I’m not going to do a post mortem on the arguments the Supreme Court heard on the Hobby Lobby/HHS Mandate case.
I won’t give you a run-down of which justice twitched, which one pulled his or her earlobe and who coughed. Trying to divine how the Court will rule by studying the questions justices asked and the expressions on their faces has become a kind of sport, like handicapping a horserace. Only it’s not nearly so accurate.
I think we would know just as much about what they’re going to do if we slaughtered a goat and studied its entrails.
Besides, I’m too nervous about this one to do that. The Court hasn’t exactly been a friend to people with traditional Christian values for a long time now. In fact, the Court has made itself the architect of this brave new baby-killing, marriage-is-meaningless world we inhabit. To a great extent the whole social mess is of the Supreme Court’s devising.
But this decision is one of the really big ones. Will we be free after this ruling?It depends.
On how they rule.
The Court can destroy religious freedom with this ruling. It can also do as it did with the gay marriage ruling last summer and just put out a row of dominoes for others to knock over and destroy it in succeeding months.
What are the chances that the Supreme Court will actually rule in favor of religious freedom?
Will we be free after this ruling?
It depends.
On them.
The owners of Hobby Lobby spoke about yesterday’s arguments before the Supreme Court. Here is what they said.
Looking at the Greens from a strictly nonreligious, secular viewpoint, these people had an insurance policy that covered the required contraceptives. It was grandfathered, so there was no need for them to change it to meet the requirements of the affordable care act. They were already covering contraception.
All they had to do is continue on as if nothing had happened. Instead, they chose to give up their grandfathered status by changing the policy.
If they had the policy they wanted in the first place, it would’ve been grandfathered and they would not be in this position. They are running a business not a church. Businesses do not dictate to their employees what they can do on their own time (with a few minor exceptions such as using illegal drugs). They certainly have no say in whether a female employee or the wife or daughter of a male employee can take a certain contraceptive. And since it was already in their policy to begin with, it’s not as if they have to pay any extra for these contraceptives.
Many northerners who were willing to put with slavery and regarded abolitionists as dangerous nuisances were eventually turned against slavery by the Fugitive Slave Act and by Dred Scott, because between them these two obscenities effectively extended slavery to the whole country and forced every citizen of the northern states to aid and abet the slave-catchers. Evidently the Greens had a similar reaction to the vicious ratchet of the abortionist screw represented by the unconstitutional and tyrannical “mandate”.