Hobby Lobby: The Good News Just Keeps on Coming

I wrote yesterday about my reaction (angry) to the Hobby Lobby decision of the Supreme Court (they aren’t cool enough to warrant the SCOTUS appellation - this is no rock group, folks).

In on-going FB and elsewhere conversations, I have reason to be even more hopeful today than yesterday.

Here goes:

Did I Just Hear Justice Alito Say Single-Payer is Constitutional?  Fact is, I think I did.  It goes something like this (fact check me, please – this is too important to get it wrong):

• Privately-held corporations can get out of certain ACA requirements because they are privately-held

• nothing in this ruling can let people get out of obligations to the government based on religious beliefs because those are taxes and this ruling does not apply to taxes

• flash back to Chief Justice Roberts’ decision upholding the constitutionality of ACA, finding that it is essentially a tax

Starting to get it?

• Health-care requirements are a tax – except when they aren’t

• People have to pay taxes whether said taxes violate their religious beliefs or not – except when they don’t

In spite of the nonsensical result, and without meaning to, I am sure, it would seem to me that Justice Alito has just opened the door very wide for the constitutionality and workability of a single-payer national health plan.  If his friend and colleague Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling holds true (and why would it not?  He is, after all, the Chief among the justices), the Alito + Roberts formula seems to be

private + religion = opt out

public + religion = too bad, everybody follow the same rules

And before my conservative friends go all crazy on me insisting that you don’t want the government up your . . . just remember this: according to Justice Alito, somebody gets to be up  there, so the only question remaining is who.

I know you don’t want it to be the government.  But really, do you want it to be your boss?  I’m going for the folks who have so many people to deal with they can’t even remember the view up mine – but that’s just me.

More important to me is the ‘everybody follows the same rules’ proviso.  I am a woman, so I do not have constitutional protections like Hobby Lobby (and yes, I am going to be a very, very, very long time getting over that one).  But even though I don’t have those constitutional safeguards, for some crazy reason, I keep thinking that I should.  Call me closed-minded.

But the good news in all this is that by holding that government action is distinctly different than private action in terms of the ability to opt in or out, Justice Alito has laid some very nice groundwork for nationalized health care.

It might go something like this (hint to Congress: pay attention):

WHEREAS [Congressional bills that are a big deal often have a whole bunch of whereas clauses – they tell you why this is being done] over 50% of the population of these United States of America have no constitutional safeguards;

WHEREAS those 50% plus citizens are women;

WHEREAS women and women only thus far in our development [notice the avoidance of the language of evolution so as not to alienate certain folk who would otherwise be for the bill] are capable of bearing children and thus are the only part of the population subject to certain health issues, risks, and focus, religious and otherwise;

WHEREAS the private sector has had decades of opportunity to provide adequate and fair health care to all our citizens but has yet failed to overcome obstacles to universal and fair coverage, as witnessed by the present ability of certain privately-held concerns to opt out of certain coverages out of their religious beliefs, which adversely impacts female citizens in a way that male citizens are not and cannot be impacted;

WHEREAS, the government, being as it is constitutionally prohibited from making any laws of establishment relative to religion;

WHEREAS the decision in Hobby Lobby, et al., inadvertently establishes a religious rule in carrying out the terms and conditions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an inevitability so long as ACA coverage continues to be provided by employers:

NOW THEREFORE WITNESS: Congress does hereby hold and act to end this unintended consequence of the Hobby Lobby ruling by enacting Single-payer Universal Health Care, to be implemented forthwith, that no longer may the injustice of women’s health issues being subordinated to the health concerns of men under the guise or out of the rubric of religion.

___________________
*Recall if you read yesterday's piece, I predicted that this decision would head in directions its author and signers never envisioned.  Let the madness begin.

