Hobby Lobby and lunacy

Sometimes I have frustrating days, but then someone on the Internet decides to explain policy (labor and healthcare policy this time) to me, which makes me feel smart and pretty, like really smart and pretty.

To the beginning! Hobby Lobby is suing over the birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare), and I’ve written about it before as a labor issue. The case is Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Store, Inc. and Conestoga Wood v. Sebelius, and we should all read SCOTUS’s blog before we talk about be because otherwise we’ll look really fucking ignorant…like the dude on Twitter who things having a penis makes him more knowledgeable than everyone (inferred of course). SCOTUS lists the issue as:

“Issue: Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq., which provides that the government  ‘shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion’ unless that burden is the least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest, allows a for-profit corporation to deny its employees the health coverage of contraceptives to which the employees are otherwise entitled by federal law, based on the religious objections of the corporation’s owners.”

 One issue as I see them is how far Citizen’s United goes, right? It upheld the rights of corporations, unions, and associations to donate money to campaigns. However, it is being largely interpreted as corporations are people because Scalia interpreted it that way. So if corporations are people then corporations have religious freedom. How one goes about deciding who gets to determine which religion seems to be the owners (who are a monolithic group?). Then by extension, how much control over employees can employers exercise?

This second issue is where the Supreme Ladies really came after Hobby Lobby and Conestoga’s lawyer. Sahil Kapur wrote a piece for Talking Points Memo on how the women Supreme Court Justices taking the birth control challengers to task for you know being stupid and inconsistent. It began with Justice Sonia Sotomayor who challenged the lawyer’s, Paul Clement, claim of a religious objection as an exception from the general law, “There are many people who have religious objections to vaccinations.”

Clement responded with each case would have to be individually evaluated under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). However, it was Justice Elena Kagan, who asked the particularly aggressive questions saying, “There are quite a number of medical treatments that religious groups object to.” She was position the discussion that a ruling against the Obama administration could allow businesses to seek exemptions from laws about sec discrimination, family leave, and the minimum wage (the article leaves out tithe). “You’d see religious objectors come out of the woodwork.”

My lady, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also asked skeptical questions about the argument that the mandate infringes on the RFRA. We can’t predict the outcome because SCOTUS is hella conservative. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito asked difficult questions of the administration while giving easy ones to the challenger’s lawyer. Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t say anything, which is kind of typical for him (someone I’m assuming check his pulse and kept waking him up).

Once again, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely decide; he asked skeptical questions of U.S. Solicitor General Donald Vernilli, defending the government, and fewer of Clement. Kennedy didn’t seem convinced that the birth control mandate satisfied the scrutiny under RFRA, saying the government’s reasoning could force businesses to pay for abortions. However, he wondered aloud whether the right of employers trumped the right of female employees who are guaranteed concentration coverage under the ACA. Kagan also directly warned ruling against the mandate harms women, “Congress has made a judgment and Congress has given a statutory entitlement and that entitlement is to women and includes contraceptive coverage. And when the employer says, no, I don’t want to give that, that woman is quite directly, quite tangibly harmed.

Of course, as Kevin Drum points out for Mother Jones the law probably doesn’t matter much anyway. See this is the first of what appears to be several challenges to ACA. Drum states,

“There’s no precedent for corporations having rights of religious freedom in the first place, and that along seems like enough to toss the case out. But even if they do, the plaintiffs have to show that the contraception requirement imposes a ‘substantial burden’ on them. They argument is that if they don’t comply, they’ll get hit by substantial penalties. But that’s ridiculous. The question is whether complying with the law is a substantial burden.”

 Drum continues to note there little to no evidence that contraception coverage impacts the costs of health insurance for employers. Additionally, in the case of Hobby Lobby, all they have to do is continue the health coverage they have always offered (they offered contraception coverage before ACA).

Of course, none of this will matter.

“Four justices just don’t like the Obamacare mandate and will vote anywhere and at anytime to strike it down. Four justices will vote to uphold the mandate. Anthony Kennedy will provide the swing vote. It’s also possible, I suppose, the John Roberts will vote to uphold the mandate, simple on the principle that having upheld Obamacare once before on a slim technicality…”

 Drum’s probably right. Law doesn’t really matter anymore. We’re being held hostage by conservative religious zealots in Congress, and they’re well on their way to taking over the Supreme Court.

The Rights of Women (and by extension employees) Part Duos

Get ready for what might become kind of dense. SCOTUS is going to hear a case about birth control and Obamacare: Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby.  First, get all the laughing out now, I know Hobby Lobby, personally I’m much more a Michael’s kind of girl myself…but they have some labor issues too. Actually, you’re going to be hard pressed to find many stores without labor issues.

Amanda Marcotte has a post up over at RawStory on how this case is about a lot more than birth control access for employees, and though I give exactly zero fucks about being “fair and balanced” instead I favor just and accurate, Hobby Lobby’s website for their perspective.

Marcotte asserts that the attack on the birth control mandate by the right wing would be seen by their supporters as an attack on women who do not conform to the rigid roles assigned to them by the right wing. They dress it up as “religious freedom” of course because no one can really say, we hate women and think they should have no rights, unless you’re on the Internet. Marcotte goes onto say that people won’t and don’t think twice about the larger implications of employers being able to “tailor your compensation for you labor to his religious beliefs.”

I disagree in a way. I think this is one of the many intended consequences the corporate run right wing had in mind. First, take a step back and ask yourself, can a business have a religion? Because that is the central question of the SCOTUS case. I say no, because I do not believe corporations/business of any size are people or citizens (coming back to this below). But if businesses can have a religion then can it use that religion to discriminate against its employees?

