What you think: SCOTUS ruling on Hobby Lobby case
We asked people on Twitter and Facebook to send us in short pieces about their views on the Supreme Court's ruling that Hobby Lobby and other closely held corporations would not have to pay for contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
If you would like to submit a piece, contact Assistant Managing Editor Sam R. Hall here.
Here's a sampling of the short columns we received.
Atlee Breland
When I began campaigning against the unintended consequences of Initiative 26 in 2011, one of the most common reactions I heard was surprise at the idea that anyone might seriously oppose contraception. Three years and one Supreme Court decision later, nobody is dismissing that as hyperbole anymore. Today's Hobby Lobby ruling allowing for-profit corporations to refuse contraceptive coverage makes clear that a substantial number of employers are very interested indeed in denying their employees access to reliable contraception.
Contraceptives are a necessary part of health care for tens of thousands of Mississippi women, both for family planning and treating serious medical conditions. However, the Hobby Lobby decision offers no exemption for women who use contraception for medical reasons like endometriosis or PCOS, or for whom pregnancy would present a severe health risk. If your health needs conflict with your employer's beliefs, your employer gets to decide what medical care your doctor can provide.
However, if your employer's sincere belief involves some other medical consideration, they're out of luck, because Justice Alito went out of his way to note that "this decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate" and "should not be understood to apply" to other beliefs such as vaccination and blood transfusions. Apparently, some religious considerations are more equal than others.
While some of the contraceptives at issue are relatively inexpensive, others cost thousands of dollars. The more effective a contraceptive is, the higher its price tag, and the greater burden on lower-income workers. If your family is complete, you can't exactly get a tubal ligation for $4 a month at the grocery store. At the current minimum wage, the cost of an IUD represents at least 138 hours of a Hobby Lobby cashier's paycheck.
Today's ruling is not limited to a few controversial drugs. While Hobby Lobby claimed opposition to certain medications, Justice Alito's broad ruling expands to all contraceptive covered by the Affordable Care Act. That includes not only Plan B and IUDs, but also ordinary oral contraceptives, patches, shots, and sterilization procedures. If you work for a corporation, your employer can deny any gynecological care it wants, regardless of whether its opposition is scientifically valid or medically justified.
Unintended pregnancy is one of the most pressing social issues facing Mississippi, and our working families need affordable and effective contraceptive access more than anywhere else in the nation. They deserve better than today's decision.
Atlee Breland is founder of Parents Against MS26.
Russell Moore
This is as close as a Southern Baptist gets to dancing in the streets for joy. The Supreme Court just handed down the Hobby Lobby case, and ruled that the government cannot force closely-held corporations to violate their religious beliefs in the purchasing of abortion-causing drugs.
The ruling isn't just a win for evangelicals, like the Southern Baptist Green family. It's a win for everyone. Here's why. A government that can pave over the consciences of the Greens can steamroll over any dissent anywhere. Whether you agree or disagree with us about abortion, every American should want to see a government that is not powerful enough to set itself up as a god over the conscience.
I hope this decision is a warning to the White House to stop such a cavalier disregard of religious liberty, seen both in this coercive mandate and, earlier, in their argument to do away with the ministerial exemption in hiring.
More than that, though, I pray for churches that can raise up a new generation to prize freedom of conscience and religious liberty for all. We won this case, and now is the time to thank God. But who could have imagined just a few years ago that we would even have to take such a thing to the United States Supreme Court? We must teach our children what it means to be free people, and what it means to follow Christ whatever the cost.
This is not just a political issue. The Apostle Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship when he was charged with disrupting the peace. All the way through the appeals process, he not only plead for his freedom, but he also preached the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 25-26). We should do so as well. But that means teaching the next generation that following Christ will be costly, and that they will be often viewed as strange and even subversive by a culture in which sexual liberation is the highest god in the pantheon. A discount-rate prosperity gospel will not supply such grit. The gospel of Jesus Christ will.
So let's celebrate today. And then let's remember that we prize religious liberty not preeminently because it keeps us out of jail. We prize religious liberty because we believe there is a court higher than the Supreme Court. No government bureaucrat will stand with us before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and thus no bureaucrat should seek to lord over the conscience.
Russell D. Moore is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Commission.