Dear Hobby Lobby, et al.: Jesus Is Not a Legal Fiction

[This piece is a reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby et al. cases, finding that for-profit corporations can have religious views and can opt out of certain laws as violative of those views.  I am furious -- hence this piece.  Working titles included -- The Good News of Hobby Lobby . . . or . . . Ladies & Gentlemen: I Give You Hobby Lobby World do not even get close to the heartbreak I experience over this case and its conclusion, to which I react much more as a Christian than I do as a woman, although both are in play.  If I offend, so be it.  I will not ask forgiveness in advance, which suggests an intention to sin while seeking to blunt the consequence to me, which is exactly what I perceive to be happening here, as self-interest prompts the highest ruling body in our land -- the Supreme Court -- to actually take faith and make it a joke.  God does not need my defending.  But my nation requires my participation.  To the decision . . . ]

So let’s all of the so-called liberal ilk*, and especially the women among us, just take a deep breath and look for a little bit of humor, a little bit of justice, a little bit of common sense in the Hobby Lobby Debacle.

***

First, to the humor:

Corporations are now not only people, but religious people.  This is GREAT news for us!  Finally, now, we women persons can form our own for-profit corporations, declare our religious views and exempt ourselves from a whole host of laws we find problematic.

1. Corporation Beth will not allow for nor pay for any employee of Corporation Beth to be away from work serving his or her country in the military.  It violates Corporation Beth’s pacifist religious tenets.  Sadly, that does not mean my employees might not be required by their government to serve.  But hey, the good news is that I as Corporation Beth, won’t have to pay for it.

2. Maybe Corporation Sally doesn’t care for certain styles and fashions popular to the day – so Corporation Sally might require men to wear loose-fitting pants so as not to be unduly distracting in the work place because Corporation Sally's God does not like tight pants on men!

3. Corporation Joan has read that addiction is one of those nefarious behavior-based diseases where the person may not know of their susceptibility to it until they imbibe.  Being a reasonable religious person and deeply caring for her employees, Corporation Joan may now institute a policy that in order to receive health care under her plan (her plan, her rules, remember, so long as it’s religious), all employees must refrain from all consumption of alcohol or drugs, prescription or otherwise (which quite handily gets rid of the prescription drug coverage requirement in one fell swoop).

4. In Corporation Every Woman in the United States, Viagra coverage is gone, gone, gone, because for sure, that violates ALL our religious faiths.

5. Corporation I Am Your Mother eliminates caffeine (bad for you and keeps you up at night); all fats in the diet (what, you want to have a heart attack before you’re 30?); cigarettes (need we say more?); driving too fast (I should pay for your suicidal behavior?); well, you get the point.  And it doesn’t matter one little bit whether we follow these rules or not (this is, after all, Corporation I Am Your Mother – CIAYM for short and in CIAYM, the order of the day is to do what I say and not what I do – Mom, after all, knows best).  So, to all you conservatives and libertarians, we hope you’re as pleased as we are – you’ve traded in your ‘Nanny State’ for Nanny Corporation.  And our freedom of speech guarantees you’ll be hearing from us even in your sleep.  Sweet dreams, cutie.  Love you, Mom.

6. Corporation Gladys eliminates all blood pressure medicines and treatments from coverage under her plan as most affected by such things are men and they have brought it on themselves and Gladys’ religion prohibits, absolutely prohibits, rewarding anyone, but especially men, for their own self-destructive behavior.  Corporation Gladys will send a representative to the visitation at your funeral.  But she will not be paying for your own self-destructive behavior.

***

As for justice, I’m with Dr. King on this one – the moral arc is indeed a long one, but its bent is one-directional.  The fact is that over time, this ruling will inevitably be taken to its logical and ridiculous conclusion and some future mothers and fathers will come to their senses and undo this nonsense.

I know that simply because, having been a lawyer, I know that my own kind can never, never, never, leave well enough alone.  Some creative cuss will inevitably come up with the silliest and most dangerous (from the State’s point of view) interpretation of this legal joke and it will work and the Supreme Court (keeper of the traditional values of the nation – never think otherwise) will recoil in horror at what their own ancestors have wrought.  The thing will be undone and all will be well – well, of course, except for all the folks in the meantime for whom it was not well.

And understand this about justice:  perception is as important as reality.  We cannot know with any certainty the intentions of those bringing these cases or those deciding in their favor.  But we can know that many women across this land feel disenfranchised, dismissed, attacked, minimized, disappeared from public discourse, simply because they are the target.  This action does not, cannot, affect health coverage for men.  It is only about women, as the 'keepers' of the reproductive cycle.  Argue all you like:  the fact is that many women experience this decision as discriminatory.

