Despite Liberal Outrage, Supreme Court Gets It Right With Hobby Lobby Ruling
Let me first say that I am 100% for the use of contraception and also for the individual rights of women to do what they choose with their bodies. I put that right at the start because today's "Hobby Lobby" ruling is not about the individual rights of women in any way. Despite the liberal outrage and the invented angle of attack that caters to that portion of the population, using women's rights as a lever against the stance of the owners of corporations who object to Obamacare's mandate that birth control be included in every health benefit package, women's rights have nothing to do with the issue. This is solely about the government extending it's power over what a privately held company provides to its employees as benefit, and violating the religious beliefs of ownership in the process.The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that corporations with strongly held religious beliefs could opt-out of providing contraception as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
“We doubt that the Congress that enacted [Religious Freedom Restoration Act]— or, for that matter, ACA–would have believed it a tolerable result to put family-run businesses to the choice of violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or making all of their employees lose their existing healthcare plans,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
Liberals (including Justice Ginsberg) will cry that this exception gives Constitutional rights to corporations as if they were individuals, and Judge Alito answered that criticism.
As Alito writes in his opinion, "A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends….When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people."In seeking to defend the requirement, the federal government had argued that Hobby Lobby, as a for-profit corporation, was not eligible to challenge the rule under the RFRA because corporations are "separate and apart from" their individual owners and operators. They were distinct, and not "people," and therefore ineligible for the protections of a law designed to shelter "a person's exercise of religion." Alito says, more or less, that this is nonsense: "Corporations, ‘separate and apart from’ the human beings who own, run, and are employed by them, cannot do anything at all."
Hobby Lobby is very open with the beliefs that its family ownership hold, and include it prominently on the corporate website, stating that they are committed to "Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles."Women who choose to work for the company have a choice should they object to the company's stance on not providing contraception coverage. Just as any employee has the choice to leave a company which has policies that he or she doesn't agree with. The government's power should not extend over this part of the employer-employee relationship. The general public also has the option to boycott the store should they not agree with the company's choice to put religious beliefs ahead of providing that aspect of health coverage.This ruling isn't about protecting women's rights. Women still have the right to pay for their own birth control, as millions of women do every month of every year. In fact, there are many organizations such as Planned Parenthood by which any woman can get birth control for free. Women's rights are completely intact. This ruling is about protecting the religious rights of individuals who own companies, which were in direct violation under the Obamacare law. I am not a religious man, but it is the right of every individual to follow the religion of their choosing without having the government intervene upon those beliefs. This is a ruling that is justified and needed.{Editor's Note: I offer an alternate take on the Hobby Lobby ruling here.}Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
