Another stunning expansion of corporate rights: corps have right to religion

[Peter Lemkin]

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On the Road to Theocracy: The Hobby Lobby Decision

By Steven Jonas

TheHobby Lobby decision has many implications. First, one must agreewith Justice Ginsburg thatregardless of Justices Alito's caveats, the tide unleashed by the decision ofthe Right-wing Five is not going to stop at the shoreline of the separation ofchurch and state any time soon. And for the long-range future of the UnitedStates, that is the most significant element of the decision. That is not to say that it also hashorrible outcomes for women and their sexual behavior, their private lives, andtheir private decision-making. As AndyBorowitz so cogently put it,"Supreme Court Majority Calls Case a Dispute between Women andPeople." Chiming in was everyone's favorite very-far-right GOP SenatorMike Lee of Utah who said that most women who use contraceptives do so for"recreational purposes." Likethat's supposed to make a difference on whether or not a public corporation candiscriminate against women on their choice of FDA approved contraceptives, onreligious grounds.[/TD]
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(By the way, most folks label Lee as a "TeaPartier," as if such types really differ from "regularRepublicans." Well, they do, but not on policy (except perhaps around theedges on immigration policy, which Eric Cantor found to his regret, at leastamong the 13% of eligible voters in his district who bothered to vote). If youlook closely, it is almost always just a matter of style and wording. )
There are a variety of other importantnegative aspects of this decision that are being widely and well dealt withfrom the Left. In my view, the most important one is how this decision ushersour one further, very big, step down the road to theocracy. For the SupremeCourt has held that in matters of legislation, law, and public programs, thereligious positions of one person (and of course they have recently reaffirmedthe original 1880s railroad-lawyers-Court decision that corporations are people(see "Citizens United"), can outweigh the religious position, or non-religiousbut ethical/moral position, of another.

Au musee de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame : Nativite (Alsace-vers 1470). Let's all gather 'round --- whether you believe or not --- or suffer the consequences of the law.

For the purposes of this case, HobbyLobby claimed that its religious position on certain contraceptives and howthey act in the body, exempted them from being forced to cover thosemedications under the Affordable Care Act. That what the Hobby Lobby, awell-known politically active right-wing company was really after was the ACAwas revealed by the fact that they went along with coverage of those samecontraceptives when they provided private insurance for their employees beforethe passage of the ACA. But that's another matter. Also another matter is thatthe fact that they ascribed to certain contraceptives abortifacient functionsthat the science of their mode-of-action shows to be a falsity. But we knowwell that facts are never a concern to the Right when it is pursuing its ownpolitical and economic agenda. In this case much more importantly is thequestion of whether or not, in the sector of public programs one position onabortion itself should outweigh another. Again a matter for another time. Onecannot assume that women who use contraceptives have not considered thereligious implications of such use, for themselves, and have come to theconclusion that doing soon was compatible with their religious beliefs. Thesame reasoning of course applies to women who have abortions.
And so, what the Court has done here isto take one set of religious beliefs, that of the owners of a companyincorporated under public law (and gaining the tax benefits of so doing), andplaced them above the religious beliefs of their employees, all in the name ofreligious freedom. In pre-Enlightenment 16th and 17th century Europe, a timethat Justice Scalia has pined for in the past, Europeans of various countriesslaughtered each other over similar questions of opposing religious doctrines.Back then it wasn't over such matters as contraception (or even abortion,because Catholic doctrine, set down several hundred years previously by St.Thomas Aquinas, held that abortion was OK up until the "time ofquickening," 12-16 weeks). People were burned at the stake for, forexample, holding that the wine and the wafer offered at the end of servicesreally were, or were really just symbolic of, the blood and body of Christ.People slaughtered each other over whether it was predestination or "goodworks" that determined whether or not one went to heaven. And we, in theend, could have a civil war over, in part, the matter of whether my religiousview of the use of contraceptives is right and yours is wrong.
The Hobby Lobby decisions, as JusticeGinsburg implies (and please, I am not putting words in her mouth) opens up aPandora's box where endless litigation might be the least negative outcome. TheFirst Amendment the constitution says, in part: "Congress shall make nolaw respecting an establishment of religion, or pro hibiting the free exercisethereof;." This right-wing Republican Supreme Court, using its one-votemajority, has re-written that language. The Amendment now reads "Congressshall make no law that requires a person to comply with it if they claim areligious exemption, and the religious views of one group of citizens can beheld to outweigh those of another group, by law;."
Religion, according to this decision,now becomes a/the central determinant of public policy, should an electedgovernment choose to make it so and the Supreme Court of the time goes alongwith that interpretation of the Constitution. As I said at the outset of thiscolumn, "Hobby Lobby" has placed this nation firmly on the pathleading to the establishment of a Theocracy, that is a nation ruled byreligious law. There are already certain leading Republicans, like the likelyDominionists Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee, who would beperfectly fine with that idea.
Look out, folks. That train is hurtlingdown the track. Two current books that provide pictures of what such a realitymight look like are mine, "The15% Solution" and Fred Rich's masterful"ChristianNation." Of course the classic in thisgenre is Margaret Atwood's "AHandmaid's Tale." At the rate we are goingwith such political decisions such as Hobby Lobby (and this case, just like"Citizens United" and all of those other right-wing precedents set bythis court, is first and foremost a political one made by a set of Justices putinto place by right-wing Presidents just so that they could make decisions likethis one), unless some powerful forces organize to stop the process, we arewell on our way to becoming an authoritarian theocracy.