***  

Common sense – that oh, so rare commodity, is right scarce these days, it seems to me.  Maybe I’ve missed something really important.  But I don’t think so.  So I offer a few personal bromides in the (most likely vain) hope of assisting those whose own common sense seems to have fled:

1. Jesus neither requires nor desires bouncers.  You do not have to (in fact you cannot) act to enforce Jesus.  It just doesn’t work.  In fact, it has the opposite effect.

2. Think mote and plank.  If this is really about religion (and we all know it’s not – it’s about money – but let’s play along and pretend that you really are honest brokers of your own truths), I humbly (okay, I’m not all that honest either) suggest you recall Jesus’ own words about the mote and plank and devote yourself to some time reading the Desert Fathers and Mothers (who were quite clear that their own breaches were so extreme that they were in no position to condemn the actions of others).  More directly, did you survey all your shareholders or trust beneficiaries to determine whether or not any of your women use IUD’s or other comparable means of birth control?  Clean your own damn house before you go snooping around in the houses of your employees is a more direct way of putting it.

3. There are always unintended consequences – put another way:  Know that you will pay for this – and not in a good way.  I alluded to this above, but I’ll be more clear: making law ALWAYS has unintended consequences.  You lack the imagination to even begin to comprehend where this law will go.  But there are lawyers and activist groups out there now plotting away.  In the long run, you will not have protected the sanctity of your own religious beliefs.  What you will do is make anything called religious a joke, as companies far and wide seek new and interesting ways to make themselves ‘religious’ so as to avoid their financial obligations (remember: it is ALWAYS all about the money).  If you really care about the practice of your religion, this was a very bad day for you and I am only sorry that you lack the insight to understand that.

4. Beware of any action taken by one group that affects the rights of another.  This is supposedly about religion.  But hear the women.  And hear them clearly.  This rule applies ONLY to women – men, thus far, cannot have children, so by definition, this rule is about women and women only.  The opinion is written by a man.  The dissent is written by a woman.  That should tell you something.  At a minimum, it should tell you that when one group (in this case, men) makes a rule that only affects another group to which they do not belong (women), great humility and caution are called for.  Listening to the voices of the other group is called for.

5. Moral ambiguity is the land of grown-ups.  You live in the land of grown-ups.  That means things will not always go your way, simply because you are not the only inhabitant of this land.  Just sit with that one for awhile.  You might ask yourself what we who see otherwise on this issue than you have had to put up with from the likes of you over the centuries to get some idea of what is intended here.

***

To Justice Alito and all the signers-on: I thought you were a Christian.  As such, I gave you credit for understanding how very ridiculous it is to claim that a corporation has religion**.  I never considered for an instant that you would take the rule that allows for non-profits to opt out of this provision as ‘evidence’ that corporations have religion.  But you did.

You may be a wonderful Justice (I am not in a position to know), but sadly, I must conclude that you aren’t much of a Christian, because you have made the Christ I follow a joke by doing that most insidious thing we lawyers can do: you have made Jesus a legal fiction.

And you have broken my heart.



_____________
*When it became ‘liberal’ as opposed to conservative or even libertarian to keep the government out of my vagina, I really would like to know.  When it became liberal as opposed to conservative or libertarian to favor the creeds of my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters (contraception equals sin) over the creeds of oh, say Jehovah’s Witnesses (blood transfusions equal sin) or Christian Scientists (all medical treatment equals sin), I really would like to know.  When the ‘religious’ rights of a fictional character (a corporation) became more important that the religious freedoms of its employees (real, actual, living, breathing people), as a stated value of the conservative and/or libertarians among us, I really, truly, genuinely, would like to know.

**Hobby Lobby  My own Hobby Lobby analysis – turns out (according to the majority of the Supreme Court) I was wrong.

9 Objections to the Rule of the Undecideds

Every voter matters for a very simple reason: every human being matters.  We each matter to God.  And though we don’t often seem to realize it, we each matter to the body of us as a whole.  We matter in our presence, but equally, we matter in our absence.

Withholding our (best) selves from the body politic matters.  And so does being withheld from it.

