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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEvangelical Corporations Try To Force Their Employees To Follow Their Religious Beliefs
In 2010 at the behest of the Koch brothers, Mitch McConnell, and corporate leaders everywhere, the U.S. Supreme Court granted personhood rights to corporations giving them power to control the direction of the government and buy the services of Republicans candidates without campaign finance restrictions. Dissatisfied with the inordinate power the conservative court gave corporations, they are likely headed back to the Supreme Court to demand power to impose their religion on their employees in the next logical step towards transforming America into a theocracy. Despite the U.S. Constitutions guarantee of freedom of, and from, religious imposition on the people, the extremist Christian fanatics intent on forcing all Americans to toe the evangelical line and fall under the purview of Americas version of Sharia Law are appealing to the conservative High Court for their blessing to impose their bastardized version of Christianity on the people and as usual they are focusing their attention on women.
The latest tactic of corporations with evangelical CEOs is a continuation of last years attempt to ban American women from using birth control as a result of President Obamas inclusion of contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act. At issue is whether a secular corporation with no business relationship or involvement in a religion can be considered religious and force its employees to follow the corporations religious beliefs and be prohibited from using contraceptives included in prescription coverage in health plans. The President gave religious organizations and churches permission to ban their employees from having access to contraceptives, but it still did not satisfy the neo-Christian fascist wing who sees the conservative Court as their ticket to impose, by Constitutional fiat, their religious convictions on their employees. It is noteworthy that the push to ban contraceptive use is being pressed by evangelical men who avoid using IUDs or hormonal birth control pills by choice, but their personal choice is not the issue; eliminating womens choice is.
In the Presidents healthcare reform, any company with more than 50 employees is required to provide health insurance coverage, including prescriptions for contraceptives, and to acquiesce to Christian extremists the President exempted some religious institutions; churches and ministries were always exempt. One Pennsylvania Christian cabinet maker claimed that his company is Christian and does not have to provide contraception coverage because the prescription mandate violates the companys right under the free religious exercise clause in the First Amendment as well as the companys protection under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Last week the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the contraception mandate despite the company owner, like Hobby Lobbys CEO, claimed contraceptives are abortifacients. An abortifacient is a drug that causes a miscarriage, but contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (IUD) and hormonal birth control pills prevent pregnancy making the religious fanatics arguments a violation of all known medical and biological science. There is a large contingent of religious extremists who consider any miscarriage tantamount to premeditated murder and have attempted to pass laws imprisoning women who miscarry regardless it is a common biological process.
Writing for the 3rd Circuits majority, Judge Robert Cowen said although there was a long history of protecting corporations rights to free speech, there was no history of protecting a companys free exercise of religion. We simply cannot understand how a for-profit, secular corporation can exercise religion. A holding to the contrary would eviscerate the fundamental principle that a corporation is a legally distinct entity from its owners. A few weeks ago, the Colorado-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores finding that corporations are entitled to assert religious rights and impose them on their employees. The court specifically noted that President Obama had offended the companys religious beliefs with the contraception requirement. Now that there is a split between the 3rd and 10th Circuit decisions, it falls to the Supreme Court to rule if a corporation has the Constitutional right to impose its religious convictions on its employees.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/04/evangelical-corporations-force-employees-follow-religious-beliefs.html
shenmue
(38,501 posts)they close on Sundays. They say it's to give people time to go to church, and if that's all it were, it'd be one thing; but they really don't want to have to pay people to work on that day, or spend overhead to keep the lights on. Also, the less they pay, the fewer benefits they have to give their workers. I am thinking of Chick Fil A, but there are others that do this as well. Ostensibly it's out of piety, but there are other reasons lurking in the background, which aren't so holy and much more mundane after all.
localroger
(3,602 posts)...in the late 1970's. There used to be statewide blue laws forbidding the sale of things like furniture and hardware on Sunday. This caused weirdness with stores like Walgreens having to rope off their hardware aisles so they could stay open to sell drugs and, in New Orleans, liquor. That's right, you couldn't buy the parts to fix your busted toilet on Sunday, but you could buy a bottle of Jack Daniel's to drown your sorrow over it.
The fact that liquor was (as it still is) available 24/7 in grocery stores helped to overturn this foolishness, but there was a powerful lobby of businesses working to keep the blue laws going, for exactly the reason you give -- they didn't want to have to compete against rivals that were willing to pay employees and utilities to open on Sunday. Ironically it was a coalition of those folks we so love to hate now, national chains like Walgreens and K-Mart, which spearheaded the utimately successful drive against these stupid atavistic laws.
Buns_of_Fire
(17,119 posts)I couldn't care less one way or the other. There are several business around here that are closed on Sunday -- I just know that and make adjustments as necessary. It's their decision, and it's no big deal.
