The Supreme Court agreed that some companies can refuse to cover contraception. Bestowing more personhood on entities devised to mitigate personal liability than on actual women baffles me, but there it is.
The next challenges to Obamacare coverage on religious grounds are listed right in the dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
“Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
The floodgate of cases is already opening.
I tend to agree with the notion that the Hobby Lobby decision actually hurts most people of faith.
Moreover, I find it disingenuous when I discover Hobby Lobby invested in numerous abortion and contraception products while claiming religious objection.
The root of this mess, of course, is health insurance, therefore health care, tied to employment. As Charles Turecek correctly noted:
Health care should be managed by the government, as it is in almost every advanced country in the world except the U.S. People shouldn’t be forced to take or keep lousy, low paid jobs because they are afraid of losing health benefits. Get corporations out of the health insurance business and force them to pay a fair share of taxes. That’s fair, isn’t it?
There are people, notably George Takei, who have suggested a boycott of the 500 stores of Hobby Lobby, which I would support. Though in fact, I’ve never been to a Hobby Lobby and didn’t realize until the day the decision was announced on June 30 that there one in Albany County. The argument against boycotting, that the employees of HL would be economically harmed, while theoretically true, is unconvincing. I imagine there will be some people who will actually seek out the stores because of the stance of the owners, the Greens, who I am fairly sure are unrelated to me.
Now as a result of the ruling, I DON’T really expect to see this, which is an obvious parody: SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LITTLE CAESAR’S RIGHT TO FEED CHRISTIAN EMPLOYEES TO LIONS. Sometimes, the absurdist makes the point in the best way.
