December 26 was a fitting day for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to refuse judicial relief to the Hobby Lobby craft store chain, whose Christian owners object to certain requirements of the Affordable Care Act. On the calendar of Western Christianity, December 26 is St. Stephen's Day, the day that honors Christendom's first martyr.
It appears that Hobby Lobby may go to the rack on this one. The company opposes a provision in the health care legislation that requires them to pay for birth control methods that may result in abortion. Following Sotomayor's decision, Hobby Lobby issued the following statement: "The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees. To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs." And the full penalty of law—experts say Hobby Lobby could be fined to the tune of $1.3 million per day—would be the death knell for the company.
Apparently, that death would be more desirable to the company's owners than potentially funding the deaths of developing human beings. The litigation centers on the requirement that employers provide insurance coverage that includes, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "all Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity." Some of the government-approved "contraceptive methods" may actually work by inducing early abortion in making the uterine wall inhospitable to a fertilized egg, according to the drugs' own labeling. This—not bona fide contraception, but abortion—is what Hobby Lobby's owners object to.
So earlier this year, Hobby Lobby sued the federal government for violating their Christian owners' religious freedom. While churches and houses of worship are exempt from the regulation, and a narrow exemption was added for some nonprofit religious employers, the exemption does not cover businesses owned and run by private citizens with religious objections to abortion and/or contraception.
Justice Sotomayor ruled on the request because she handles emergency appeals from the 10th Circuit Court. In denying the appeal, Sotomayor said that Hobby Lobby failed to meet "the demanding standard for the extraordinary relief," but can continue to pursue its challenge through the lower courts.
"All they [Hobby Lobby] are asking for is a narrow exemption from the law that says they don't have to provide drugs they believe cause abortions," Hobby Lobby attorney Kyle Duncan told CNN affiliate KFOR before Sotomayor's ruling. "Our basic point is the government can't put a corporation in the position of choosing between its faith and following the law."
In support of Hobby Lobby, this past Saturday was designated Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day. Thousands of supporters were expected to shop online or at a store location on January 5 in a show of solidarity with the owners' pro-life stand.
Yet, the health care mandate treads heavily not only on reproductive matters, but even more so on religious freedom. Regardless of one's position on either abortion or national health care, this particular application of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—the requirement by the federal government that a privately owned business be required to purchase goods that violate the owners' demonstrably long-held religious convictions—should trouble all who value religious freedom. No, it should trouble all who value freedom, period. (Full disclosure: My employer, Liberty University, has also filed a lawsuit against other provisions of the health care act; in addition, Liberty is one of many recipients of the charitable giving that characterizes Hobby Lobby's business practices.)
Neither national health care nor abortion is an issue close to being resolved in our nation. Now it appears that long settled, essential matters of religious freedom are being opened up to controversy again, in ways not seen since the decades of our country's founding.
First, the mandate requires private citizens who are also employers to purchase private goods (health insurance services) with private money from non-government companies. Failure to do so places them under penalty of law sufficient to deprive them of their private property. Some might argue that the mandate is no different from requiring pacifists to support war with their tax dollars, but the analogy doesn't hold. Requiring private citizens to pay for abortifacients is more akin to requiring the Amish to use their own money to purchase weapons from a private gun dealer or be forced into bankruptcy. Or kind of like forcing anti-pornography legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon to buy pornography for her law students.
Second, the contraception/abortion mandate fundamentally violates freedom of religion. It is equivalent to the old Virginia church tax that paid the Anglican vicar's salary and was deemed to violate the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom of 1786, which disestablished the Episcopal Church as the state church and defended freedom of religion and conscience.This statute was one of the sources that Congress drew from in 1789 while drafting the Bill of Rights, which grant to citizens the free exercise of religion and prohibited Congress from abridging the freedom of religion.
What Roe v. Wade did to this country by judicial fiat in permitting abortion-on-demand is not even in the same category as requiring private citizens to violate their consciences and their most deeply held religious convictions by personally participating in acts they find immoral and unconscionable. If government regulations for running a business are such that Christians cannot own and operate a business without violating their religious beliefs, then Christians will be put out of business in this nation. I can think of little more that would change the fabric of our country than for Christians to be taken out of business unless they agree to compromise the things they hold most sacred. As blogger Denny Burk noted last week, "If this stands, what will keep this from happening to you?" If nationalized health care is the battle, then it is the soul of our freedom that constitutes the war.
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s b
Our God is an awesome God! He created this vast universe and He created each and everyone of us. Scripture tells us that He knew us before we were created in our mother's womb. Each life is significant in His eyes. I believe that we are missing the main point... it is not about "our" rights but rather when does life begin. Life created in the womb is as valuable and sacred as life out of the womb. I believe that every woman and man has a right to their own healthcare but do they have the right to destroy innocent life that God has created? Our Constitution, our moral compass and our living God requires us to defend all life. The Greens of Hobby Lobby are taking that stand and will ultimately answer to the highest authority. They are taking a stand no different than others that have proceeded them such as Abraham Lincoln, Wilberforce and Martin Luther Jr. I pray that God would give them the strength to stick to their convictions.
