Need a Hobby?

Today the Supreme court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.  Hobby Lobby management did not want to provide healthcare coverage that provided the morning after pill and IUD.  Hobby Lobby cited religious reasons as to why they do not want to provide coverage that would pay for these methods of birth control.  From everything that I have read and heard about the IUD and the morning after pill, I would argue with Hobby Lobby that these are immoral or unethical.  This does not mean that the government has the power to force them provide coverage that includes these methods of birth control.

Many on the left are upset because they feel that women have a right to all forms of birth control and employers are responsible to provide women with a way to obtain them. This would mean that the employer may have to check their religious beliefs at the door. This to me seems to violate the first amendment.

There are those out there that truly see contraceptives as a sin. They believe that people should not interfere with this part of nature. They would have moral issues with being involved in any part of the process. This would truly violate their conscience. 

The left would also say that this is a corporation and has no right to freedom of religion. While I do not agree with Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, it does set the precedent that corporations have 14th Amendment protections. Couple that with incorporation and this means that corporations have 1st Amendment rights. Now, I agree with the left that this is crazy especially since people in the corporations commit fraud and rarely face indvidual consequences. Even if one rejects SCC v SPR, then one must concede that corporations are made up of people and those people cannot be forced to violate their conscience. 

Some of my liberal friends argue that this opens Pandora's Box and now companies will be able to discriminate based on religion. If a white does not want to hire an African-American or a Christian does not want to serve a Muslim then they will not have to because of this ruling. This argument sounds a lot like the "if gays can marry then a dad and daughter can marry

or a woman and a horse" argument. We still use common sense with laws. It is interesting to me that both sides use the same templates for their arguments. 

Our nation has chosen certain values to follow. One of them is to protect te freedom of religion. This must be protected at all costs. Just as freedom of speech and due process should be protected at all costs along with our other constitutional rights. Your boss not assisting you in purchasing birth control does not prevent you from going out and getting it yourself but the government forcing your boss to violate their conscience does violate their first amendment rights.