Some such as Andrew Sullivan continue to try to downplay the frightening precedent laid down in the Hobby Lobby ruling by the Supreme Court. But, having created a religious exception for Christofascists from complying with the laws that govern everyone else, there really is no limit as to what the self-centered, women hating, gay hating, ignorance embracing Christofascists might choose as their next cause célèbre that justifies claiming special religious based "rights" for corporations. A pierce in the Huffington Post looks at eight examples of what the Christofascists could theoretically grasp upon and then cite their special religious exemption from the general laws. While some of the examples are far fetched, they underscore the absurdity of the Supreme Court's all white male ruling. Here are excerpts:
The owners of a chain of stores called Hobby Lobby don't like Obamacare. In particular, they really don't like the part that requires insurance companies to cover contraceptives. Normally, people who don't like a law petition the government to change that law. That's how a nation of laws works.
But these men are Christians. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Christian business owners are special. Their deeply held religious belief that some particular form of contraception is immoral carries more weight than the force of law, five conservative Christian justices ruled. The court -- in a fairly bald admission that its ruling is incoherent -- added that no general amnesty from other laws should be assumed to be the result of its ruling and that its reasoning was strictly limited to women's contraception. Such a limitation raises legitimate questions about the rather perverted and obsessive minds of the five men who made the ruling, but it also carries little legal weight. Precedent is precedent, whether the precedent-setters say so or not.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wondered aloud in her dissent, "Would the exemption ... extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus)?"
As long as we're doing a la carte law-abiding, here are a few additional ones that could become optional to certain people with deeply held beliefs.
NUDITY LAWS
Entire colonies of people are dedicated to the belief that being compelled to wear clothes is wrong. Others don't believe they should be compelled to make love only indoors.
TAXES
Most religions profess a deep affinity for peace (while drenching history in blood in the name of religion, but whatever). Why should religious pacifists be compelled to pay taxes that subsidize war?
GENITAL MUTILATION
Female circumcision -- more commonly and accurately known as genital mutilation -- is central to the practice of some religions, according to some people who have strong beliefs. What is a democracy to tell people otherwise? In fact, the same could go for domestic violence, polygamy and whatever else.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
To hell with the Violence Against Women Act, when the Quran authorizes you to strike a disobedient wife, as illustrated in Chapter 4, Verse 34. And we don't have to limit the freedom to Muslim men. As Deuteronomy 25:11-12 testifies, "If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."
The Court has opened a Pandora's Box that I suspect will haunt the nation for many years to come. Freedom of religion in the minds of the Founding Fathers never equated to being given special rights to ignore the law.
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