“Yay! The Supreme Court found in favour of Hobby Lobby! Woo-hoo!”
Such was the general consensus among many of my more conservative friends yesterday. They celebrated what has become a cause celebre in the right-wing allied factions within the Christian Church. The Green family–founders of the craft supply store I sometimes shop at called “Hobby Lobby”–said that they as Christians founded their company to be a reflection of their Christian values. As such they do not open to customers for business transactions on Sunday.[1] They play instrumental hymns over their store sound system, don’t sell things that promote drinking or drugs (no tacky Margaritaville signs!) and they pay their employees well. What they don’t want to do is pay for abortifacent (or alleged abortifacent) drugs under their employer-provided and government-mandated health care. There were four medicines in dispute.
Many Christians who are also pro-life (as I am) felt that this decision was a crucial stand for our freedoms. How, after all, can the government make a Christian pay for abortion?
When the decision came down on the morning of 30 June, 2014, it was celebrated as a triumph for the freedom of religion.
What got overlooked in all the yaysaying was this:
The most straightforward way of doing this would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections.
[2]
And who, you may ask, is “the Government”? Well, it’s all of us. Me, you, your pro-choice neighbour. In celebrating the right of for-profit corporations to have religious freedom everyone overlooked that a big ol’ slice of their own just got bartered away. It’s the most pyrrhic of victories.
The only ones who won here were the corporations. By ducking their share of the burden they in fact burdened other Christians with it, other pro-life people who aren’t Christians are equally burdened.
Of course the income tax system has several hiccups like this. My pacifist friends have long paid taxes that buy bombs. My atheist friends often shoulder a larger tax burden because churches are tax-exempt. When it comes to the cost of living in America everyone gives a little to get a lot. At what point does the giving become too onerus and the receiving become to minimal to countenance objectionable taxation? I don’t know. Those are longer conversations. Conversations we need to have.
But before we have them I’d like us all to be honest and to face what goes on with our eyes open. Hobby Lobby sold its case to the very Christians that it has now burdened as being a win for them when it was in fact a very large loss for everyone but Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and any future corporations who get to pass off their fiscal obligation to the taxpayers.
[1] They do buy wholesale product from manufacturers whose employees work on Sunday.
Just Another Pretty Farce 