Satanists: Hobby Lobby Decision Could Exempt Women from Anti-abortion Laws

Image from source, Raw Story

This gives me a great deal of schadenfreude. File under: be careful what you wish for.

[Excerpt]

Satanists want to use Hobby Lobby decision to exempt women from anti-abortion laws

In a statement, the Satanic Temple said that it will use the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision to exempt its believers from state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material. Informed consent or “right to know” laws state that women seeking elective abortions be provided with information about alternatives to the procedure, often couched in language that attempts to personify the fetus. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 states currently have informed consent laws, and of those, 33 require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

The Rude Pundit on the Consequences of the Hobby Lobby Decision

Lee Papa, The Rude Pundit

There are lots of things that have bugged me about the Supreme Court and some of their decisions over the last few years. One of the biggest bones of contention for me, is that the court doesn't seem to plan for "unintended consequences." Or intended consequences. Or any consequences. They often either don't seem to have considered what the decision before them could lead to, or don't care.

Remember when Justice Samuel Alito shot back "Not true," when President Obama mentioned possible consequences of the Citizens United ruling, during the State of the Union Address? Turns out, Obama was right on the money. That tells me, Alito didn't ponder where CU could lead, or didn't believe it would happen. Later, when SCOTUS took a knife to the Voting Rights Act, they indicated that racism was over, and that the part they carved out was unnecessary. Minutes later, affected states began enacting previously prohibited voting restrictions. Wrong again, SCOTUS.

Now, we've got a) corporate personhood, b) corporations with religious beliefs, c) beliefs that are not contingent on reality or science, d) laws that can be disregarded by corporations with "sincerely held beliefs" that are in conflict with those laws, e) corporations having religious beliefs that trump the employees' religious beliefs, and f) untold future claims of possibly presently uninvented religions, with unknown beliefs. And of course, there is the underlying disrespect for women that seems to hang over anything politically conservative. It's a freakin' mess.

But I've gone on too long here. I don't have the talent of Lee Papa, The Rude Pundit, who has put pixels to screen on this subject, with far more zest than I can give it. So read on. I'll run a link to Part II when it goes live.

[Excerpt]

Yes, Everything Is Worse Than It Seems (Part 1: Hobby Lobby, Science, and You)

. . .Think about how that willful disbelief in science can apply. If Cargill, a closely-held corporation, says that its church doesn't believe that climate change is human-made, does that mean it can ignore pollution mandate? Can Chick-fil-A claim that its owners' religion says that homosexuality is a learned behavior, not genetic trait so, fuck you, queers, go home? Just think of all the laws you can toss out if you have a religious belief that is total bullshit, but sincerely held. Koch Industries was just told, "Go nuts, motherfuckers. Have blood orgies to your mad gods and sacrifice virgins to the oil demons, if that's what you believe." Walmart can finally make lard a sacrament. . .

Read more at: The Rude Pundit

Anti-Gay Groups Already Trying to Leverage SCOTUS Hobby Lobby Ruling

Every gay person and supporter who paid attention to the Hobby Lobby case at the Supreme Court likely predicted this. If you give corporations religious exemptions to law (and still, I can't get over that a corporation can have a religion*), it will spread to subjects far afield of the birth control argument that was the point of the case. Of course anti-gay corporate owners would try to leverage the decision into skirting public accommodation laws! And that is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

*By the way, now that corporations can have their own religious beliefs, I've got to wonder: Do corporations take communion? Do they get confirmed? Do they get circumcised? Do they have souls? Can they go to hell?

Image from source, Talking Points Memo

[Excerpt]

Post-Hobby Lobby, Religious Orgs Want Exemption From LGBT Hiring Order

The day after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he exempt them from a forthcoming executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. The letter, first reported by The Atlantic, was sent on Tuesday by 14 representatives, including the president of Gordon College, an Erie County, Pa., executive and the national faith vote director for Obama for America 2012, of the faith community. . .

Read more at: Talking Points Memo

Guy Sings Justice Ginsburg's Hobby Lobby Dissent

There are always high profile Supreme Court cases that one side or the other will be very disappointed about. But the Hobby Lobby case still leaves me very confused. As I said earlier, contraception and abortion aren't my issues. But the Pandora's Box that has been opened by allowing religious exemptions to laws? The pitfalls just seem so obvious. The legal reasoning seems so flimsy. I feel confident enough to predict: this case will lead to many and varied cases of companies trying to duck laws they don't like, bogus religions seeing what they can get away with, and even more bizarre claims of corporate personhood. But hey, it's not all doom and gloom, right? There are even ways to make the best of it. Like this guy.
 

Rachel Maddow: Previous SCOTUS Religion Cases Went Much Differently

A history lesson you should watch, so you can realize just how radical Monday's Hobby Lobby decision really was. If you don't have time for both videos, it's the second one that relates to the story below, the first is on the same subject.

