As could have been predicted, the atheist vent-o-sphere is making the appalling Hobby Lobby ruling an occasion to vent about "Christians" and "Catholics" and religion, in general. Yeah, I know, sort of like reporting that four o'clock came this afternoon, again, isn't it. You should see the comments I haven't posted and my hate mail. Yeah, I'm so convinced they really care about the issue as opposed to yet a slight variation on their daily, hourly, ever-minute of their waking lives practice of hatin' in more than 85% of the population of the United States. And as if the vast majority of those 85% don't practice birth control and that a majority of the religious people here don't support employers providing their employees with coverage for contraception.
Roughly 6-in-10 Americans say that publicly-held corporations (61%) and privately-owned corporations (57%) should be required to provide their employees with health insurance that includes contraception at no cost.
A smaller majority (51%) of the public say privately-owned small businesses should be required to provide health care coverage that includes contraception, while 46% disagree.
Majorities of Americans say that religiously-affiliated hospitals (56%) and religiously-affiliated colleges (52%) should be required to provide insurance that covers contraception for their employees.
Only 42% of the public believes that churches or other places of worship should be required to provide health insurance that includes contraception coverage to employees; a majority (53%) oppose requiring churches or other places of worship to provide health insurance that includes contraception coverage to employees.
A majority of Catholics believe that publicly-held corporations (56%), privately-owned corporations (54%), and privately-owned small businesses (53%) should be required to provide their employees with health insurance that includes contraception. However, Catholics are divided about whether religiously-affiliated hospitals (50% should, 47% should not) or religiously-affiliated colleges (49% should, 49% should not) should be required to provide contraception coverage for employees with their health insurance plans. A majority (56%) of Catholics say that churches and other places of worship should not be required to provide this type of coverage.
White evangelical Protestants are unique among religious groups in their opposition to the employer contraception coverage mandate. Four-in-ten (40%) white evangelical Protestants say privately-owned corporations should have to provide health insurance that includes contraception while 45% say the same of publicly-held corporations. Fewer than 4-in-10 white evangelical Protestants say religiously- affiliated colleges (35%), religiously-affiliated hospitals (39%), privately-owned businesses (34%) and churches (26%) should be required to provide this type of health insurance.
Religiously unaffiliated Americans express nearly uniform views in the opposite direction. A majority of unaffiliated Americans believe that any type of employer—including churches and places of worship (58%)—should provide their employees with health insurance that covers contraception.
There are strong partisan divisions over whether privately-owned corporations should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that include contraception. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats (74%) and a majority of independents (56%) agree that these corporations should be required to provide this type of coverage, compared to only one-third (33%) of Republicans. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Republicans say privately-owned corporations should not be required to do this.
There are also dramatic differences by generation, with younger Americans expressing greater support for employer-provided contraception coverage across categories of employer.
Ah, but that's too nuanced for the atheist vent-o-sphere, those guys who own math and science and data, too, man. They don't care about reality, they care about getting their regular 2-minute-hates in.
I'm sure some of them care about justice for women, though if they're doing the athe-hate thing in that interminable daisy chain of futility, they're doing nothing to change things. They don't ever do anything to change things, they just get their 2-minute-hates and then go on to the next thing. That was the point of the ritual in Orwell's book, which people mistook for some kind of future dystopia instead of a description, exaggerated, of how things already happen in real life.
One of the predictable results of this ruling will be that more of Hobby Lobby's employees will have abortions. To show you how much this was really about a religious objection. And the five fascists on the court would have known that before they issued their decision.
Update: I'm reading a number of comments condemning Hillary Clinton because her husband signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which the 5 Supremes pretend to base their ruling on. Some are attacking Hillary Clinton for saying that the ruling is based in an obvious misinterpretation of the act. I'd guess they would have to include Ruth Bader Ginsburg in their accusations that Hillary Clinton is lying since that was the basis of a good part of her dissent, pointing out in the legislative history of the act that it was never meant to be interpreted the way the 5 lying "justices" have used it.
More mature leftists might help a lot in this matter.
I'm already worn out by the ignorance of the responses to this decision. Which is not to say it is NOT a bad decision; it is a terrible decision. I completely agree with the dissent, on all points (even those Breyer and Kagan distanced themselves from).
ReplyDeleteBut the responses are so ignorant they make me tired. I got into a brief argument at Slate with someone who insisted the definition of "person" as used in the opinion was a settled issue (it isn't; it's a bad interpretation of RFRA and the Dictionary Act, as Ginsburg points out). Basically, this person's take was that Ginsburg didn't know what she was talking about (he wasn't fit to tie her shoes; not as a legal analyst, anyway).
I have no particular expertise in this field of law, and I can't begin to imagine what kind of Pandora's Box this decision opens. It puts me in mind of Bush v. Gore; a decision meant to be of limited scope, which won't be. I'm also convinced it can be reversed with a slight change to RFRA; but when that would ever get through Congress, who knows?
Still, the wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments is more than I can put up with. I'm avoiding the topic from here on out; too much stupid and hate, as you say.
Who needs it?