Here we go again… The Religious Right never runs out of ideas to evangelize for its cause.
Civil rights attorneys, heads up!
Is this “religious freedom” based crusade of Hobby Lobby not just another way to force women into accepting a religious dogma they don’t agree with, in order to secure employment?
You don’t need glasses to see that HL’s “right” to deny the law of the land in refusing insurance coverage for expensive birth control medications, etc., has a disproportionately negative effect on the health of the women of childbearing age AS WELL AS restricting employment opportunities in predominantly low-middle income, rural or suburban areas that are already suffering from lack of job openings.
So if I recently lost my job or if I am entering the labor force as a h.s. graduate, for example, and Hobby Lobby is hiring, then if HL wins its case, I would be forced to either endorse its dogma on birth control or else pay out of pocket for birth control pills and quite possibly suffer harassment by the store for doing so, since we all know that Fundamentalist Christians are quite capable of making life miserable for anyone who doesn’t agree with them. And God forbid I should ever need to get an abortion for any reason connected with my own health.
These are the terms under which I would go to work for Hobby Lobby.
The fact that Hobby Lobby has 600 stores around the country, located in primarily rural and suburban areas where job opportunities are slim to begin with, means that HL–if it were to win its case–would be imposing a restriction on who could or would be willing to take a job with HL.
Think about this.
First, HL’s position is basically: either you work for us and endorse our right to deny you full access to health insurance under the law, or you don’t work for us.
Second, if would be preferable if you were a Fundamentalist Christian.
Third, Employers have already successfully fought the union “closed shop” under right-to-work laws. It seems clear that HL would then be guilty of violating right-to-work laws, under the guise of its own religious freedom.
What if it was decided that birth control was mandatory for Xtianists, who corrupt the morals of minors? Can morality be legislated? It is virtually the same argument.
Fuck these whack jobs and the whack jobs who work for them…
Maybe a bit off topic, but again I disagree with Mitt Romney and the SCOTUS majority: corporations are merely legal entities to protect corporate members from lawsuits. To imply corporations are also “people” “with religious beliefs” conveys personhood on a legal entity, and thereby gives these people 2 avenues of citizenship that the rest of do not have.
Couldn’t the Jehovah’s Witness CEO of a “closely held” nationwide company refuse to pay for blood transfusion in any of his employee’s health coverage? …or even any surgeries reasonably expected to require blood transfusion?
The problem could be solvers by rescinding the law that enshrined any belief as somehow protected. In the Hobby Lobby example, they claim that certain forms of birth control cause abortions, even though there is zero scientific evidence behind that belief. They therefore can impose that false belief on anyone who works for them, causing hardship and harm to families.
We are not a religious state. If people want to live in one, move to Israel or Saudi Arabia. Unbeknownst to the current Supreme Court, we have separation of church and state.
They knew exactly what they were doing.