Corporate Arrogance
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 repugicans candidates without
campaign finance restrictions. Dissatisfied with the inordinate power
the wingnut 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. Constitution’s 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 America’s version of Sharia Law are appealing
to the wingnut 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 year’s
attempt to ban American women from using birth control as a result of
President Obama’s 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 corporation’s 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 wingnut 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 women’s
choice is.
In the President’s 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 company’s right under the free
religious exercise clause in the First Amendment as well as the
company’s protection under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Last
week the 3
rd Circuit Court of Appeals
upheld the contraception mandate despite the company owner, like Hobby Lobby’s 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 3
rd Circuit’s 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
company’s 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 company’s religious beliefs with the contraception requirement. Now that there is a split between the 3
rd and 10
th 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.
Since
the highest court in the land is going to decide whether or not a
secular corporation has the power to impose its religious beliefs on its
employees, they will likely have to consult the source of the
corporation’s religious dogma; the christian bible. According to all
anti-contraception and anti-women’s choice advocates, their “
zygote is a person” assertion is founded in their conviction “
to serve jesus by being an Advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves, the pre-born child.” In their mission statement, PersonhoodUSA claim their goal is to force all Americans to “
respect
the god-given right to life by recognizing all human beings as persons
who are “created in the image of god” from the beginning of their
biological development, without exceptions.” However, the christian
bible they claim supports their, and religious corporations’, advocacy
and contention that personhood begins at the moment of conception does
not in any iteration support their argument driving their assault on
women’s rights to choose their reproductive health.
The religious
right’s premise that the instant a living sperm penetrates a living
ovum, and the resulting zygote, is a human life, or that a 20-week old
fetus is viable outside a woman’s uterus contradicts the god christian
extremists claim to serve. First, the Supreme Court’s ruling that a
fetus meet the requirement of viability outside the womb destroys the
20-week ban on abortions Texas just enacted. But biology aside,
religious extremists ignore a simple and very clear definition of a
person uttered by their bible’s deity and is the only source the
Supreme Court should consult in deciding if contraceptive coverage
violates a corporation’s freedom to impose their religion on its
employees.
According to the christian bible book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7, “
The lord god proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the
man became a living person.” Plainly, taking a breath defined the
first man as a human life, and doubtless a zygote is incapable of taking
a breath of life. In Ezekiel 37:5-6 the bible reiterates god’s words in Genesis; “
Thus
says the lord god to these bones: I will lay sinews upon you, and will
cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in
you, and you shall live.” The bible even clarifies that a fetus,
regardless the stage of development, is insignificant compared to the
life of the mother. Exodus 21:22-24 states that “
if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined; however, if the woman dies then he will be put to death”
and it is obvious the deity did not consider a fetus a living human
being, or that causing a miscarriage, or abortion, qualified as a
capital offense. However, harming or taking the life of the mother
warranted death instead of just a fine.
The entire evangelical
argument that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a person is, according to
their bible, as crazy as the notion that a corporation holds deep
religious convictions they can impose on their employees. Still, in
their crusade to force all Americans to fall under their theocratic
purview, evangelicals, corporations with religious convictions, and repugican misogynists are attempting to impose a christian version of
Sharia Law without objection or pushback from Democrats from the
President down to state legislators.
Despite
the sole argument to ban contraception, abortion, or any woman’s
reproductive health choices has as its basis religious dogmata, there is
no opposition based on the Constitution’s prohibition against imposing
religion by government fiat. It is bad enough that the fanatics’
arguments are not scriptural, or ever mentioned by their namesake jesus christ, but the cowardly reluctance to cite the unconstitutionality of
imposing religion is stunning. If Americans cannot recognize that just
considering whether or not religious fanatics, and now corporations with
religious convictions, have the power to impose their religion on other
Americans, then the nation is one ruling or new anti-choice law away
from becoming a theocracy to rival the other major theocracy in the
world; the Islamic Republic of Iran and their dastardly Sharia Law.
