Hobby Lobby!
We have a friend who recently commented that he did not understand how the Republican party expected to win any further national elections without the support of the women of this country. And he is a moderate Republican!
Most probably know by now that the five aging Republicans who comprise the Supreme Courts conservative majority have ruled that privately held corporations do not have to pay for contraceptives for their female employees on the case of Sibelius versus Hobby Lobby. For those who also do not know, Hobby Lobby is a privately held religious based organization with locations across this nation who sells hobby supplies. The court’s peculiar rational for making this decision is that being forced under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to provide said contraceptives is a violation of their freedom of religion under the United States Constitution. This interpretation further carries the rational that corporations are living breathing beings that was begun under the Citizens United decision of a few years ago. That corporations, rather sterile beings created by statute, have religious beliefs is news to me. Those who head them may have such beliefs but it is seldom mentioned in either the statues that permits corporations to exist or in corporate charters themselves that religious beliefs are involved. And, further, a corporation may remain chartered when its leadership might change from those who espouse religious beliefs heavily to those who might not believe that way at all.
In theory, a corporation can exist for an indefinite period of time, the oldest know corporation being almost a thousand years old. They outlive their founders in many cases and point proudly in the halls of many of their executive suites and board rooms to those who have led them over past years. It is a source of pride and responsibility that many CEO’s of corporations feel on their shoulders during their time in charge. In point of fact, one of the things that sets corporations apart is the heavy responsibility that leadership feels to both the past and the future to pass the corporation along to safe hands when their time ends. It is a very egotistical leader who thinks that a corporation that he leads cannot survive and prosper without him but there are those among leadership in some corporations who do feel that way. What those types fail to realize is that a part of their legacy is to bring along competent replacements for themselves when their time to leave comes.
So, if corporations are the equivalent to human beings, they can often times live several lifetimes of the average mortal human on this earth, and some approach immortality.
In their infinite wisdom through the centuries and the years, the founders and those who followed them decided that the United States should limit the time that leadership could serve. George Washington started this trend by limited his service to two terms and every president since that time had honored that tradition except Franklin D. Roosevelt whose death at the beginning of his fourth term led to the passage of a constitutional amendment limiting service to some variation of the two term limit. There is no limit on how long a supreme court justice can serve except that they must vacate the post no later than the date of their death. And this may be a flaw in the constitution that might need to be fixed. By having these five old men continue indefinitely in their positions passing down decisions like Citizens United and Hobby Lobby among others is politicizing the Supreme Court and is alienation large numbers of people who are increasingly identifying the court with the Republican party as the years pass away. Many of these people are women who feel particularly exercised over this idea that a corporations right to religious freedom trumps the idea that women who would like contraceptives readily available to them.
We do not know what the average pay is at a Hobby Lobby store but we have the suspicion that it might be similar to that paid by Wal-Mart to its employees, which we all know is not much above the minimum wage. We could be wrong about this but we don’t think that we are. The message being sent by the court and these closely held corporations is that we don’t want to pay you any more than we have to and we would also like for you to keep breeding more people to help service our empires as possible. That fact that this ruling does not affect the male right to paid for Viagra and other male stimulants does not sit well with the average female. The additional fact that the profit sharing plans of these corporations are investing the funds of their employees in corporations that produce contraceptive devices also does not pass the smell test in many female eyes.
In the state of Illinois, the Republican candidate for governor has stated that he will attempt to reduce the minimum wage to five dollars an hour in an attempt to create more low wage jobs. How the average female employee is expected to pay for her own contraceptives on this kind of income is beyond my poor powers of comprehension. All of this resembles a broad attack on the middle class and already less paid females than their male counterparts in so many instances and resembles an attempt in this writers eyes to create a permanent underclass who works and breeds to provide continual staffing at the lowest possible cost to those who are making the bulk of the money and who only want more and more of it.
We think that it is admirable for corporations like Chick-Fil-A close their doors on Sunday in respect to the age old tradition that there should be a day of rest. And we suppose that they would like for their employees to spend that day in bed breeding more and more to fill the void created by decisions like these which leave the distasteful impression that the masses should work for nothing and then, combined with other trends that we are seeing develop around health care, simply take and aspirin and go away and die when they are to old to be of any use to their corporate masters any longer.
And they wonder why these persecuted folks are voting Democrat these days!
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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