[Excerpt]

Rachel Maddow: Christian segregationists would support Hobby Lobby ruling



Segregationists like Maurice Bessinger, who used religion to justify his beliefs, would be stunned and possibly pleased by Monday’s Supreme Court ruling regarding workers’ access to reproductive health measures, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said, “His belief in slavery and segregation as divinely ordained? That was certainly sincerely held,” Maddow said. “Certainly it was based in religion. But in his case, that was not enough to deprive people of their right to protections and rights that they were afforded under law. Now though, the court today said religion is all you need. . .”

Read more at: Raw Story

Supreme Court Inexplicably Decides For Hobby Lobby

I'm a gay man, if you didn't know, and as such have very little interest in the subject of abortion, or birth control. So, the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood case doesn't affect me directly. But as an atheist, I'm an ardent supporter of the separation of church and state (as all fans of the Constitution should be, by the way). And so, when SCOTUS does anything that bends over for religion, I've immediately got my hackles up.

Let's start with the direct problems with the case:

- It gives corporations "religious rights," furthering the fiction that corporations are people.
- It allows employers' religious beliefs to trump employees' religious beliefs.
- As such, the employer's beliefs are protected, while the employees' are disregarded.
- It allows an employers' beliefs about something (in this case that these particular birth control methods cause abortion, when in fact they don't) to be respected, regardless of how wrong it is.
- It magnifies something that was settled decades ago--birth control--into a "hot button" issue.
- Though it takes strained pains not to, it opens the door to countless other corporate religious exemptions to other laws.
- SCOTUS treats the religions of the companies involved in this case--mainstream Christianity--as a valid, acceptable religion to earn an exception to the ObamaCare law. But it dismisses other religions (Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, Christian Scientists), and gives no clear reasoning as to what would qualify one over the other.

This is one of those cases that is bound to make one side happy, and the other unhappy. But it also goes further, by tarnishing the already dingy reputation of the court, by not having much in the way of legal reasoning at all. Hobby Lobby is not a person. It is not a church. It is not a doctor or in the medical profession. It is a craft store. And yet, they put themselves in the position of dictating their religious beliefs about a medical decision to their employees, regardless of the employee's beliefs, or lack of them.

I want to ask supporters of this decision some simple questions: do you honestly think that it will end here, with a "Christian" corporation, on the issue of birth control only? Did you consider that this law will eventually apply to other religions, from Mormons to Hindus to Islam? Did you consider that a corporation could devise a whole new religion, and make any sort of "sincerely held beliefs" to get out of other laws? This was Pandora's Box. It's open now.

[Excerpt]

Supreme Court exempts Hobby Lobby from Obamacare contraception mandate

 

Attempting to expand religious expression protections to small business owners without significantly disrupting the rules that govern for-profit corporations, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Obama administration must exempt closely-held firms like Hobby Lobby from a rule requiring large companies to help pay for their employees' birth control. . .

Read more at: CBS News

Debunktion Junction: Rachel Maddow Debunks Cardinal Dolan and More

An entertaining segment that shows Cardinal Timothy Dolan to be decidedly uninformed on the subject of contraception. Which really isn't too surprising when you think about it, but you know, they've got him opining on a news show, so. . . you know. . . maybe they shouldn't do that.
 

Daily Show: Jon Stewart Unleashes on Hobby Lobby Case

I only hope that Anthony Kennedy watches The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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The Supremes and Hobby Lobby

For a "creative center," they sure have a boring, boring logo.
Helvetica, really? Image from Crooks and Liars.

The Supreme Court took on the Hobby Lobby case on Tuesday, and many of the news reports were rather alarming to me. The case is ostensibly about the ObamaCare contraception mandate, and whether or not a corporation's religious freedom is violated by it. But the case is potentially much more far-reaching than this one element of the Affordable Care Act.

My first problem with the case is that it assumes a corporation can have religious beliefs. "Corporations are people, my friend," was Mitt Romney's infamous quote, which is a troublesome concept, no matter how you take it. Corporations are actually groups of people, each with individual rights. Claiming that the corporation itself has rights seems like this collection of people has got more rights than a single individual, at least to me. But let's take that as a given, that corporations are people.

Fine then, how do you determine this "person's" religion? Do you go by the CEO? The CFO or COO? Do you take a poll of the board of directors, add 'em all up, take an average, and call that the corporation's religion? What about the employees, do their religious rights and freedoms get automatically trumped by the employer? If so, why? And why on earth should an employer have to follow the boss's idea of what kind of health care she should receive?

It's all such bizarre reasoning, and seems to not even bother imagining what potential pitfalls might follow, if it should prevail at SCOTUS. It also--as many "religious freedom" arguments do--assumes that only Christianity will be the religion in question, to be allowed these exemptions. Nope, if this case wins, every religion from Islam to Wicca to Pastafarians will have a new challenge: finding religious exemptions to laws that they can exploit. What's to stop a lobbying group with an agenda from creating their own religion with a doctrine that matches their list of wants? Suddenly, you have legal chaos. And all because the guy who runs Hobby Lobby really doesn't like President Obama. Crazy.

