The Supreme Court made the wrong call on the Hobby Lobby They still haven’t figured out that a company is not a person. Maybe they don’t want to figure that one out. But they also made the wrong call on religious freedom as it was involved in the whole situation. The religious freedom that David Green of Hobby Lobby and his followers are interested in is that religious freedom, that allows them to do whatever they wish, even in contravention of the laws of the land. The religious freedom that was really at stake here and which tragically appears to have been lost, is freedom from religion. That is the tragic reality.
For any observer who has had the opportunity to move around the world the reality is, that only in atheistic countries does religious freedom actually exist. That’s because in those countries, most of which are not driven by one religion or another there is no will to restrict the rights of the people based on any religious principle.
I’m not talking about any particular country here; you could look to Scandinavia, but in fact there are very few that are not driven by this or that religious community. Nicholas Kristoff has written a very thoughtful column in the 7/10/14, NY Times in which he points to a number of particularly vicious anecdotal incidents that have taken place in various Muslim countries. In Sudan a Christian woman married to a Muslim was sentenced to 100 lashes and then to be hung. This is horrifying to most westerners who normally in the current climate do not fear this kind of violent punishment for religious disagreements but this has not always been true. There is more bigotry, more human repression and more violent retribution in the old and new testament and in the Tenants of Sharia law than in most of the literature of history.
Why is this? What is it about religion that leads its true believers to be such violent proselytizers? These are people who are supposed to be deeply immersed in moral good, charitable works and forgiveness. Try to tell that to the average victim of the Inquisition or a Sharia court. I don’t know if there is one definitive answer, but there is certainly a history of brutality, that seems to come from those whose beliefs are based on faith, which cannot be proved, rather than some intellectual principle, that can. Can it be that this inability to prove their beliefs to be correct is what drives the faithful to such violent extremes?
I had a discussion at a recent school reunion with the wife of an old classmate who became incensed when I said that the existence of God could neither be proved nor disproved and that a belief in the deity had to be based on faith, not logic. My point was simple. If one had faith, no intellectual proof was necessary. If one didn’t have faith, one demanded proof in order to accept such an all- encompassing concept. She just kept getting madder and madder. I couldn’t figure out why, but this seems to be a more than occasional circumstance.
I am an agnostic. I would like there to be a God, at least the Christ-like God pictured by the goodie-two-shoes fantasizes of the Evangelical churches, but I really don’t see much evidence for God’s existence. For some reason this position seems to infuriate true believers. Why would anyone care whether or not I believed in their God or any God? This seems to be a very important question in the contemplation of religion and religious freedom, because all religions want you to believe what they believe and when you don’t, they get very pissed off.
Like almost everything surrounding the concept of the reality of a God, I have no proof of the following statement, but it appears that the reason why people get mad at you for not sharing their belief, has a lot to do with how easily faith is shaken, and how damaging it is to the faithful, to undermine their faith. I have come to this conclusion because of the number of times I have had to confront unreasoning anger simply because of my making the statement that I am not a believer or that I lack the proof to be one. And bang! They’re off.
David Green is a Roman Catholic and like many Roman Catholics or Evangelical or Born Again Catholics he is positive that he has the word directly from God. I sure wish I had that kind of ego. God never talks to me. But having those conversations with the deity does make one absolutely sure about what one is selling, right or wrong. In this case Mr. Green is selling his version of the Church’s opposition to abortion. Now it’s not clear how he got that sure of himself since neither abortion nor contraception are mentioned in any bible. But he’s selling it hard and at the same time, he’s saving himself a lot of money. Not a bad way to believe. He accomplishes these savings by not paying for certain contraception for his female employees. He somehow manages to make this position morally okay, even as he opposes abortion, which the contraception would help to prevent. I guess that’s just religious logic.
But suppose all of us felt that way and the Supreme Court was dumb enough to go along with us as they have with Mr. Green. Does that mean that those of us, who for religious purposes, like Quakers, are against war didn’t have to pay the 20% of their taxes that go to support the war machine? Or to keep it closer to home could the Christian Scientists deduct all their taxes that go to support Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, the VA, the CDC and any other medical operation supported by the government? Follow the logic. The Five Senile Old Men haven’t.
What’s even more interesting is that while Green is interfering with his female employees ability to restrict ovulation he is paying for his male employees Viagra and Cialis which are major contributors to pregnancy, wanted or not.
Funny thing is, he never mentions that he obtains a great deal of his goods from low wage businesses in countries like China where abortion is mandatory under certain circumstances. This doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Green anywhere near as much as lowering his bottom line would. It’s a convenient kind of religion. You just have to understand it.
It would be interesting if some Muslim run business tried to run his same kind of crap past the Supreme Court. I wonder how far they would get. Suppose Ali Mafooze Muktar decided that all the women who worked at his widget factory in Akron had to wear a hijab to work. You think Alito, Thomas and Scalia would see the religious freedom issue from the same place as Mr. Muktar? You do? Boy do I have a bridge to sell you.
For a different point of view on why the Court was dead wrong on this decision please check out my previous blog, Five Senile Old Men.
In any case, if you bother to read the First Amendment to The Constitution, along with some background on the men who wrote and signed it, you will see that it was intended, not to give greedy businessmen a chance to jam their religion down the throats of their employees, but to provide freedom from those employers religions to those same employees. Yes, it’s about the freedom to practice your religion but it is just as much about the freedom not to have to practice anyone else’s religion. That’s what those five old assholes missed.