My thoughts on the Hobby Lobby Debacle
Never let it get lost in the discussion that this wasn't Burwell vs. David Green, this was Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby is not a person who is capable of practicing religion, or having deeply held religious beliefs, it is a separate legal entity entirely from its founder. That company, not David Green, was required by law to provide insurance that covered these forms of birth control.
I've heard it suggested that if the employees don't like what Hobby Lobby is doing, they could just quit and find another job--regardless of the fact jobs aren't easy to come by and the fact that Hobby Lobby, as a retail chain goes, actually /does/ pay better than others... in short, there is a coercing influence here, which makes this decision doubly troubling.
If you tell me the employees can "just quit," I'll say, If David Green felt uncomfortable with what the law was requiring Hobby Lobby (not himself) to do, he could have divested himself, rather than demand that thousands of Hobby Lobby employees have their compensation peeled back to not include these contraceptives. The company would have kept right on trucking. David Green was perfectly free to do that, and, I assure you, his wealth granted him far greater social mobility than can be said of 15,000 full-time Hobby Lobby employees
The precedent here is that the Supreme Court has, once again, given corporations parity with flesh and blood human beings. Hobby Lobby has NO religious convictions to violate. Hobby Lobby cannot attend a church service, sit in pews, sing praise and worship, or receive communion (though, I believe it is pertinent to point out that Hobby Lobby CAN and DOES purchase a large number of its goods from China, the land of One Child Per Family, government compelled contraception and government compelled abortion). Indeed, all the company's health care plans did was give the freedom of options to the company's employees, freedoms that have now been stripped by four. The company, in its non-existent religious fervor, has compelled its employees to live according to a certain set of religious dogmas--and that is the very definition of religious tyranny.
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