That’s why efforts that either intend to or result in voter suppression are so pernicious.

But what draws my attention today is my continued frustration with (and if I admit it, contempt of) the debate processes.

Tomorrow night the voters themselves get to pose questions – but not really.

The people who will ask the questions are those who have not ‘decided’ – for whom they will vote and potentially even if they actually will vote.  Weighting the debate (and the election) in ‘favor’ of the undecideds makes no sense.  I understand why the candidates themselves would court folks viewed as ‘still in play’, but this is not (supposed to be) a process to educate the candidates about the voters.  It’s supposed to be about educating the voters about the candidates.

I’ve said it before (Just Say No to Opinion Polls) – I hate polling.  In my own view, it adds nothing to the process for the voters and takes away quite a lot.

That the Gallup Poll actually chose the folks  who will pose questions to the candidates tomorrow night from its own determined pool of undecided voters is itself problematic.

(1) It presupposes that the remaining 80%+ of us have minds that cannot be changed or influenced by events and information gleaned between now and election day.  It presupposes that our elections are determined or predetermined as pollsters say they are.  Why bother to vote at all?  Why don’t we just let Gallup poll us all and then tell us who we’re going to vote for?

(2) While being undecided may mean one still has questions, it does not mean that the questions the undecided have are the best or even relevant questions.  In the informal focus group gatherings many networks have had, I have yet to hear one single question or observation that meant anything to deciding which candidate is actually the best of the two to be President.  Instead, what I continue to hear is either (a) the leanings (right or left) the person brought into the room; or (b) some amorphous something the person is looking for (call it the likeability factor) swaying the mood of at least some in the room.  How on earth is that helpful to any of us, including even the person so reacting?  I neither need nor benefit from a political discourse that continues to view my feelings as the most important thing.  Claims of feeling my pain are sometimes silly, sometimes deceitful, sometimes amusing, sometimes awkward, and almost never indicative of the overall qualifications of the person seeking the job.  I for one, am not looking for a Best-Friend-in-Chief.  Is empathy an important quality in a leader?  Of course it is.  But I am singularly unqualified to gauge the empathy of a stranger based on what they say.  I can hardly gauge my own empathy based on my words.  Actions really do speak louder – for all of us.  There is no connection between undecided voters and the quality of their questions.  They may have great questions or they may have really silly ones.  Shouldn’t it be the quality of the questions that is the focus of this interaction between citizens and their leaders?

(3) It is a myth that undecided voters decide the election.  Some years ago I watched a basketball game’s final minutes.  I think Duke was playing, but don’t hold me to that.  In any event, in the final seconds, the fouled team member stepped up to the line to take his shot.  The score was either tied or they were one point down.  The young man missed the shot and his team lost the game.  The narrative at the time and in the days following was that this young man lost the game for his team.  Did missing that last shot make a difference?  Of course it did.  But the difference was no more and no less than the difference made by each shot taken and made or missed throughout the entire game.  The fact is that the entire team worked very hard together and lost the game, a game which is scored based on an aggregate of baskets scored throughout the entirety of the game and not based on any one shot.  So it is with elections.  The last vote counted is not the winning vote.  It is merely the last vote counted.  As a friend pointed out last night, had Al Gore won his own home state of Tennessee, chad or no chad, no one would have cared about Florida.

(4) It isn’t particularly helpful to either the one posing the question or to me to see them ‘face to face’ with the person they’re questioning.  Was Bill Clinton the better candidate?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Did (or should) that have had anything to do with the so-called turning point when then-President Bush fumbled a bit on answering a question about national debt and its human face while Mr. Clinton approached the woman asking and gave her good face time?  I don’t think so.

(5) If polls are to be believed, undecideds almost never ask big questions, like “what is your view about the place of the United States in the world?”  “Why in your view should the US exercise leadership in world affairs?”  “What is the source of our power around the world in your view?”  “What should we as a nation do when we get it wrong, whatever the ‘it’ might be?”  “What is your theory of the purpose of government?”  “What writers and thinkers capture your imagination and why?”  “If you could constitute your own ‘dream team’ of advisors from the history of the United States, who would you pick and why?”  “Which advisor do you value for disagreeing with you?”  “What new thing have you learned that you didn’t know in the last month/six months/year?”  “To what degree does government actually affect the performance of an economy and in what ways?”  If, as one candidate suggests, it is the ideas, the big-picture thinking that each uniquely brings to the table, shouldn’t we at least be asking them about their big ideas?

