http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/crying-wolf-on-religious-liberty.html?_r=0
Today, the Supreme Court is hearing a case brought by two private companies who are asking for a religious exemption that would allow them to deny their employees access to free contraception. Last Sunday, the New York Times ran this editorial. It is dead-on. (Any underlines are mine.)"This week, the owners of two secular, for-profit corporations will ask the Supreme Court to take a radical turn and allow them to impose their religious views on their employees--by refusing to permit them contraceptive coverage as required under the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court has consistently resisted claims for religious exemptions from laws that are neutral and apply broadly when the exemptions would significantly harm other people, as this one would. To approve it would flout the First Amendment, which forbids government from favoring one religion over another--or over nonbelievers.
The showdown will take place (today) when the Supreme Court hears arguments on two consolidated challenges to the Affordable Care Act. The owners of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinetmaker, want to be exempted from the sound requirement that employer health plans cover without a co-payment all birth control methods and services approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
These companies are not religious organizations, nor are they affiliated with religious organizations. But the owners say they are victims of an assault on religious liberty because they personally disapprove of certain contraceptives."
Hobby Lobby, for example, says they are fine with birth control pills, but do not want to pay for IUDs. (I wonder in which book of the Bible they found the verse where Jesus taught that birth control pills are good but IUDs are forbidden?)"They are wrong, and the Supreme Court's task is to issue a decisive ruling saying so. The real threat to religious liberty comes from the owners trying to impose their religious beliefs on thousands of employees...
...The claim that the contraception coverage rules put a 'substantial burden' on religious exercise is very weak. The companies' owners remain free to worship as they choose and to argue (incorrectly) as much as they want that some of the contraceptive drugs and devices on the F.D.A.'s list actually induce abortions. If an employee decides to use an insurance plan for such contraceptives, that would be a personal decision. It does not burden religious exercise."
The editorial goes on to explain several legal points and notes that exemptions have been granted to religious organizations. I have no problem with that. If you apply to work for a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Buddhist temple, you already know their religious restrictions and it would be an intelligent assumption that you, as an employee, would be expected to respect them. (If you insist that a pork sandwich be a part of your lunch, working for a synagogue, mosque or Buddhist temple would not be a good choice.)
The same cannot be said for a business with no religious affiliation beyond that of the owner's personal choice. If the Supreme Court allows these two businesses to force the owner's religious beliefs on their employees, where do we stop? If you attend a Lutheran church, will your employer be able to require that you go instead to a Catholic mass? Can you be fired if you fail to go to confession? Will your employer be able to deny your son a blood transfusion if his church favors prayer over modern medicine? Can the owner of a Jewish company require that all male employees be circumcised? (And who checks?) How about if we reverse this--would an employee who is a follower of Islam be able to require that all women work in a separate office, or that his female boss cover her head in his presence?
Ever since the Bill of Rights was passed in 1791 and Thomas Jefferson wrote that the First Amendment erects a "wall of separation" between the church and the state, that partition has been regarded by all to be a basic American right. Distilled to its simplest form, this case is a question of whether we will turn our back on two-hundred-twenty-three years of respecting that each of us has the right to believe (or not) as each of us sees fit or whether we let the wolf loose and grant some people religious superiority over the rest of us.
Let's hope the Supreme Court gets this one right--or a lack of money will not be the only road to second class citizenship.
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