAS to be true, but so do a lot of other things.

I'm working very hard at channeling these screams of rage into something productive...

I cannot get there quite yet. I am just so fucking pissed.

Why does everything happening these days remind me of the flashbacks in early seasons of Handmaid to when women and LGTBQ+ saw basic rights stripped away? I keep thinking of those scenes.

[sonrisa]

My other thought: I don’t see how you can claim this is in keeping with Christianity. Jesus was all about curing lepers by touching them, you fuckers. All you have to do to protect someone’s health is not block someone else’s access to medication.

[sonrisa]

Sept 9, 2022 7:33:41 GMT -5 shauni27 said:

Sept 8, 2022 8:56:51 GMT -5 wawa said:

Do any of our legal eagles know enough about this case to say if this is probably true?  from like a...logic and a "healthcare is good, we should have some" point of view this seems like it HAS to be true, but so do a lot of other things.

I'm working very hard at channeling these screams of rage into something productive...

I cannot get there quite yet. I am just so fucking pissed.

Why does everything happening these days remind me of the flashbacks in early seasons of Handmaid to when women and LGTBQ+ saw basic rights stripped away? I keep thinking of those scenes.

and the other scenes when they show children being ripped from their families by the government and being treated so much better than how our country was treating the children it steals. We aren’t just in the flashbacks. Some of our present already exceeds handmaid cruelty standards.