Another Take-Down

of the Hobby Lobby decision, which is not only piss poor on its own merits, but completely ignores precedent, and the "religious freedom" argument that it's based on. From Perrspectives:

To hear the best and the brightest of the conservative movement tell it, Americans' freedom of religion is in dire peril. At Liberty University in April, Texas Senator Ted Cruz cautioned, "Religious liberty has never been more under attack." Ben Sasse, the Nebraska GOP Senate candidate, went even further in declaring that "the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life," adding "government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances." Competing with Cruz in the 2016 Falwell primary, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal used his Liberty University commencement address to similarly warn his audience. "Make no mistake," Jindal said, "The war over religious liberty is the war over free speech and without the first there is no such thing as the second."

Coming as it did in the run-up to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, the right-wing outcry about a supposed war on religious freedom is especially galling--and more than a little ironic. After all, less than two months ago in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Roberts Court ruled that sectarian Christian prayers used to open a town council meeting did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion. On Thursday, the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley ruled that 35 foot buffer zones created to protect patients entering family planning clinics in Massachusetts were unconstitutional. (As Sarah Posner summed up the opinion limiting women's protections from verbal harassment and threats of violence, the Court in essence concluded that "your uterus is 'an important subject' about which your fellow citizens 'wish to converse.'") In April 2011, a 5-4 majority upheld an Arizona law designed to evade restrictions on school vouchers by giving gives taxpayers there a dollar-for-dollar state tax credit of up to $500 for donations to private "student tuition organizations." Meanwhile at the White House, President Obama has continued to pour billions of Americans' tax dollars into George W. Bush's so-called "faith-based initiatives," despite his unfulfilled 2008 campaign pledge to protect beneficiaries and employees alike from discrimination practiced by grant recipients.

It goes on, in detail. Worth reading.