Wait - WHAT???
This is being reported by the folks at Salon.com, so I'm pretty confident that this is indeed true.
Eden Foods, which bills itself as being "the oldest natural and organic food company in North America” has filed suit to exempt itself from the requirement under the Affordable Care Act to provide its employees with contraception coverage as part of their health care package.
Do they not know that their biggest customer base is WE the LIBERALS?
You're going to wanna vomit up your organic soy milk when you read some of the excerpts below.
It seems that the founder of the company and its CEO - Michael Potter - is a devout Catholic. While that's fine with me, he's trying to use his personal religious beliefs to thwart his company's compliance with the law.
Full Disclosure: I'm openly atheist but I don't harbor any ill feelings toward folks who Believe. In fact, I feel that if believers get something out of their belief in a supreme being that enriches their lives, then that's a good thing. I draw the line, however, at intolerance toward the GLBTQ community, racism, and use of your religion to foster any kind of "we're better than others" feeling. I also disagree with hiding from the law behind your religious beliefs. The Church and The Law are separate and should never mix.
That said, let's check out one of my three Fair Use quotes from the Salon piece:
Eden Foods — an organic food company with no shortage of liberal customers — has quietly pursued a decidedly right-wing agenda, suing the Obama administration for exemption from the mandate to cover contraception for its employees under the Affordable Care Act. In court filings, Eden Foods, represented by the conservative Thomas More Law Center, alleges that its rights have been violated under the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
For those of you not familiar with the
Thomas More Law Center, they call themselves "Christianity's answer to the ACLU." They defended the religious radicals who attempted to insert (un)Intelligent Design into the Biology curriculum of the Dover, PA school district. They failed miserably in that case, titled
Kitzmiller v Dover. I can't bring myself to read much of their Wikipedia entry - they're America's version of the Taliban.
Anyway, back to Eden Foods!
Here's the Money Quote:
Eden Foods says in its filing that the company believes of birth control that “these procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.” The complaint also says that “Plaintiffs believe that Plan B and ‘ella’ can cause the death of the embryo, which is a person.”
Excuse me, but "immoral and unnatural practices”? Wow!
In my third and final quote from the Salon article, they expose this NeoCon in Leftist Tie-dye Clothing:
Until now, Eden Foods’ conservative advocacy litigation has remained mostly under the radar, even as their marketing seems designed to appeal to liberals, from the slogan ”Organic agriculture is society’s brightest hope for positive change” to the ’60s imagery and the use of the word “revolution” in some of its print marketing.
Please follow the link I provided at the top of this diary and read the entire Salon piece. I want to provide a Tip of the Hat to the salon author, Irin Carmon, for dragging this vampire out in the sunlight.