The Four Horsemen of Hobby Lobby: The left’s apocalyptic fear of a Green family win

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby on June 26, and the closer we get to that date the more frantic liberals become. Their fear of a decision in favor of the arts and crafts chain, whose owners have challenged the constitutionality of Obamacare’s contraception mandate on the grounds that it violates their religious liberty, has reached such a pitch that they are making claims that transcend the merely portentous. Their warnings concerning the consequences of a high court win for the Green family, the company’s owners, have now become downright apocalyptic.

The supporters of Obamacare’s contraception mandate seem to believe that a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby will turn the sun as black as sackcloth and the moon blood red. The four horsemen of their imagined apocalypse will burst forth upon the nation thus: There will be a catastrophic curtailment in the reproductive rights of women, the de facto nullification of various anti-discrimination laws designed to protect workers from venal employers, a dramatic reduction in employee access to a long list of essential health care benefits, and the destruction of Jefferson’s fabled “wall of separation” between church and state.

The first and most ominous of Hobby Lobby’s four horsemen is, of course, the reduced access to contraceptives that millions of women will allegedly endure if the Supreme Court decides the case in favor of the Green family....

I have never understood this whole contraception for free part of the ACA. Since January 1st my contraception if free. Well, free so long as I order it through my company’s prescription plan but that’s another story. And while I appreciate not having the copay anymore I question the fairness. My father takes medication for his blood pressure; that has a copay. My mother takes medication for arthritis; that has a copay. My nephew takes medication for a health issue of his own; that has an ungodly copay. If you’re going to take away copays then doesn’t it make sense to remove it from medications people actually have to have to live? Medications that don’t have an over-the-counter alternative?

If one uses the recent Supreme Court ruling on prayer at a city council meeting in Greece,NY as a guide, the issues in that decision have some bearing.

1. The town provided opportunity for all sides to pray. This was important to justice Kennedy.

2. Kennedy spoke for a traditional, Founders era, definition of tolerance. He said that being oneself rather than being some government mandated neutral religion was true tolerance, that otherwise it was the government imposing itself on religion rather than the town of Greece violating separation of church and state. That the town (see #1) gave wide opportunity to pray was an example of tolerance.

In the Hobby Lobby case, the Green family doesn’t want to pay for items that violate their personal religion, although they will pay for other types of contraception.

First, the government hasn’t demonstrated some overriding government interest that this violation of the Green’s religion is absolutely the only was this can be handled. The government has handed down a huge number of exemptions, so trying to paint this as critical is a nice bit of drama, but it isn’t convincing.

Second, the notion that Hobby Lobby is a violation of church and state separation is belied by the court’s decision that tolerance means that one should expect to see differences in America. After all, we have lots of religions, since denominations are, in effect, different religions. Mitigating this, as with the above Greece, NY case, the people have many contraceptive choices available to them. No one is preventing them from receiving or using contraception. In fact, the company provides most forms of contraception, and the company imposes no restrictions on employees who use those methods to which it objects. Employees are free to do so on their own. (This is not the place to discuss the ridiculousness of a health insurance policy covering personal items. Why not tooth paste? Why not require car insurance to cover oil changes?)

Finally, is a corporation entitled to have a position on issues? That is actually a silly question since corporations already have positions on all kinds of issues. Some people are fired for their beliefs and some are hired for their beliefs. Corporations definitely have principles and beliefs.

So, how is that determined? Apparently, the group entrusted by the stockholders to lead the company arrive at a consensus opinion.

For the Green’s, that consensus opposes life-taking contraception. That is the corporation’s position. Is that really any different that other organizations having principles from which they operate? No. Therefore, leave the Green’s alone.

They are one among many organizations that operate on their principles. Tolerance, according to Justice Kennedy, means that we ‘tolerate’ differences.

I know we’re not supposed to guess what a Scotus does, but I think they will decide based on overriding government interest. They’ll say many exceptions have been granted, this one is just one more.

That kicks the can down the road to the time when all the exceptions have ended and the government can again say they have an overriding concern.

Meanwhile, the only real legal challenge to ObamaCare is the House origination argument that’s wending its way through the courts.

Now that Obama has shown a president can pick and choose laws to enforce and not enforce, a presidential win by a conservative means he can say, “Not enough money. We’re putting this on the back burner.”

I don’t think the severance issue is what’s at stake here. The rule objected to by Hobby Lobby is not directly in the text of Obamacare. It is a regulatory rule engineered by a federal agency. Team Obama can ill afford to lose the ability to craft whatever demonic law they like at the regulatory layer. It’s really their carte blanch to do all manner of social engineering, and the regulatory layer is, by practice if not by law, well-insulated from the congressional oversight it should receive. If Obama wins this, he can run things more autonomously than ever, via the Administrative State. It strengthens his dictatorial powers while at the same time reengineering the family into a leftist model of total subservience to the will of the state.

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