At think point in the post, Marcotte asks some questions about where this ends just limits on compensation or can they refuse to employ people based on beliefs: can a business refuse to hire women?; if a business believes people of color carry the mark of Cain can they refuse to hire people of color (actually a belief held by some)?; gays?; etc.

If SCOTUS sides with Hobby Lobby it gives employers a huge amount of control to dictate how employers can live their lives. And, while Twitter is amazing and people were going back and forth about the medical ramifications to vaccinations and homeopathic treatments, there is an even darker side to this. Can businesses dictate the decisions people make in their personal lives? We’ve seen Walmart try with the indoctrination videos that Walmart forces their employees being captive audiences to, but if the business decides belonging to a union is idolatry or interferes with tithe (giving a portion of your income to the church)?  Holy hell, what it a business decides to keep 10% of your income and donate it to their church? Also if businesses are people with the right to religion, can it start its own religion?

I know this all sounds crazy, but these are legit questions if Hobby Lobby wins this case. Below is a tweet from Marcotte on Wednesday morning point out that Hobby Lobby’s insurance covered birth control pre-Obamacare, because why not.

A Thing Everyone Should Know: Hobby Lobby insurance used to cover birth control. Then Obamacare became an issue & they pulled coverage.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 27, 2013

Alright, let’s talk citizenship and what that means legally and in practice. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there can be a lot of discussion about what citizenship looks like and how that changes depending on who you are. Often legal and cultural citizenship are pushed together, but for example, citizens pay taxes, but so do undocumented laborers, and that doesn’t mean the latter have legal citizenship or natural born citizens have the right to vote, but many don’t while cultural citizens may not have that right, but want to use it.

If corporations are deemed about to have religious freedoms, what is the impact or expectation of these new citizens in contrast to the already residing citizens? In yesterday’s post I mentioned the troubling effect of fetal personhood on the rights of women; will we see this between corporations and its employees? It is all quite science fictiony to me.

Jesus is trying to get up in my vag, and I'm thinking about get a restraining order

So remember a few weeks back when Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was acting like a boss, taking names, and kicking ass in Steubenville? Yeah, that’s over now.

According to Jim Provance for the Toledo Blade, 20 Democratic women object to DeWin’e objections to the mandate that employers provide coverage for contraception and other reproductive services under Obamacare. Some of the women object to the interference in regards to the HPV vaccine specifically not just the birth control (yeah, in Ohio they want slutty kids to get cancer, that will teach them, those sluts).

DeWine and 12 other GOP state attorneys general signed a letter taking advantage of a public comment period on the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) proposed regulations to Obamacare. DeWine said:

“It’s a matter of freedom of religion from my point of view. It’s not about contraception or abortion…I believe this regulation violates [federal] Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by Bill Clinton about 20 years ago. It builds upon the great tradition of religious liberty by ensuring the federal government does not substantially burden the free exercise of people’s religion.”

And to that, I say FUCK YOU. You have the freedom of your religion, but I have the freedom not to be subjected to your religion as well. I'd call on atheists to help women out, but they kind of hate women too (see Dawkins' twitter feed for more). The Obama Administration attempts to sidestep the mandate for religious organizations by requiring insurance companies to provide the contraception coverage for free as part of broader policies.

The letter from the attorneys general asks that the exemption for religious organizations be extended to others with religious concerns, even though they challenge the concept that such coverage would be provided by insurers. There is no exemption for private employers.

Liz Brown, the Ohio Democratic Party’s deputy executive director said, “DeWine wants to allow all employers the right to deny crucial health-care services under the so-call conscience clause under Obamacare. That puts 3.3 million Ohio women at risk. If Mike DeWine has his way, any employer could drop critical healthcare services because of political or personal beliefs”

Can we just say it? Republicans don't believe women are people, and thus women aren't entitled to healthcare. 

DeWine submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a federal lawsuit challenging the mandate by the owners of Freshway Food from Sidney, Ohio. DeWine said, “There’s a number of cases where the federal government has been stayed from implementing this pending a full-blown hearing. They say religion prohibits them from offering what they consider to be abortion—the morning-after pill, the week-after pill.”

DeWine doesn’t know what either of those things are. DeWine like other Republican attorneys general who challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare. The US Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s constitutionality striking down the provision mandating states expand Medicaid as a condition for receiving federal funding (Republican Governors are rejecting the Medicaid expansion at the cost of the poor, but we knew that would happen after all Jesus only cares about my vag not the poor). Democrats are allegedly preparing former Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper to run against DeWine in 2014.

I’m suggesting we start our own religion that states we have to put men through invasive and necessary medical procedures and deny medication because our god (the invisible space hippo that lives on the other side of the moon) says so. I’m thinking we begin with colonoscopies for Viagra prescriptions because that just makes sense, but remember dudes you have to pay for all these procedures too, and then your insurance rates will go up like women's. Or maybe we just decide to use all the Jehovah Witness’s restrictions on medicine as the national standard? Why should women be the only one to suffer under tyrannical religious zealotry? Let’s share. 

All of this puts my in mind of the cray-cray legislation coming out of just about every state right now in an attempt to double down on destroying reproductive choice. As you all know, this is all an attempt to get a federal lawsuit to challenge Roe. I heard a rumor the other night the Alabama voted to ban all abortions . This is thrown down as North Dakota, Tennessee, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, and many, many more deal with various forms of personhood. However, North Dakota’s lone abortion clinic is holding. I think they will have to drag that woman out of there with a crowbar. Also in Kansas, Dr. Tiller’s clinic just reopened.