I spent a good portion of the day reading the Hobby Lobby case, including the concurrence and the dissents. Ultimately, it is clear that the Supreme Court has opened Pandoras Box; blood transfusions, antidepressants, vaccinations - there is no rational way to distinguish those treatments and procedures from contraception, unless you value the religious objections to contraception over the religious objections to the others. In doing so, you would value one religion over another, directly counter to the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Two quotes from RBGs dissent stood out to me: - In the Court’s view, [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith—in these cases, thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga or dependents of persons those corporations employ. Persuaded that Congress enacted RFRA to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent. - Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or the RFRA. The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. I continue to oppose the assignment of fundamental, constitutional rights to for-profit corporations, which weakens those rights- including religious freedom- for actual Americans. I reject the notion that an employer should be able to make personal healthcare choices best left between a woman and her doctor, and I stand firm in my belief that we should be expanding access to contraception, which millions of women also use for non-pregnancy related purposes. If elected to Congress, I will always fight to keep birth control legal, safe, and affordable for Alaskan women and their families.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 01:00:01 +0000
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