Consequence is the result of an action, and it is
often the case that there are many more consequences to one action than
first meets the eye. Earlier this week, the wingnut Supreme Court
issued an action whose immediate consequence was allowing corporations
that pray, worship, and adhere to deeply-held religious beliefs to
withhold contraceptives from health insurance prescription plans
affecting women. However, within 24 hours, the Court’s action in the
Hobby Lobby case produced another, in what will be a long list of,
consequences for the American people.
On Tuesday, the day after the Hobby Lobby ruling was announced, a group of christian faith leaders issued a letter
to President Obama urging him to give a religious exemption in his yet
unannounced LGBT anti-discrimination action. Obviously, the “faith leaders”
wasted little time taking advantage of the new freedom of religion
exemption courtesy of the wingnuts on the High Court, and they
argued that the Court’s ruling is proof positive that the Obama
Administration had better start showing deference to the biblical
prerogatives of christians. So much for the ridiculous assertion by the
Supreme Court and many pundits that “only women” are affected by the “narrow” Hobby Lobby ruling because the floodgates have not yet been opened.
The call for a religious exemption did not come from
evangelical extremists per se, but from a group of faith leaders
regarded as generally friendly to the administration; including many who
closely advised the Obama Administration on issues such as immigration
reform. The letter demanding an exemption from the forthcoming LGBT
anti-discrimination action was organized by Michael Wear who worked in
the White House and organized faith outreach for the president’s 2012
campaign. It was also signed by two members of catholics for Obama and
three former members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships. Maybe the President regrets intertwining
government and religion when he continued the shrub’s faith-based
initiatives. Now they are using their connection to the White House to
exact recompense in the form of permission to discriminate against the
gay community according to their “deeply-held religious beliefs” the Supreme Court cited mercilessly in its ruling for Hobby Lobby.
In their letter to the President, the faith leaders asked “that
an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of
faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to
serve those in need.” Michael Wear said, “This is not an antagonistic letter by any means,” but in the wake of the Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, “the administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues.”
Recalibration means pander to the faith groups and exempt them from
following laws against discriminating against the gay community on
religious grounds.
The faith groups did not ask for a religious exemption last week when the administration announced
the President would issue an executive order banning federal
contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or
gender identity; something the gay community has sought for a long time.
But with the High Court laying down the law that the rights of groups
with deeply held religious beliefs take precedent over every other
American, the “White House friendly” faith leaders acted within
24 hours to demand religious redress of an order that has not been
issued. The faith groups claim that an order banning discrimination
against the gay community would essentially impose similar provisions of
the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on federal
contractors; EDNA passed the Senate but the teabagger House refuses to
take up the issue because gays, same-sex marriage, abomination to god,
bible, and the religious right.
The temerity of the religious groups to demand the President defer to “christian prerogative”
is that the text of the order has not yet been released. They do not
even know whether it will include a religious exemption, but they are
preemptively appealing for deference on the basis of Hobby Lobby. The
Senate version of ENDA does include such an exemption, but it
specifically does not apply to a broad array of faith-based
organizations, meaning that some groups could still legally and openly
refuse to hire gay or transgender people by claiming it conflicts with
their faith-based gay hate; but now with Hobby Lobby everything changed.
The director of the Institute for Policy Research
and catholic Studies at catholic University, a signatory to the letter,
Stephen Schneck, said the faith community “simply wants to make sure its side is respected;” some would say it simply wants its side obeyed. Schneck fairly concurred and said, “It
would be nice if we had just a little bit more leverage. I am aware
that this is an issue that provokes real differences among some of the
most important religious organization on the front lines providing care
for the poorest and most vulnerable;” with taxpayer and federal
dollars. He said those groups have to be allowed to work with the
government within the confines of their faith; using federal dollars
that by all accounts puts government in the religious business.
According to the former religious “White House friendlies,”
the Hobby Lobby ruling should prompt the White House to reexamine, and
acknowledge the importance and power of groups demanding their religious
rights against the priorities of every other group. What that means for
future legislation, Administration policies, and executive actions
according to the faith groups is that hacking away at the rights of all
Americans is now the way forward to accommodate the religious right.
Americans had better get accustomed to every
Presidential action and congressional legislation being closely
monitored and remediated by all manner of christian faith groups now
that the High Court opened a Pandora’s box. It does not mean that
President Obama is going to bend to the will of the religio-wingnuts on
anything, but it does mean he will have to tread lightly, or face a rash
of lawsuits the judicial system now has a Supreme Court precedent to
enforce.
It is important to keep in mind the faith groups
refrained from asking for special religious dispensation until after the
Hobby Lobby ruling was announced and not last week when the President
announced he was going to take action to ban discrimination against the
gay community. The prompt letter to the President within a day of the
Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling does not bode well for the nation and is a
portent of what is certainly in the works in the coming months and
years. And what is in the works is a concerted effort to eliminate
anti-discrimination laws on the basis of ” deeply held religious beliefs”
that may not be the death knell of the 14th Amendment, but it is going
to be the beginning of the end of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal
rights for anyone remotely dependent or affected by faith groups and one
shudders at where it will eventually end; if it ends at all.
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