I guess nobody else out there is old enough to remember 1990.
Nobody's making a big deal of it, but that's the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it could not "make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land."
Well! It only took 24 years to send that ruling ass over teakettle, didn't it? That's 250 years of legal tradition sacrificed to politics.
It hasn't taken nearly that long for me to get tired of people whining, "Well, after all, they limited their ruling to those four types of contraception."
You betcha! The lawsuit was about four types of contraception, so that is indeed what they ruled on.
But that was on a Monday. If you kept up with the details, you know that on the following Thursday they remanded some cases back to federal district courts with the suggestion to find a religious exemption for all 20 kinds of contraception available under Obamacare.
(whining) "Well, they specifically said in their opinion that this religious exemption only applies to contraception, not race or anything else."
Repeat: The case was about contraception, so yeah, that's what they ruled on.
Also during Hobby Lobby week, the five male Roman Catholics ruling the Supreme Court granted an injunction to Wheaton College supporting the idea that even filing the form to request a religious exemption from contraception coverage is an unreasonable hardship.
What those five justices are saying is that a particular subset of religious beliefs is indeed "superior to the law of the land."
Now that they said it, do you not realize that it involves the same particular subset that opposes any kind of equal treatment for the LGBT community -- even the basic job protection that's been before Congress for a decade or so?
When somebody asks for a religious exemption to bash gays and lesbians, do you think those five guys going to say, "Well, we know we gave Christian fundamentalists a religious exemption on contraception, but we can't find the same exemption for Christian fundamentalists on perverts"?
Do you honestly?
This is a king-sized loophole for employers to avoid simply saying "I don't want to." Because saying that would make them look like what they are and, you know, BenghaziSodom.
There are probably 100 denominations in the U.S. that view women as chattel. Will we not end up with a religious exemption allowing employers to pay women less or to treat women in whatever way their religion dictates? And of course, assuming we still recognize other religions, there are Muslims and their dress codes for women.
I understand that in Saudi Arabia, a woman who insists on working has to be escorted on the job by a male guardian. Why not give that a try?
There are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who believe in separation of the races, so ... if you're black, so sorry, but mere earthly law can't protect you, either.
Justice Ruth Ginsburg in her dissent listed several obvious things that can logically (?) now be written out of employee health insurance: blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs (that would be anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin -- nothing important, of course, but all anathema to Jews, Muslims and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Science and others).
LOL ... We've set the clock back to 1857 and we haven't even gone through all the religious exemptions for fundamentalist Christians.
Then we can start on other religions, assuming they have any rights left.
U.S. courts have traditionally held that courts can't define what constitutes a religious belief, so in practice it won't even make a difference whether the belief is real: Religious belief is whatever the religious believer says it is.
Just don't plan on religious exemptions for progressive beliefs -- those are outside the subset that has a stranglehold on political power right now. Maybe you're a Quaker and you don't think friends should make Friends help pay for war? Don't expect the spirit to move this court in that direction.
I keep hearing jokes about "when the revolution comes."
Well, listen up: The revolution is long since under way, boys and girls, and the majority side ain't winning. Any issue that polls 60 to 75 percent or more support from the public is no longer even on the table in Congress.
Now it obviously won't play at the Supreme Court, either.
I hope the court's reversal woke somebody up. Otherwise, my golden years look more and more like a tin washtub.