So, I hadn't even heard about Hobby Lobby until someone posted something about it on Facebook. Here are two opinions on the verdict:
For the Verdict:
Against the Verdict:
So, having read short pieces by both sides, I honestly have to say that I fall with those that support the verdict. Hobby Lobby's insurance does cover birth control, but it doesn't cover Plan B pills and the type. Now, if I'm not mistaken, different insurance plans cover different things, no? So why is this issue worth taking to the Supreme Court, only because of the reason they don't provide Plan B, for religious reasons? When you take into account the fact that Hobby Lobby pays its employees $14 an hour (nearly double the minimum wage), and part time employees $9.5 an hour, to me it seems like the chain really isn't such a bad place to work, and that this is all just a bunch of hullabaloo.
But that's just me. What are your thoughts and opinions on the matter?
For the Verdict:
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will be announcing its decision on one of the biggest religious freedom cases of recent years: Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby.
No doubt, tomorrow’s decision will be an emotional and controversial one, both for the Justices and for the rest of the country. From New York Daily News:
Many who side with the Obama administration on this case have denounced Hobby Lobby’s position as appalling, but it seems that they, in large part, misunderstand what the company is really asking for.
However, as Hobby Lobby’s Mandi Broadfoot explains, the company is not refusing to pay for its employees’ birth control coverage – only emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices.
It’s important that those who so loudly oppose the company get the facts straight: Hobby Lobby’s founders are not asking to deny women of birth control; they are simply asking for the freedom to not pay for those few, specific and controversial methods which violate their religious beliefs.
Doesn’t sound so controversial, does it?
No doubt, tomorrow’s decision will be an emotional and controversial one, both for the Justices and for the rest of the country. From New York Daily News:
The Supreme Court is poised to deliver its verdict in a case that weighs the religious rights of employers and the right of women to the birth control of their choice.
The methods and devices at issue before the Supreme Court are those that Hobby Lobby and furniture maker Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pennsylvania, say can work after conception. They are the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, as well as intrauterine devices, which can cost up to $1,000.
The Obama administration says insurance coverage for birth control is important to women’s health and reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, as well as abortions.
The methods and devices at issue before the Supreme Court are those that Hobby Lobby and furniture maker Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pennsylvania, say can work after conception. They are the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, as well as intrauterine devices, which can cost up to $1,000.
The Obama administration says insurance coverage for birth control is important to women’s health and reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, as well as abortions.
However, as Hobby Lobby’s Mandi Broadfoot explains, the company is not refusing to pay for its employees’ birth control coverage – only emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices.
It’s important that those who so loudly oppose the company get the facts straight: Hobby Lobby’s founders are not asking to deny women of birth control; they are simply asking for the freedom to not pay for those few, specific and controversial methods which violate their religious beliefs.
Doesn’t sound so controversial, does it?
HOBBY LOBBY AIN’T A CHURCH, IT’S A FOR PROFIT BUSINESS.
"Religious Freedom" Run Amok: How The U.S Supreme Court Believes Corporations Are People, Yet Treats Women Inhumanely
July 1, 2014
By George Takei
A 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court (comprised of all men) delivered a stunning set-back for women’s reproductive rights in the Hobby Lobby case yesterday. The conservative majority ruled that a crafts chain store (here, one with over 500 outlets) whose owners espouse “sincere religious beliefs” can refuse to provide insurance covering contraception to its female employees.
The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion. Think about the ramifications: As Justice Ginsberg’s stinging dissent pointed out, companies run by Scientologists could refuse to cover antidepressants, and those run by Jews or Hindus could refuse to cover medications derived from pigs (such as many anesthetics, intravenous fluids, or medications coated in gelatin).
In this case, the owners happen to be deeply Christian; one wonders whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.
As many have pointed out, Hobby Lobby is the same company that invests in Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceuticals, makers of abortion inducing-drugs and the morning after pill. It also buys most of its inventory from China, where forced abortions are common. The hypocrisy is galling.
Hobby Lobby is not a church. It’s a business — and a big one at that. Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Once the law starts permitting exceptions based on “sincerely held religious beliefs” there’s no end to the mischief and discrimination that will ensue. Indeed, this is the same logic that certain restaurants and hotels have been trying to deploy to allow proprietors to refuse service to gay couples.
We are a nation that respects religious beliefs, but also the right not to have those beliefs imposed upon you by others. Our personal beliefs stop at the end of our noses, and your should therefore keep it out of other people’s business — and bedrooms.
While we work to overturn this decision by legislation, people of good conscious should BOYCOTT any for-profit business, including Hobby Lobby, which chooses to impose its religious beliefs on its employees. The only way such companies ever learn to treat people with decency and tolerance is to hit them where it counts–in their pocketbooks. I won’t be shopping there, and women everywhere should exercise their right of protest and refuse to shop there as well.
-George Takei
"Religious Freedom" Run Amok: How The U.S Supreme Court Believes Corporations Are People, Yet Treats Women Inhumanely
July 1, 2014
By George Takei
A 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court (comprised of all men) delivered a stunning set-back for women’s reproductive rights in the Hobby Lobby case yesterday. The conservative majority ruled that a crafts chain store (here, one with over 500 outlets) whose owners espouse “sincere religious beliefs” can refuse to provide insurance covering contraception to its female employees.
The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion. Think about the ramifications: As Justice Ginsberg’s stinging dissent pointed out, companies run by Scientologists could refuse to cover antidepressants, and those run by Jews or Hindus could refuse to cover medications derived from pigs (such as many anesthetics, intravenous fluids, or medications coated in gelatin).
In this case, the owners happen to be deeply Christian; one wonders whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.
As many have pointed out, Hobby Lobby is the same company that invests in Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceuticals, makers of abortion inducing-drugs and the morning after pill. It also buys most of its inventory from China, where forced abortions are common. The hypocrisy is galling.
Hobby Lobby is not a church. It’s a business — and a big one at that. Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Once the law starts permitting exceptions based on “sincerely held religious beliefs” there’s no end to the mischief and discrimination that will ensue. Indeed, this is the same logic that certain restaurants and hotels have been trying to deploy to allow proprietors to refuse service to gay couples.
We are a nation that respects religious beliefs, but also the right not to have those beliefs imposed upon you by others. Our personal beliefs stop at the end of our noses, and your should therefore keep it out of other people’s business — and bedrooms.
While we work to overturn this decision by legislation, people of good conscious should BOYCOTT any for-profit business, including Hobby Lobby, which chooses to impose its religious beliefs on its employees. The only way such companies ever learn to treat people with decency and tolerance is to hit them where it counts–in their pocketbooks. I won’t be shopping there, and women everywhere should exercise their right of protest and refuse to shop there as well.
-George Takei
But that's just me. What are your thoughts and opinions on the matter?
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