Is your God bigger than my God? For this author, even asking or answer the question is troublesome. The Hobby Lobby decision crossed into this territory. Now we know the answer. The rich guy's God is bigger. Any owner or a large company can constrict his employees rights so long as he says “deeply held religious principles.” The employees are bound whether they agree with their boss or not.
Not surprisingly, Alito’s decision, joined by four other male conservative Catholics, spends pages detailing the penalties imposed for ADA non-compliance. But it makes virtually no mention of the employees.
Anesha Khan, writing at the SCOTUS blog, wrote about Hobby Lobby this July 4th week and identified two elephants: the Catholic jurists imposing the Catholic religious beliefs about contraceptives on America and the gender implications, because the burden falls most on woman. (She was careful not to upset the elephant, for she did not use the word "Catholic.")
“Hobby Lobby," Ms. Khan writes, "threatens to deal a more decisive blow to the Court’s credibility than the typical five-four decision. I say that for two reasons. First, the decision was issued over the dissent of all of the Court’s female and Jewish Justices. Second, the decision comes on the heels of Town of Greece v. Galloway, in which the Court approved a town board’s practice of opening its meetings with almost exclusively Christian prayers.
“In both cases, the majority paved the way for conservative Christians to override [the Church State separation rules, a popular majority, the interests of women, and those of religious minorities...] – and the line-up of the Justices reflected that same divide. .... At a minimum, they raise the question whether we are seeing the rise of a Court in which gender and religion are the elephants in the room.”
http://www.scotusblog.com/...
In the 1950’s, the United States had about 150 million people.
In the 2010 census, the United States had 313 million people. As Will Rogers quipped, Buy Land. They ain’t making any more of it.
Why limit contraceptives when our nation has a lagging economy, when our nation is becoming uncomfortably crowded, and when resources dwindle?
That’s the third elephant. Just how many people can this Country support?