Lobbying to discriminate

We are about to find out just how much personhood the U.S. Supreme Court is willing to grant corporations, this in the wake of its tortured Citizens United decision. By that 2010 ruling the high court decided that corporations are persons for the purpose of the First Amendment. The ruling granted corporations and unions virtually unfettered access to the nation's politics by allowing huge amounts of money to flow into campaigns.
Today the justices heard a challenge to the Affordable Care Act by three companies claiming their religious freedom is being infringed by the requirement that contraception be included in employee health plans.
It is a spurious, gender-biased argument at best. If upheld it allows health care discrimination against women only.
The lead plaintiff in the case is Hobby Lobby Inc., a chain of 500 arts and crafts stores with 13,000 employees. The privately-held for-profit company is owned by conservative Christians who object on religious grounds to certain birth control methods because they can interfere with pregnancy once an egg is fertilized.
"It's our rights that are being infringed upon to require us to do something against our conscience," said company CEO and founder David Green.
One presumes that at least some of the company's 13,000 workers do not share this view, but if the court upholds this position, all bets are off.
The court, and by extension the American public, has a long tradition of tolerance toward individual religious beliefs. Tolerance, however, should not be carte blanche permission. Did David Koresh have a religious leg to stand on when the Branch Davidians he led tolerated child abuse under the guise of religious belief? Of course not.
Individual beliefs are one thing. Extending that proposition to an entire company is another matter altogether. The high court years ago ruled an Amish cabinetmaker could not avoid Social Security taxes for his employees even though he viewed them as against his religion.
Narrowly drawn dispensation to nonprofits and religious organizations on the birth control issue has been granted under the ACA. It is another matter altogether to extend that logic to an entirely profit-making company. Hobby Lobby was established to make money, not to prophesize. To extend such cafeteria-style exemptions is to risk facing arguments, say, that a company's owner holds religious beliefs that make doing business with same-sex couples wrong. Or that ban coverage for blood transfusions and vaccinations, Where does it end?
Mistakenly granting personhood to corporations and unions under Citizens United was bad enough in that it allows unfettered influence in our politics. If such personhood is extended further to corporations like Hobby Lobby, it creates a religious sanction for intolerance.
The kind of discrimination Hobby Lobby argues is protected was banned 50 years ago by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in public accommodations, be they public or private. That remains a proper reading of the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Hobby Lobby and the others essentially are asking to be allowed to discriminate against women who happen to be their employees.
The ACA necessarily fixes a floor for the coverage that can be offered. Preventative health care, including care that prevents pregnancy, is part of that package. In that sense it is no different than the state of California dictating minimum auto insurance coverage.
The Supreme Court simply cannot punch exemption holes in this floor. It discriminates against Hobby Lobby workers. It carries the very real danger of extending discrimination to others.