By Gary Berg-Cross
In its Hobby Lobby case decision the supremely, un-supreme
court approved (rammed down our throat?) yet again another religious
exemptions….for business. It is yet
another activist judge fallout from a Clinton era, federal
law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
(RFRA) passed by Congress to “protect individuals' religious freedoms.” OK you have to now
translate “individual” to “company
boss’s” (with firm religious beliefs).
And it’s supposedly just for contraception, that special religious
sensitive area of human life. It’s a
religious liberty according to Justice Alito who saw boss liberty as in danger.
Bosses with religious convictions, it seems to some, are under siege and
feeling less free. They need some protection from this big, insensitive,
secular government that is intruding on their exercise of belief.
One may ask
about the protection of employees, but this intrusion and harm seemed not to
trouble Alito. His position seems to be
something like “side effects are NOT going to happen if I say they won't
happen.” There’ no explanation beyond that. No
more reasoning about why this doesn’t open a door to something more. Justice
Ginzburg could see some likely downside:
"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby
and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers'
beliefs access to contraceptive coverage"
And she offered some rationale why the ruling seems unreasonable:
"Religious organizations exist to foster
the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of
for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those
corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community."
On the potential slippery
slope we have quickly learned that “Other corporations are
going to jump in and take advantage of this I assume and say, ‘well wait a minute,
our corporation doesn’t like this or our fundamental founders of our
corporation doesn’t like that.’ Based on that, we should be able to opt
out of provisions of Obamacare also and get away from that for our employees,” Analyst
Greg Skordas
As widely noted this ruling was dressed up as one of
those narrow decisions, but it seems to me more like another camel’s business-and-religion-friendly nose under the secular tent. The rulings words say that it applies only to
closely held private or companies whose owners have “deeply held” religious
objections to certain forms of contraception. How narrow is that? It depends on
understanding terms like closely held. How
many of US companies might fall into this category? Well mom and pops qualify, but so might a company
employing 10,000 people if held by a family of 5. One notes that Hobby Lobby itself has 600 stores with about 30,000 employees. They
aren’t the biggest either. Mars
Inc., the family-owned candy giant, takes in $33 billion in revenues and has
about 72,000 employees. Closely held Cargill Inc. takes in more than $136
billion in revenue and has about 140,000 employees. Indeed,
roughly 90% of all companies in the U.S. are closely held, according to a 2000
study by the Copenhagen Business School. And they account for up to 50% of
business. So there is a sneaky scope here despite what it is called. What’s going on?
We've seen this type of opening before, although people have a short memory, the current problem has a long history. The spate of court
decisions seems like part of incremental trend to slowing, but actively turn
laws in a very business and religious faith friendly
direction. Certainly is friendly to
those who are anti-choice. As Vox
noted “since 2010,
states have moved aggressively to restrict access to abortion and taken new
steps to defund family planning programs.“ The wave of changes seems
unprecedented and
some see its roots in an:
unholy
alliance of conservative greed, reactionary politicians and oppressive
religious fanatics, which has a pinnacle of power in the Supreme Court, ‘
The
core of conservative justices we have now seem more like a gaggle of politicians
in judicial clothing that have slumped into shallower and shallower thinking in
the service of some growing solstice of ideology.
One way of understanding
this trend and its Supreme Court connection is to go back to lobbyist
&
Nixon appointed justice Lewis F. Powell (see
an earlier blog on Powell
and Corporate Blueprints). This is a pre-Bork time but some of the
politicization & hidden agendas we see in the court today goes back to Powell’s
detailed plan, formalized in a secret 8
pg. memo entitled “Attack
of American Free Enterprise System.” This was written to activate and
engage the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The message then was familiar now, “become
more aggressive in molding politics and law in the US.” This is the aggression we see in increasingly polarized
& politicized elements of our society. The consensus view is that the Powell
memo, together with efforts by other proto-neocons, like Jewish Conservative Irving Kristol, united
Chamber-types, reactionaries and Wall Street plutocrats crystallized an
ideological vision
that was emerging in early neocon circles. With this type of money and
well placed backers the result established a opaque cabal of right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato
Institute, Accuracy in Academe, and Fox News. They in turn provided the ideological
seeds, political cover & groundwork for these religio-corporatist movements that this type of Supreme
Court grows out of. They can all be traced directly to subversive spirit & full-spectrum
methods outlined in the Powell blueprint manifesto against progressive values,
secularism, & the American left.
So in June, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that, under RFRA, corporations
counting as people - their sincere religious belief that “life begins at
conception" also get protection.
In other words “Freedom for Bosses' Religious Beliefs.” We have to stay tuned and alert. Sincerely secularly but also politically-astutely alert.
