Sandra Fluke: Supreme court may open a Pandora's Box of discrimination masked as "freedom"
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Those of us who care about womens equality, workers rights and legal protections for minority groups there are a lot of us are nervous. So I called up Sandra Fluke, the reproductive justice activist who is now running for state legislature in California, for a preview.
Not only does this case potentially undermine the protections for affordable insurance coverage for contraception, but it could undermine a whole host of protections against discrimination race, sexual orientation, gender, Fluke told me late last week. Weve seen people step forward and say it: I shouldnt have to pay men and women equal wages because of my religion. I shouldnt have to serve LGBT folks.
This weeks cases are about contraception. But as Fluke points out, the issues will go far beyond corporate personhood, insurance requirements and the healthcare law no small topics of debate themselves. The justices are now prepared to set in stone the its-my-religion defense of wholesale discrimination, the groundwork for which has been set across the conservative spectrum for years.
Right-wing groups pushing religious liberty at the expense of womens health, Fluke says, use what should be a shield for one persons individual personal beliefs and a legal protection of those beliefs to try to turn that into a sword to impose those values more broadly and undermine other peoples ability to make their own medical choices.
Freedom of religion is carved into the Constitution, and the Affordable Care Act allows churches and other houses of worship a kind of out from the contraception mandate. What happens if that loophole gets undermined by for-profit companies? What happens if the supreme court opens up the law of the land to outright bigotry disguised as freedom?
THE REST:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/24/sandra-fluke-hobby-lobby-supreme-court-beyond-religious-libety