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
Mary, you object to the "melodrama" of my post, yet you were sent here by another site that criticized it using rather vulgar masturbation metaphors. I would say that is merely melodrama of a different stripe. I trust you registered your objections to the "melodrama" there as well.
Mary Rogers
Karen, Yes, you are right that I disagree with your conclusions in your post. But you have the perfect right to explore these issues as a writer. What I object to is the melodrama that I see in your post and also with conservative Christians in general. You want to make everything into a holy war. Quite frankly I think more people would be more likely to listen to conservative points of view if they would simply present their views in a calm and reasonable manner. However, I do realize that in the media, that is not how you get ratings.
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
Wow, Mary Rogers. You seem so certain about so many things about me--although you haven't said much about the actual line of reasoning in my actual post which, I assume, you disagree with.
Ashetalia Staatz
We need single payer. Those of us who are not evangelical Christians and Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., have no problem with birth control, abortion, morning after pills, blood transfusions, vaccinations. Lack of single payer means we are at the mercy of our employer's religious beliefs. In this case, Hobby Lobby is clearly more worried about the moral consequences of offering the pill to its employees than it is about the moral consequences of selling endless quantities of Chinese sweatshop knockoffs. A martyr they are not. Their workers, now, would qualify. Single payer. No one needs this.
Mary Rogers
I am pasting my response to a comment you made on the slacktivist website that was critical of your article: The reason why people object to your line of "reasoning" is because you and a subset of Christians want to frame every disagreement as an attempt to destroy your religion. In other words, you don't play fair. Elevating a legal disagreement to the level of martyrdom is patently ridiculous. I don't see the government feeding Christians to the lions! Christians in this country have unprecedented freedoms compared to most other countries. The problem is not that we don't have religious freedom. We have plenty of that. The problem is that people like you want to DENY others religious freedoms by ramming your ideology down other people's throats. Of course you feel justifed because you are SO CERTAIN that you are right about everything. If you want to make a point you can do it without the melodramatics. You can respect other points of view. Basically people like you really don't believe in religious freedom at all. You believe in the freedom of everyone to believe what you do. If people don't agree with you then that automatically means that they are evil and out to destroy Christianity. You can have a Christian country or a free country, but you can't have both.
Jim Ricker
We all seem to get caught up in the 'why' for different policies and laws and use them selectively. This is wrong but let's do this with HL. HL is a corporation that is a non-human entity. HL is not an extension or appendage of the Greens precisely because (unlike the 'ol Baily Savings and Loan) the Greens are legally separated and protected from much personal liability through the incorporation which makes HL a separate entity. If the convictions are true, then IF the choice comes between obeying the law or God in the minds of the Greens, they can reorganize HL in a way that truly makes the business intertwined with them personally. Difficult? Absolutely! But, at that point, the case for "the owner's personal beliefs" is far better made.
Jeanie Cosper
TOTALLY agree with SB. It's clear to see just how far removed we as "Christians" are and how numb and complacent we have become to the sinful laws and practices of this land. HL as an employer DOES NOT expect to have a say in how an employee spends the salary given them. Their expectation to have a say in what their money is DIRECTLY funding is merely an indication of their knowledge of their own accountability as Christians for the blessings provided them. As for the legal aspect= the pc-ness of this nation and the defense of ones "rights" has fast tracked us down the road of IMMORAL RUINATION. Comparing the funding of pornography to MURDER pales in comparison. Christians are DEFINITELY NOT understanding the larger implications of this. As one day we will all stand before our Maker and account for every single dollar God blessed to our possession. Whether the FORCED allocation of that dollar was mandated by a sinful government or not-we will answer. GOD SAVE US!!
Christian Lawyer
Basic logical reasoning requires analogies to have a fact pattern equivalent to the original. Requiring Hobby Lobby to provide health insurance that covers contraceptives (even if you believe some of them are also abortifacient) is NOT AT ALL like "forcing anti-pornography legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon to buy pornography for her law students." Rather, it's like requiring Prof. MacKinnon to subsidize her law students' internet connection, through which, among many other perfectly good and helpful things, pornography could be obtained should the student seek it out. And, actually, since it's only a hypothetical possibility, as recent studies have shown, that contraceptives covered by the mandate might ever be abortifacient, even my analogy is overstated. The mandate is more like requiring Prof. MacKinnon to subsidize her law students' subscription to the Book-of-the-Month Club on the off chance they might offer something that a tiny minority might think is pornographic.
Christian Lawyer
At worst, Hobby Lobby has a six-degrees-of separation problem with where some of its employee compensation $$ end up. Though CT says HL is required "to purchase goods that violate [HL's] demonstrably long-held religious convictions," CT also identifies the "required goods" as "health insurance services." So, unless HL's objection is to buying insurance services, which it clearly isn't, then HL wouldn't be directly purchasing anything that violates its beliefs. HL "self-funds" its insurance. This usually involves an account COMBINING $$ from employees AND $$ from the employer for their respective parts of the insurance costs. HL would contract with a separate entity to administer the account. Employees (w/ their docs) choose goods/services and ONLY THEN would the administrator review claims and pay the doc/pharmacy from the fund. Since HL gets to treat BOTH salary $$ and insurance $$ as "compensation" for tax purposes (a business expense), HL should accept its lack of control over both.
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