Hobby Lobby

I suppose I have to comment on this one, the worst decision to come down since Citizens United -- not only are corporations people, they got religion. The Hobby Lobby decision seems, from what I've been able to find (I haven't read the full opinion yet -- just found a link as I was doing this post -- Mother Jones has it here, including Justice Ginsburg's dissent [see below]), to be an even worse exercise in logical gymnastics than its ideological forebear.

Digby has a choice quote from Justice Alito's majority opinion, and a pointed rejoinder:

"According to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients."

Fascinating. They aren't "abortifacients." That is simple scientific fact. But they say they believe they are and their "belief" trumps objective reality.

This is straight out of the Teabagger Bible. If this is the level of intellectual acuity in the Court, we are all in serious trouble.

Scott Lemieux does a survey of all the holes in the decision.

Today, a bare majority of the Court held that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, employers do not have to adhere to federal regulations requiring that health insurance offered to employees cover contraceptives if the requirement conflicts with their religious beliefs. The majority opinion supporting this view, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and joined by the Court's four other Republican appointees—all men—is a disaster. It is unpersuasive and illogical, and creaes a standard that is unworkable. It also reflects an instructive lack of concern for the interests of the women, whose statutory rights will be burdened by the majority's decision.

Read on at the link -- it's worth it.

Justice Ginsburg's dissent was blistering, by all reports, and she raised one question, among others, that the majority didn't seem to register, implicit in this observation:

"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage."

In other words, what about the religious freedom of employees?

I may come back to this -- I have a lot to do today, and I'm still working in fits and starts.