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cbayer

(146,218 posts)
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 02:16 PM Jun 2014

Why Today’s Hobby Lobby Decision Actually Hurts People Of Faith

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3453598/no-a-win-for-hobby-lobby-is-not-a-win-for-religion/

BY JACK JENKINS JUNE 30, 2014 AT 11:08 AM UPDATED: JUNE 30, 2014 AT 12:00 PM


CREDIT: AP

In response to today’s Supreme Court decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed the the craft store giant and other “closely-held corporations” to be granted religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate, political and religious conservatives are framing the case as a “win” for religious liberty. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, released a statement celebrating the ruling and saying, “The central issue of this case was whether the federal government can coerce Americans to violate their deeply held religious beliefs.” Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) echoed this sentiment in his own statement, saying, “the Court has made it clear today that the Obama administration’s assault on religious freedom in this case went too far.” Meanwhile, Russell Moore, President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, tweeted, “#HobbyLobby wins. This is a great day for religious liberty. Government is not lord of the conscience.”

But while conservatives would have the American public believe that protecting Hobby Lobby is about protecting all religious people, the reality is that today’s ruling actually hurts people of faith. In fact, a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey conducted in early June found that a substantial majority of almost every major U.S. Christian group support the idea that publicly-held corporations and privately-owned corporations should be required to provide employees with healthcare plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost. This is likely why so many progressive Christian leaders have vocally opposed Hobby Lobby in the press, why Americans United for the Separation of Church and State submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court opposing Hobby Lobby on behalf of nearly 30 religious organizations, and why both the Jewish Social Policy Action Network and the American Jewish Committee submitted their own amicus briefs decrying the corporation’s position.

And while white evangelicals were an outlier in the PRRI poll — only 40 percent of evangelical respondents supported the ACA’s contraception mandate for privately-owned corporations — a sizable cadre of conservative Christians have publicly articulated nuanced, faith-based opposition to the case in recent months, drawing attention to the fact that Hobby Lobby only speaks for a small minority of people of faith in America. David Gushee, an evangelical Christian professor of Christian Ethics and director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, offered an extensive treatment of the case in the Associated Baptist Press in April. He examined the issue from the perspective of a Christian theologian, noting that any attempt to broaden the legal status of businesses to include religious exemptions — however well-intentioned — is inconsistent, dangerous, and unfair to other religious Americans.

“One way to look at it is this: The whole point of establishing a corporation is to create an entity separate from oneself to limit legal liability,” he writes. “Therefore, Hobby Lobby is asking for special protections/liability limits that only a corporation can get on the one hand, and special protections that only individuals, churches and religious organizations get, on the other. It seems awfully dangerous to allow corporations to have it both ways.“

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Why Today’s Hobby Lobby Decision Actually Hurts People Of Faith (Original Post) cbayer Jun 2014 OP
Agreed but not really a surprise Prophet 451 Jun 2014 #1
That's why we have to do whatever we can cbayer Jun 2014 #4
If you own Hobby Lobby stock, Wellstone ruled Jun 2014 #2
That could be the silver lining here. cbayer Jun 2014 #3
It's a closely hold corporation, no public stock. rug Jun 2014 #5
The Supreme Court took the same side as some posters here skepticscott Jun 2014 #6
Hey, according to one prolific poster, women can just buy rubbers at the drugstore Heddi Jun 2014 #7
Bless you! Starboard Tack Jul 2014 #11
C'mon, Heddi. trotsky Jul 2014 #12
The HL decision will increase religious tensions in this country Small Accumulates Jun 2014 #8
Sorry, but this is why religion is a massive obstacle to a progressive secular society. Warren Stupidity Jun 2014 #9
Right to life locks Jun 2014 #10
It hurts everyone. trotsky Jul 2014 #13

Prophet 451

(9,796 posts)
1. Agreed but not really a surprise
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 02:27 PM
Jun 2014

If the ACA had been passed by a Republican president or the case had been brought by a progressive corporation, the SCOTUS majority wouldn't have even agreed to hear the case. Give this SCOTUS another decade and they'll have decided that your employers can require you to be a member of their religion (and a decade after that, that corporations can literally kill people).

 

Wellstone ruled

(34,661 posts)
2. If you own Hobby Lobby stock,
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 02:27 PM
Jun 2014

plan on dumping this turd soon. Watch for this to happen. Short term spike in sales,caused by the Rethugs and their low information crowd,along with the Fundies and Mo's doing their thing to look supportive. Then,bang,the real showtime begins,women are the number one customer of this company and they are going elsewhere for their crafty items. These slugs really shot themselves in the foot this time. Might be a opportunity for the Willard and Bain to raid this POS.

cbayer

(146,218 posts)
3. That could be the silver lining here.
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 02:36 PM
Jun 2014

I expect a significant public backlash. Their name will be forever linked to this decision and recent surveys show that the public does not agree with this decision.

