God bless the hearts of the Free Lance-Star editorial board.
This morning’s editorial regarding Hobby Lobby and the HHS Mandate in Obamacare is just so illiterate, so blindingly one-sided and obtuse… well, I’m glad to see my hometown paper hasn’t changed much.
I’ll spare you from having to actually read the editorial, because you’re a busy person and have things to do. I’ll do you the justice of distilling it to it’s most base parts:
Let’s say you’ve worked for a company for several years. The company is bought out. The new owner is a Christian Scientist. He devoutly believes that conventional doctors are not part of God’s design. He decides, therefore, that the company health plan will no longer cover your doctor visits. Or, you’re a woman and the new owner is a Muslim, also devout. He decrees that all female employees must now wear headscarves at work.
Would this be fair? Would it be American?
For those of you choking on your coffee, we’ll stop here. The HHS Mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is precisely the situation where a Muslim owner forces women to wear the niqab. As for offering health care, the Christian Scientist or any other employer is free to not offer health care. That is their prerogative… and I’m sure, a net benefit to those seeking more applicants to Obamacare.
But I digress — the FLS editors were talking about how un-American forcing people to buy things against their conscience would be. You know, like abortion coverage.
We continue:
If you think so, then you probably don’t have any problem with Hobby Lobby. The chain of arts-and-crafts stores, which employs about 13,000 people, has sued the government, saying it won’t willingly abide with the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires contraceptive coverage. It cites biblical principles. The case will be heard by the United States Supreme Court sometime before the Court’s session ends next June. A smaller woodworking company run by Mennonites also is a plaintiff.
The case strikes at the very heart of the church-vs.-state issue. The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. Can any religious group supersede the law?
Why yes, America — that’s called a separation of church and state!
screeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
You see, in America we don’t force people do to things that are abhorrent to their religious conscience. That’s why we have freedom of religion. It’s also why employers can’t force their employees to wear the niqab, because we have now entered a sphere of positive vs. negative law. Ergo, you can’t force someone to do something abhorrent to their religious beliefs.
If the Supreme Court says it can, we will have gone far beyond a slippery slope.
Like, towards liberty?
We will be in constitutional free-fall.
Like, towards religious freedom?
There will be nothing to stop any for-profit group whose religious beliefs aren’t legal from simply refusing to comply.
“Whose religious beliefs aren’t legal” — think about that. Not just the line, but the mindset that produced such a sentence. Disgusting, isn’t it?
What about business owners who are Jehovah’s Witnesses? Or Mormons?
HOLY CRAP! Full stop… I mean, those dastardly Jehovah’s Witnesses and those evil, evil Latter Day Saints? I mean, Mormons might actually force me to… to… I dunno… force me to… do… whatever it is… the FLS thinks Mormons force people to do. Like get married and have awesome families and stuff.
Religious groups do get exceptions that corporations aren’t allowed. The Quakers, for instance, don’t have to serve in the military. This case, though, takes it a large step further and lets for-profit companies impose their values on employees. A worker would be forced to pay for health care to which Americans are legally entitled.
Oh this is rich — the “you surrender your rights the moment you engage in commerce” line of attack. Tell me, if this were true, then why shouldn’t secular humanists or lowest common denominator moralists surrender their rights in the face of religious opposition, rather than vice versa? Oh that’s right… it doesn’t work that way. This is about your surrendering your rights so that others may feel more comfortable.
After all, your rights stop where my feelings begin, right?
It would seem unthinkable that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of a corporation bent of taking away the constitutional rights of its workers,
…because, you know, only government can take away constitutional rights. It’s called a monopoly, folks.
…except this is the same court that ruled, in the Citizens United case, that corporations—artificial constructs designed to maximize profits and minimize liability—have the same free-speech rights as human beings, thus opening the floodgates to a tsunami of big-business political influence.
Wait — are we still talking about Obamacare? Or are we whining about something else now?
In other words, anything is possible.
So wait a second. Haven’t liberals argued for decades that the “slippery slope” argument was mere sophistry? Political illogic used by conservatives to preach against the “slippery slope” with regards to the family and offering the imprimatur of government on all sorts of sexual and behavioral categories? Why — the mere notion of a “slippery slope” that conservatives long employed with regards to degrading marriage which would lead to the legalization of all sorts of independent marital arrangements was sheer insanity 20 years ago — right?
Fast forward to today… well, I suppose maybe the “slippery slope” argument isn’t so far fetched after all. At least with regards to family. Anything — clearly — is possible.
Company owners are free to practice and espouse their religious beliefs.
Indeed.
They should not be free to force those beliefs on their employees, and they should not be free to discriminate against workers because of religion.
…because only the government can impose belief systems and morality, folks. Not silly churches or mosques or synagogues, and certainly not one’s conscience. Once again, we’re back to the ol’ “you surrender your rights the moment you engage in commerce” routine, and this time it just so happens that the leftists are the ones imposing their morality rather than say, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Spanish Inquisition (which no one suspects).
In short, the leftists at the FLS editorial board are more than happy to impose their moral values and discriminate against others, forcing their beliefs on employees and discriminating against others because of their religion.
Taking away legal rights of employees who do not share the company’s feelings on contraception and abortion is wrong.
HOORAY! for categorical imperatives!
Ruling against Hobby Lobby in this case should be a no-brainer. For this Supreme Court, though, the unthinkable is not always the impossible.
Close with sneering invective — way to go, O products of a Mary Washington education!
* * *
In short, the FLS editorial board has suffered tremendously in the wake of Paul Akers’ passing. This was the sort of intellectually vapid nonsense that Akers’ would never allow to pass his desk sight unseen — or if he did, Akers’ would grin as the public square (and he himself) would effortlessly disassemble the argument piece by methodical piece.
Instead, today’s FLS seems to be fobbing off the duty of op-ed writing to undergraduate political science and English majors. Strong convictions, terribly strong convictions… but remarkably short on either substance or logical consistency.