Now, what WOULD be a big deal is if I were required to attend a morning prayer meeting every day as a condition of my continued employment.
surrealAmerican
(11,339 posts)... than I do with resteraunts choosing to close on Tuesdays, because it's their least busy day. The hours a company chooses to operate are not the issue here.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)get to church on time.
Oh, wait...
This is sickening. Free speech for corps. Now they are allowed to force their religion on people?
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)... bad people.
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)--their version of 'personhood' gives them the right to pollute and destroy ecosystems, operate sweatshops and use inmates to produce goods-- so naturally the only religion that allows all if this is one that demands blind obedience.
'Corporate personhood' is a virus, a social disease, it should be called 'corporate mobhood'.
qualitybeatsquantity
(25 posts)and consider religion a direct threat to freedom.
GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)Ilsa
(61,675 posts)I have no doubt that the heads of some of these companies feel like they are doing God's work by keeping women off the pill or any other artificial contraception. Their religion seeks to control the lives of women to keep them in their place. They'd rather pay for pregnancies than permit contraception, even though it cost more.
GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)If the woman is paying for the pill herself, then the company doesn't know. At Wal-Mart a month's BC pills costs $9.00. A bottle of Vaginal Contraceptive Foam (over the counter) is $6.94 for 17 grams. Those are not crushing expenses. So there is no way that the company can ban women from birth control.
They just don't want to pay for it. Not wanting to pay is normal behavior for any company.
Since medical records are private, then a company can't know who is taking prescription birth control. Therefore they can't ban what they can't know about.
Further, they would have to be Catholics because Protestants are not against contraception. Even Pentecostals are OK with contraception.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)A company doesn't have the right to exclude contraception from a medical plan if that plan is one offered to employees and an employee chooses that plan. Typically an employer offers a given amount for medical coverage to all eligible employees. If the employee chooses a plan which offers contraception coverage it does not cost the employer anything extra. So they are not "paying for" anything. How much the contraceptives actually cost is irrelevant. The Catholic Church opposes tubal ligations and vasectomies. These are expensive procedures which are often covered by medical insurance. The insurance companies know that paying for these procedures is a lot cheaper than paying for a pregnancy. But a Catholic employer could claim that his religion forbids these procedures so he should not have to provide medical plans which cover it. And by the way, it is not just the Catholic Church. Many evangelical Protestants preach against contraception as well, particularly for unmarried individuals, adhering to an "abstinence only" policy.
GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)No evangelical protestant church is against contraception. They are against non-marital sex.
It has been well over 20 years since my vas, but I don't remember it as being horrible expensive.
The whole idea of insurance is to guard against the unexpected, not to pay for rountine or planned expenses. I have car insurance in the event of an accident, not to pay for the oil changes, nor for buying a new car when this one wears out.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)If they want to spend their health care benefit on a plan which covers contraception that is their right as much as it is their right to spend their salary on something we or the Catholic Church may disapprove of, as long as it is legal. News Flash: Health insurance covers lots of things which are planned including pregnancy and even in some cases fertility treatments.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)But these are not all reasonable people.
I have met Baptists and Pentecostals that are strongly against contraception, no matter what. They believe that only God should control reproduction. You have sex; if it is God's will that a pregnancy occur, then you shouldn't stop it with the Pill, condoms, etc.
These people are so extreme that, yes, they feel like they should deprive contraceptive use whenever possible to do what they see as God's will, even on unbelievers. They see it as god's directive to them.
Where did I meet them? They sat on the Board of Directors for a medium-sized bank.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)As a nurse, I have met moms that had a hard time affording maxipads for their 12 year old daughters. Nothing fancy like tampons, just pads.
When I used the pill years ago, it ran closer to $45. It all depends on what the dr is prescribing and if a generic is available for the woman that does cause other problems.
Maybe foams don't work well with her body chemistry. Maybe foams cause some women yeast infections or irritation. That's another reason why women need access to GYNs who can help the woman find the right contraception.
mstinamotorcity2
(1,451 posts)exploding republican heads. It sure is taking a long time. fucking with people's religious beliefs or lack of belief usually ends up bad, bad, bad. All of this conservative meddling into people's personal lives for control of a Nation is going to get somebody hurt. The writings on the wall. I don't wish it but sooner or later they are going to push the envelope just far enough where one of their own little troll wheels is going to pop a cog and it will be on and cracking. The Republican Leaders seem to think they are hurting just specific and targeted groups. What happens when they realize that they are measured in the same group. you know the 47%. Sooner or later they are going to figure out it is them and I don't think its going to be pretty.
Dwayne Hicks
(637 posts)Its quite positive the Supreme Court rules in favor of these companies.