Hobby Lobby and the disingenuous whining of sheep...

This is clearly disingenuous whining.

While not a Christian or a religious person (I insist that Christians notion that they have some kind of monopoly on morals and values), even I can see the issue that leads to the Hobby Lobby decision.  At the center of this is whether government can make laws that tell a person what they can practice and choices they have.  The Bill of Rights does note that the government can not tell a person how they may practice their religion.  But even more clearly than that, if government can continue to discover new rights that are not specifically enumerated (such as gay marriage - and to be clear I do not care who someone loves or marries) then it is on thin ice when it starts denies those with genuine religious convictions what behaviors they need to support.

I am not anti-choice and am not pro-abortion.  I am pro-responsibility and that responsibility in the case of contraception and pregnancy termination falls clearly on the shoulders of the individual.  Clearly the government can collect our taxes and put them to the use those currently inhabiting the legislative and executive branches of government see fit; my taxes can support wars and spying I oppose and be used to enforce gun control laws I disagree with.  But we are not talking about taxes here; we are talking about an employer whose beliefs mean they cannot in good conscience financially support an employee's right to choose certain treatments.  Can the government tell a privately held corporation how it will spend its money?  Perhaps this is at the root of the problems with Obamacare - it is a socialist health care system that cannot support itself, so requires the private sector to do so.  One mus be blinded by partisanship not to see some problems with that; with a law that tell you how to spend your money.

I will agree that this may be a slippery slope, but that is hardly a reason to allow for further over-reach.  the law itself created this slope. Will Jehovah's Witnesses be able to deny funding for transfusions and will Scientologists  (Is that really a religion?) be able to deny psychotherapeutic medications or therapy?  Of course, Grim's argument from absurdity is more comedy than substance.  And, really, haven't all the decisions on gay rights really already opened Pandora's box on most of this?  Humanism is really as much a religion as Scientology (that's sarcasm folks) and this argument springs forth clearly from a degree of hedonism that knows no bounds.

This is, of course, the result of having employer-funded health care system.  You can't have a government that tells employers how they will spend their money.

First, this is a matter of definition; we need to consider where lifestyle choices end and health care begins.  Clearly, for some women, contraceptives serve a health-related purpose beyond preventing pregnancies (or as a function of preventing pregnancies).  We can define that as an issue of "medical necessity" and it is obvious that not all contraceptive use is of "medical necessity".  In fact, most is a matter of "lifestyle necessity" or, more accurately, "lifestyle convenience".

But, to be honest, I think it would be extremely hard to make a case that using drugs that are meant to terminate pregnancies fit under the heading of "health care."  In fact, it is likely a sick society that would think so.

So consider this in light of the fact that Hobby Lobby is not saying they do not want to fund "birth control"; they are saying their do not want to fund life termination.  Oh, one can leap through many hoops to somehow make them the same, or they can argue from absurdity to garner laughs and distract from facts.  Hobby Lobby has no concerns about funding a vast majority of "pregnancy prevention" methods, but do not want to fund the small number of options that do not prevent pregnancy but abort one.  Unwanted pregnancies are a public health issue, but not an individual disease (well, perhaps some see it that way and see abortion as excision of an invading parasite).  Of course, we gave up on preventing them, our society long ago "decided" that unwanted pregnancies, unwed mothers, "baby daddies", and everything that goes with them were not really problems; that it was part of a "do what you want" society where you can count on someone else fixing the problem or supporting your children.  We surrendered to it.

Again, I am not pro-choice, but even I can see their issue and do not see it as limiting choice - it simply means certain choices are "on you".

Choice means responsibility, being pro-choice means being pro-responsibility.  Of course, we live in times where responsibility is an archaic notion, something people like me talk about and the younger people around us shake their head and smile at the feeble old man, living in the past.  we live in a time where the message is "Do what you want" and someone, someone somewhere will pay for it, pay to fix it.  No rules, no limits, no need for forethought, no need for concern.

Another sign of our times.  If Hobby Lobby hung up signs forbidding the carry of firearms, concealed or open, in their stores, these champions of individual rights would nominate them for an award.