The Hobby Lobby case.<\/p>\n
It’s finally happened. \u00a0The conservative Catholic gang have found a case where they could drop their pretense\u00a0of legal\u00a0objectivity in favor\u00a0of (male) bosses’ supposed “religious rights” to interfere with female employees’ personal healthcare.<\/p>\n
Note that there is no pretense whatsoever that this decision is fair and equal with respect to its effect\u00a0on both men and women. \u00a0On the contrary, the 5-judge majority make it clear that\u00a0only women are allowed to be victims\u00a0of their employers’ religious prejudice under this decision. \u00a0The Court wrote that it intends this decision to apply\u00a0only to forms\u00a0of contraception specifically for females (which would have been covered by the employees’ insurance under the ACA) and NOT to apply to any\u00a0other employer “religious”\u00a0objections such as those against transfusions\u00a0or vaccines, which might affect both male and female equally. \u00a0Hobby Lobby’s paid health insurance will still cover vasectomies. And erectile-disfunction\u00a0prescriptions.<\/p>\n
In addition, the Court rationalizes its destruction\u00a0of women’s rights of\u00a0equal access to health care by pretending that this decision affects\u00a0only a tiny segment\u00a0of the USAian corporate economy. \u00a0 This is \u00a0not even close to true. \u00a0It applies to IRS-defined “closely-held” corporations (where 50 percent\u00a0of the stock is held by no more than 5 individuals; the remaining stock may be publicly traded,\u00a0or not.) \u00a0These closely-held corporations constitute more than 90 percent\u00a0of the total number of businesses in the US, and employ more than 50 percent\u00a0of the total labor force.<\/p>\n
SInce there cannot be any test for “sincerity\u00a0of beliefs”, every small partnership\/corporation can now declare that it has “religious”\u00a0objections to complying with the contraceptive provisions\u00a0of the ACA, which were supposed to protect all citizens equally.<\/p>\n
It’s going to be\u00a0one hell\u00a0of a mess. Suddenly, every woman in the nation has her personal health at risk (at least potentially at risk, depending on their being lucky or unlucky with a rational\u00a0or irrational employer) because\u00a0of the perversion of five men in the US Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
This particular group of Supreme Court justices will go down in history as\u00a0one\u00a0of the worst ever, perhaps even worse than the Dred Scott court. \u00a0Short\u00a0of\u00a0hoping for better replacement justices \u00a0(and then hoping for a speedy\u00a0overturn\u00a0of this biased decision) there doesn’t seem to be any rational course\u00a0of action to restore secularism and respect for the principle\u00a0of equal treatment under law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Hobby Lobby case. It’s finally happened. \u00a0The conservative Catholic gang have found a case where they could drop their pretense\u00a0of legal\u00a0objectivity in favor\u00a0of (male) bosses’ supposed “religious rights” to interfere with female employees’ personal healthcare. Note that there is … Continue reading