If Hobby Lobby prevails in the Supreme Court, and I kind of hope they do, then I think we can look forward to some interesting times ahead. Would a closely-held company owned by devout Christian Scientists or Seventh Day Adventists then be able to opt out of providing coverage to their employees for certain medical procedures? Would they be able to opt out of providing any coverage at all using the justification of religious conviction? What about those of different colors or ethnicities? Will corporations of "faith" be able to discriminate against them because their "faith" so dictates? It goes without saying that gays will be in for fun times. A ruling for Hobby Lobby would reinforce the already entrenched concept that somehow a corporation is person with all the rights that accrue thereto. An interesting kind of person to be sure in that it has no life other than that which those who own it must continuously breathe into it. Even Frankenstein's monster was recognizable as a living breathing thinking human, albeit a reconstituted one. Hobby Lobby not so much. Hobby Lobby and corporate persons in general are much more analogous to Gundam mobile suits piloted by the bad guys. It's a wonderful world we live in and will only get more absurd and exciting if Gundam Hobby Lobby wins its case.
Couldn't the bible be used to justify just about any behavior? Corporations have run amok in this country. They are replacing the elected government that they have been trying to corrupt for years. Smaller government equals bigger more powerful corporations. Corportacrisies have to be the worst form of government ever conceived of.
Well that's it, isn't it. You can find in the Bible divine sanction for just about any type of weirdness, bigotry or oppression you seek to justify, as well as occasional bits of beauty and useful moral commonplaces. That is what comes from a compilation by committee of selections from two thousand years or so of tribal myths, histories, religious opinion, and cultural borrowing. You get a book that contains something for everyone. Unfortunately everyone includes people who think that their personal interpretation of this mess should be supported and enforced by the government. Corporations, as long as they are not considered human, are simply legal constructs with no inherent rights including the right to exist at all, and which should operate under rules designed to benefit real people or at least not hurt them. Once we start assigning personhood to corporations and start treating them as citizens rather than artificial entities that exist for our convenience we limit the options available to control their behavior.
What bible are you reading? My bible sure doesn't justify 'just bout any behavior.' Oh wait..must be interpretation..
Corporations, religions, governments, none of them are above corruption. There are certainly wise words spoken by the likes of Jesus and other figures that we should all aspire to live by but when the message is so corrupted and misused by people that worship only money and power and those that seek to become the next false prophet, there really is no difference between them and the figure they call the anti-Christ. I can't imagine a better way to steer people away from Jesus than to misuse his message and turn people away from religion altogether. The Right or fascist elements have always co-opted religion and used it to achieve power. It's no different in the 21st century. The marriage of the corporation and the state has never worked out well in any society. It isn't the intellectuals that have to be co-opted into going along with the fascist regimes, only the uneducated masses that are easily led and follow without question what they are told by a patriarchal authority figure. It reminds them of the father they feared and sought approval from at the same time. It's a place they are most comfortable and swear an allegiance to follow even if it is just a path to a scorched earth. They are not the brightest lot to begin with which is why they make the perfect useful idiots. Useful idiots are the fodder for most lost causes. Sort of the worker ants that sacrifice themselves to build a bridge across a small stream so that the rest of the colony can get to the other side. If the cause were just, the sacrifice would be noble but what is the true measure of someone that gives so much while lacking the capacity to even understand what they are dying for? I don't know and apparently neither do they. We live in a world with more access to information than ever before in history and yet people seem to not have the ability to distinguish truth from fiction before they willingly step off that cliff. Maybe we are in the midst of an evolution of the mind and a schism is cutting across humanity. Maybe we are looking around and seeing the billions of us and consciously or unconsciously deciding cull the herd to preserve resources. It would make sense.
It's funny, even after 2000 years, we seem unworthy still of achieving what simple people in the Bronze Age knew to be the truth.
What truths would those be? That adultery and same-sex sex are capital crimes? That donkeys speak? That the world is 6,000 years old, give or take a century or two? That people can be possessed by demons and evil spirits? That children should be punished for the sins of their parents? Or the simple moral commonplaces of kindness and treating others as you would be treated that are common to humanity, predate the Jews and the Christians and are not the property of any particular religion or moral code. If it's any consolation, it's clear that the simple people of the Bronze Age didn't achieve them either. A long way from it, actually. In almost all respects they were probably worse than we are.
Let Hobby Lobby"make a statement". It will bite them in the butt in the end. Get it? I work in a job that buys and sells. If we're not real "comfortable" with a potential seller we can just say we're not interested. When it comes to selling we're always interested.
If the Supremes decide in their favor it will be quite a statement alright. For staters, Christian wackjobs will now know, if they didn't know already, where to go for their scrapbooking supplies or whatever it is that Hobby Lobby sells, and the rest of us will know who to avoid should we be in the market for stuff like that. I don't think that would be good for Hobby Lobby's bottom line or for their employee recruitment efforts. But even if they somehow benefit from it, it would probably not necessarily work to the advantage of said Christian wackjobs in general. They equate "religion" with Christianity, and with their own particular brand of Christianity at that, and they seem to assume that somehow government support of religion will in practice mean support of their beliefs and nobody else's. People of other Christian paths, and those of religions other than Christianity as well as people with no religion at all have figured out that whatever rights and dispensations that Christian fundies think they are claiming for themselves necessarily apply to all. And the government has little choice but to support them. The only way the religious Right will be able to get around this is to have the government recognize their religion as being separate and above all others. In other words, make it the official established state religion. That will be a fight. But if they somehow prevailed then they might have a better chance of getting what they want in the way they want it, assuming they can get past the opposition of other Christians who think the Fundies ate full of crap. See how enjoyable all this will be?
I am certainly not one to push a 2000-year old legal system. It probably made some sense to the people of the Middle East back then but viewing them through the lens of contemporary laws and norms, they seem pretty silly. But then again, laws from the early 20th century seem pretty silly too. Whether Jesus simply parroted earlier moral codes or he came up with them on his own isn't important, they were still good messages and needed to be repeated and still need to be repeated. I think the message is especially corrupted today. Maybe more than ever. It seems as if the bible is just used by some to justify their own hatred of one group or another. It's more about power than any message and as I've said probably turns more people away from religion than it attracts. We don't need a better religion, we need a more socially conscious society.
I'm sure injecting a couple of facts into your discussion will be met with the typical radical left-wing attacks, but here it goes.... The BO admin has mandated the inclusion of 13 drugs into a healthplan in order to make it Obamacare compliant. Hobby Lobby's plan pays for 9 of those 13 drugs, including every accepted form of "birth control". The 4 drugs to which the company objects providing aren't considered pregnancy preventatives, but rather life ending drugs.
Interesting. Thanks for the tip. Since you provide no support for your "facts" I will check them out myself. Actually even if you had provided some support for them, I'd still check them out myself.
Please do & you'll find the far left's drivel, to which you seem to subscribe, is only providing you with half the story. Heck, you may even find that this "Conservatives hate gays" narrative you spew over & over & over ad nauseum may not be entirely true!
I just have one question. You say that these drugs are considered "life ending"? I have to ask. Who considers these drugs "life ending"? Specifically? Is this a legal interpretation? A medical interpretation? Or some religious interpretation? My guess is the latter.
I heard they were covering 40 something drugs and only excluding 4. I looked quickly on the net and could not find it, but I was looking for 40 something.
I am not saying you (or NPR) are wrong. They are 2 different numbers except the 4. You said Obamacare required 13. I heard Hobby Lobby was covering 40 something. i.e., they are covering more than required - except those 4.