(6) Team building is one of the most important aspects of a successful leader.  And we almost never ask any questions about the ‘team’.  Who are your key advisors?  Who is your ‘go-to guy’ on critical issues foreign and domestic?  What are their core beliefs?  The leader shapes the team, but the team also shapes the leader.  So what qualities are you looking for in your team?  Undecideds, along with the rest of us, do seem to be concerned about congressional gridlock.  Maybe team building questions will emerge there.  But to what degree is it fair or appropriate to hold any president accountable for a recalcitrant Congress?  I really don’t know the answer to that one.

(7) I am guessing that there won’t be much questioning about the judiciary.  None were asked of the two top-of-the-ticket candidates in their first and only debate about domestic policy, so this next debate is our only chance to hear both men speak about this.  I hope someone asks: what kind of candidates will you be appointing to the federal bench and particularly the Supreme Court?  What qualities and skills are you looking for?  What is your ‘litmus test’?  Here’s mine: Mr. Obama supports choice – would he ever appoint a candidate whose personal views are pro-life?  Mr. Romney is pro-life – would he ever appoint a candidate whose personal views are pro-choice?  Here’s another: exactly where does each candidate see the check on executive power?  What can the executive not do in their view?  It relates to judicial philosophy, inasmuch as each candidate is likely to seek appointees who are consonant with their own views on the issue of presidential powers and prerogatives.

(8) The process is itself a construct.  It is not an open town hall meeting.  The moderator screens and chooses the questions and thus substantially shapes the discourse.  Apparently, candidates decided long ago that the free-for-all of the first town hall was not on.  More’s the pity.  If nothing else, it might give us insight into how each candidate deals with chaos.

(9) Because it is such a controlled environment, questioners won’t have the chance to do something really creative or challenging like giving each candidate an eraser board with the demand that they do the math.  Too often big and vague language conceals what they’re actually talking about when it comes to things like taxes and the economy especially.  Give them an eraser board and let them explain how their vision will work.  Enacting vision requires the ability to effectively communicate the vision.  If they can’t explain it to us, they can’t explain it to themselves and it’s just all smoke and mirrors.

Maybe I’ll be surprised.  Maybe the questions of the so-called undecideds will be more broad, important and informative than I anticipate.  Maybe the candidates will shine in setting forth clearly their respective visions and goals.  Maybe we’ll have a quality national conversation about the business we’re about when it comes to governance.

I am part of the 100% and I will be paying attention.

What Will the Supreme Court Decide on Health Care?

The answer at this moment is that I have no idea.  I could make some guesses, but that would be a waste of time – mine and yours – for it would make absolutely no difference to their decision, which we will know soon enough.

I recently blogged at Gathering Voices about my view of the harm of opinion-poll governance.  The Supreme Court poised to render an important decision to all Americans, no matter where we stand on the issue, seems to prove the point.

It’s an important decision.  Many of we citizens have opinions on the subject – often passionate opinions, as evidenced by the various town halls leading up to what the Right calls Obama-Care and the Left the health care law or Affordable Care Act.

But isn’t it interesting that not one single public opinion poll has been done (at least that I can find) on how the Court will rule or even how they should rule.

The reason, I suspect, for this dearth of opinion polls in a land where we are asked daily our opinions on all things political, is the realization by pollsters that our opinions matter not one little bit to the outcome.  The Supreme Court will not be swayed by opinion polls, nor should they be.

But not so the public when it comes to presidential and other electoral politics: we are most definitely swayed by the ruling views of the herd, whether we stand within or without it.

For the integrity of our political process, I continue the call for we the people to simply STOP PARTICIPATING IN OPINION POLLS.  They’re destructive; they reveal nothing of import; and they distract us from giving due consideration to important issues.

So when the pollsters call you, as they surely will, just say no.  Decline to answer.  Invoke your own right as a citizen not to participate in the downfall of your own Republic in this one not-so-small way.