[Excerpt]

Supreme Court Struggles In Hobby Lobby Case With Question Of Companies' Religious Rights

Justices on the Supreme Court seemed to struggle Tuesday with the question of whether a private company can get out of a federal law by citing the religious beliefs of its shareholders. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

SCOTUS Case About "Religious Rights" of Corporations

Doesn't look like a church. Or a person.
Image from source, New York Times.

Sometimes a loony argument somehow wends its way all the way to the Supreme Court, and boy howdy is this one of them. SCOTUS is set to hear a case that asserts "religious beliefs" for corporations, more or less. This sounds preposterous of course, but when you consider that they previously called corporations people, it sounds like a logical conclusion.

So, okay. Even though corporations are clearly not people, let's presume for the sake of argument that they are. Do people have religious beliefs? Yes. Are they entitled to freedom of religion under the Constitution? Yes. They would also be entitled to freedom from religion--something the religious right has decided isn't true--which we'll get to in a minute. But typically, we think of these freedoms as personal and private. They're our own. Strangely, a new definition of "religious freedom" has taken root with the religious right, and they've pushed it all the way to the top.

What do I mean? Well, the case before the Supreme Court has to do with employers who provide health insurance. The Affordable Care Act requires that insurance plans provide contraception options. Hobby Lobby, an employer, is asserting that contraception is against their religion. Again, the corporation's religion. Now, Hobby Lobby is not a church. It's not a company that is an adjunct of the church, selling and doing business only between churches. It's a public business.

Next, consider the cases going through the courts having to do with public accommodations. Be they cake bakers, dress makers, reception halls, photographers, there is a whole category--apparently--of "oddly religious wedding planners." Several have refused to provide services to gay and lesbian couples seeking to get married (regardless of whether or not the ceremony is official or symbolic). These companies--when confronted with public accommodation laws--cry "religious freedom" too.

You'd think a corporation turning down money would
be nearly as unthinkable as a gay wedding!

While the latter point isn't directly tied to the former, they have a lot to do with each other. In both cases, you have companies claiming to have religious beliefs. And claiming that it is their religious freedom to dictate what their employers, or what their customers receive. Hobby Lobby isn't receiving contraception, or even providing it. They're providing insurance to people who may or may not get contraceptives partly covered by the insurance. But more importantly, the employee very likely does not share the employer's religion, and shouldn't have to! And a baker who has a problem with same-sex marriage hasn't got the right to insist that their customers adhere to the bakers' religion or else not get a cake.

I could veer off into several side-issues, like the fact that these oh-so-pious companies probably overlook a bevvy of other sins, and are oddly focusing on contraceptives and gays. But instead, I'll just say emphatically, your religious freedom ends with you. Unless you run a private, religious organization through and through, your religion does not extend to your employees and customers unless they want it to.

I'm nervous that this famously odd Supreme Court (which has veered from the horror of Citizens United and gutting the Voting Rights Act, to pleasing Marriage Equality decisions) might make another Pandora's Box decision. After all, if corporations can dodge all manners of laws and regulations just by crying "religious freedom," where will it end? And with whose religion? Are Satanism, Wicca, Scientology, and Pastafarians going to get in on the action?

[Excerpt]

Court Confronts Religious Rights of Corporations

Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, closes on Sundays, costing its owners millions but honoring their Christian faith.  The stores play religious music. Employees get free spiritual counseling. But they do not get free insurance coverage for some contraceptives, even though President Obama’s health care law requires it. . .

Read more at: New York Times

Hobby Lobby: WTF?

Odd name for a church.

I know, where have I been, right? Well, it's Christmas vacation, darn it, and I just haven't felt like blogging. Plus, I've been catching up on some chores around this joint. Anyway. . .

I break my break for this comment on the idiocy of religious nutcases. Oh, as an atheist, I might have a slightly lower bar for what I consider nutty about religion. But really, who the hell does the Hobby Lobby management think they are? Why on earth would the owners' own religious beliefs be imposed upon their employees? And who the hell would want their boss to be the final arbiter of your contraception coverage on your health care plan? It's crazy.

It's even crazier when you consider that almost everyone uses contraception, religious or not. Listen you big dumbbells at Hobby Lobby and like-minded companies: your employees don't have to follow your religion or any religion. It's not up to you to make "moral" decisions for them. Unless you certify your business as a church, and your employees are all 100% on-board congregants, you don't have that right. And more than that, you're damaging your brand while playing to. . .who exactly?

[Excerpt]

Hobby Lobby plans to face $1.3 million in daily fines for defying contraception mandate

An attorney representing the Hobby Lobby chain of arts and crafts stores said that the company intends to defy a court order that it comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s provisions regarding contraceptives, the so-called “morning after pill” and employee health coverage. According to Associated Press, the company says that it is willing to face the up to $1.3 million in fines it will accrue per day by not providing coverage for the medications. . . 

Read more at: Raw Story