News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Sex in the Lobby
by Barry Friedman
One more chance for sanity.
The Supreme Court has agreed to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law, whether businesses can use religious objections to escape a requirement to cover birth control for employees.
The case the court has agreed to hear involves two companies,
Hobby Lobby and
Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp, that believe requiring them to provide female employees access to health insurance plans that cover issues specifically relating to matters
down there violates their covenant with God and will be the end of religious freedom not just for them, but for all of
us.
Oy.
This decision shouldn't even be close. It shouldn't even have been heard. Scott Lemieux, an assistant professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose and someone who contributes to Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Money, and Vox Pop, is flummoxed we're still talking about it.
The arguments that the ACA violates religious rights, in other words, are weak on every level. Not only does the contraceptive requirement not significantly burden religious liberty, in the case of secular for-profit-corporations it does not impinge on any recognized constitutional or statutory right at all.
Unfortunately, this is the Supreme Court that did
this and nearly did
this and whose justices think
this; so, this is not going to end well.
“If government can put Americans out of business for keeping their faith, there is no limit to what freedoms it can take away,” added Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman
Hold the hyperbole, I'm getting a migraine. Yeah, nothing keeps America strong like allowing tacky arts and craft stores and overpriced furniture makers to tell women, "No YAZ for you!"
Speaking of, for the 1,298,463rd time, not every prescription for birth control is written so women can abort children in the privacy of their home or have sex without worrying about getting pregnant.
Taking oral contraceptives (OCs) can slash your risk for both endometrial and ovarian cancer by more than 70 percent after 12 years; even just one to five years may lower your risk by 40 percent. They work by reducing the number of times you ovulate in your lifetime: Ovulation may trigger cell changes in the ovaries that can lead to cancer. If you're worried about using the Pill for too long, relax. "You can safely take the Pill for 20 years or more," says Stephanie Teal, M.D., director of family planning at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Barring health issues, the only reason to stop is if you want to get pregnant
Well, the other reason is your Christian employer tells you to.
Sure, exceptions can, will be made, but show of hands: how many women want to have that conversation with Peg in HR? How many women want to prove the severity of their menstrual cramps to some guy in a short-sleeved shirt and a tie?
Cue: God
Conestoga Wood Specialties owners Norman Hahn, Elizabeth Hahn, Norman Lemar Hahn, Anthony H. Hahn, and Kevin Hahn desire to run their company, a wholesale manufacturer of custom wood cabinet parts, in a manner that reflects their Christian beliefs, including their belief that God requires respect for the sanctity of human life.
Too late: the migraine's here.
I wonder how HE feels about a broken condom and two scared teenagers. For the 1,298,464th time, the "morning after pill" does not induce abortion because THERE IS NOTHING TO ABORT.
Does emergency contraception cause an abortion?
No, using emergency contraceptive pills (also called "morning after pills" or "day after pills") prevents pregnancy after sex. It does not cause an abortion.
Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, it should be pointed out again and again (and again) are not paying for women's contraception. The companies are just being told that the rules of their company-provided healthcare must apply to reproductive services--what's good for the uvula is good for the uterus kind of thing. Nobody is requiring the companies to provide condoms or dispense birth control pills in the break room.
And for the 1,298,465th time, these companies are NOT churches, which already do get the exemption. Just because Hobby Lobby and Conestoga founders believe--so incorrectly, in fact, you begin to wonder if they're doing it on purpose--they're being forced to pay for abortion services doesn't mean the rest of us have to buy into their sense of their own persecution.
I sell bolts of yarn for your sins.
Every time the issue resurfaces, owners of these companies pull out their American flags, wrap themselves up in them, start humming Irving Berlin tunes, and have a very big sad over their sense of their country.
My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. Hobby Lobby and my family are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don't like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.
Yeah, but if Hobby Lobby can make a bit more scratch buying from the Godless
Chinese while not having to hire American workers, praise Jesus!
"And, that doesn't even touch the fact that China's cheap labor conditions are such that no American would be willing to work them (some are even equated with slavery)...or the fact that China greatly restricts religious liberty (the very issue Hobby Lobby claims is under attack here),...or the fact that their numbers on infanticide, orphans, and child-abandonment are abysmal," Chambers writes.
Cue
Citizens United
"If you have First Amendment protection for free speech, then you should have religious freedom as well," Proctor said.
That's Charles W. Proctor, an attorney for Conestoga, citing how the worst Supreme Court
decision of the past 50 years didn't go far enough.
As I said, this is not going to end well, especially if you have ovaries.