Not that SCOTUS cares, but it may supply some disincentive for filing similar suits in the future.

We shall see.

 

rug

(82,333 posts)
5. It's a closely hold corporation, no public stock.
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 04:36 PM
Jun 2014
Can I buy stock in Hobby Lobby?

Presently, Hobby Lobby is not a publicly-traded company and does not have plans to go public in the future.

http://www.hobbylobby.com/customer_service/faq.cfm#stock

That was one of the dispositive factors in this decision.


 

skepticscott

(13,029 posts)
6. The Supreme Court took the same side as some posters here
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 06:10 PM
Jun 2014

Who have preached over and over again that people's deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs are sacrosanct, and that any criticism of or interference with them is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

I expect it from the Supreme Court, but not from supposedly "progressive" posters here.

Heddi

(18,312 posts)
7. Hey, according to one prolific poster, women can just buy rubbers at the drugstore
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 06:30 PM
Jun 2014

like everyone else.

Because that's what it's all about: availability of sex-crazy whores needing rubbers. Hormonal contraceptives are never used for things like polycystic ovarian disease, or endometriosis, or abnormal uterine bleeding. Never. Whores just need rubbers for when they want to fuck. Because birth control = rubbers, and everyone gets them at the corner store.

Then again, the same poster repeatedly equates gay marriage with wanting to marry a bicycle, a vole. a sister, and a dead grandmother. No cries of outrage from The Order of The Perpetually Outraged who are always so quick quick quick to face-palm something that Richard FUCKING Dawkins said. Oh Richard FUCKING Dawkins says something horrible? SHUT THE FRONT DOOR>

One of "our own" regular posters thinks that Hobby Lobby decision is just peachy fucking keen because you can buy rubbers at the supermarket like everyone else, and that a man wanting to marry a man is *EXACTLY THE SAME* as a man wanting to marry a bicycle, or a vole, or his sister, or his dead grandmother....and fucking crickets. No outrage. No face-palm. Not even a finger-wagging from Our Sister Of the Perpetual Wagging Finger Brigade.

It must be one of those "IOKIFYAB" type thing

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
12. C'mon, Heddi.
Tue Jul 1, 2014, 07:57 AM
Jul 2014

The real enemy here isn't someone who spouts homophobic or sexist bullshit. We know this, not only from the specific example you give, but from the constant defense of another homophobic, sexist authoritarian: the pope!

No, the real enemies - the people who are so absolutely horrible they'd just "go back" to hating homosexuals or minorities if they didn't hate believers (despite never making homophobic, sexist comments like the ones you cite - but hey, what's the use of facts when you've got a hate-on?) - are those horrible, evil, fundamentalist, militant anti-theists. You know the ones. They actually - *gasp* - have unfavorable things to say about religion! They have the temerity to point out that good deeds are done by the irreligious as well as the religious! What monsters! Truly they deserve all the scorn, vitriol, and smearing that they get. (And more!)

Small Accumulates

(149 posts)
8. The HL decision will increase religious tensions in this country
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 06:44 PM
Jun 2014

The court's decision today has interjected religion into political battles to a depth and breadth we've managed to avoid until now. It's made it necessary for those of us who believe women are human to consider the religion of every candidate we vote for, every store or web site we purchase from and every one from whom we might consider taking "expert" knowledge or advice. It is obvious to so many of us that we must begin to remove all possible support from any candidate, vendor, author, teacher, counselor, doctor, etc., who is unable, based on religion, to view women as people. My new first question of any such: and what religion are you? Then, I make MY decision.

 

Warren Stupidity

(48,181 posts)
9. Sorry, but this is why religion is a massive obstacle to a progressive secular society.
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 08:34 PM
Jun 2014

Painting the turd doesn't change anything.

locks

(2,012 posts)
10. Right to life
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 10:41 PM
Jun 2014

Rachel Maddow just had on the President of the Interfaith Alliance; he is a Baptist pastor from Monroe AL and strongly supported the idea of this op, that people of faith will not be protected by this awful decision. Most women wisely use contraceptives no matter what their religion is telling them and many cannot afford the cost. People of faith will see the hypocrisy, not only the fact that Hobby Lobby included the contraceptives and meds in their health plan until they decided to sue the government but that they were heavily invested in companies producing the very contraceptive meds and IUDs they are now saying "violate their beliefs."

We must continually call out this kind of hypocrisy, religious or not, wherever we find it. When the "right-to-lifers" tell us how sincere their beliefs are we must ask them how they would feed, clothe, educate, shelter and give health care to all the billions of children who would be born if women did not have access to contraception and abortions (we know it would not be by paying more taxes).

And then, what are they and their wealthy religious organizations, and corporations like Hobby Lobby, doing for the millions of real live children around the world whose mothers did not have access to preventive health care?
You know, the ones in the favelas of Rio and the slums of Congo and Mumbai who suffer every day of their lives while their governments build billion dollar stadiums and buy billion dollar arms from the US.










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