Craig A. Watson
Allow me to begin by stating this disclaimer: I am in no way an expert on the law and have never been to law school; therefore, my opinions should be just as valid as other Mississippians. I am simply writing from an on-looker's perspective and attempting to defend my support for the recent ruling the Supreme Court handed down stating that small, for-profit corporations are not required to follow certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act if they breach on their firmly held religious beliefs.
First, by supporting Hobby Lobby's claims that providing certain types of contraceptives to employees violates the company's religious freedoms, the Supreme Court has supported many Mississippians' long standing belief that attempting to be responsible and actively choose when you would like to make a child is morally wrong. We Mississippians have known this truth for years, but now we have the backing of the Supreme Court. We did it! Who cares that as recent as the 2010 census that Mississippi had the third-highest out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate and that poverty shows a link with unplanned pregnancy? The good people at the many Hobby Lobby stores across the state do not have to offer women contraceptives, thus allowing Mississippi to maintain our high morals and also our high birth rate. This allows it to be even more difficult for women to obtain contraceptives, thus continuing with our high birth rate and poverty, and perpetuating the cycle. Odd for such a staunchly Republican state that often states the importance of cutting federal spending to want such a ruling to increase dependence on federal government by continuing to rely on them for welfare for the children in poverty.
Second, the Supreme Court today further backed the idea of corporations as people by implying that corporations have religious freedoms just like people. Of course corporations are people, really a no brainer, and just like any good person, if you throw a big enough fit you do not have to play by the same rules as everyone else. Hobby Lobby says the ACA violates their religious freedoms and now they do not have to follow the same law. What stops anyone from forming a religion so they can pick and choose what laws they want to follow? Who knows, but I like that the Supreme Court has opened the door for that one. A reasonable person may say something like, "While I may not agree with the law, it is the law so I should follow it." However, today's ruling shows us that, no, you do not have to follow that law if you have enough money and claim religious freedom.
Craig A. Watson is a Mississippi native holding two degrees from two Mississippi universities.
Chas Rowland
For 40 years our society has been engaged in serious debate over the issue of abortion and the society at large has seemed content to "agree to disagree". Those who want abortions and abortifacient drugs are able to legally procure them while those who consider such things murder are certainly able to refrain from participating. Then came "Obamacare". While initially seeming to have nothing to do with the issue of abortion, the HHS implemented new healthcare regulations that required employers to pay for employee abortifacient insurance coverage. It didn't matter if you were against abortion personally because as an employer you were required to pay. This represents a subtle yet major shift in public policy because for the first time in our country's history an individual was required to directly pay for another person's activity that they deemed to be a violation of conscience. The Supreme Court has wisely ruled that a person cannot divorce himself from his religious beliefs and convictions in his personal or professional life anymore then he can stop being who he is. The Supreme Court has not ruled that a Hobby Lobby employee cannot use abortifacient drugs, it has simply upheld the fact that the government cannot force the owner of Hobby Lobby to pay for it. By this decision, the freedom of the employee and the employer is maintained and unviolated.
Let us not be mistaken however. This case is less about abortion and more about religious liberty. It really doesn't matter what the issue is. The government has an important dual role to order our society and protect our liberties. Within those bounds, a Christian should render to the government appropriate submission to the laws of the land. But when laws are passed or regulations instituted that violate our consciences we must not be silent.
The first amendment guarantees that we have a right to live our lives by our religious convictions and the government cannot force us to act contrary to our consciences in a way that fundamentally opposes our deeply rooted faith. We must appreciate that if a faith is genuine then it is not something left at church. It is something that navigates every decision of life. Christianity for me is not just about going to church, it is about my whole life being devoted to things that glorify Jesus.
Truly freedom was on the line with this decision at the Supreme Court. And for now at least freedom has won the day.
For 40 years our society has been engaged in serious debate over the issue of abortion and the society at large has seemed content to "agree to disagree". Those who want abortions and abortifacient drugs are able to legally procure them while those who consider such things murder are certainly able to refrain from participating. Then came "Obamacare". While initially seeming to have nothing to do with the issue of abortion, the HHS implemented new healthcare regulations that required employers to pay for employee abortifacient insurance coverage. It didn't matter if you were against abortion personally because as an employer you were required to pay. This represents a subtle yet major shift in public policy because for the first time in our country's history an individual was required to directly pay for another person's activity that they deemed to be a violation of conscience. The Supreme Court has wisely ruled that a person cannot divorce himself from his religious beliefs and convictions in his personal or professional life anymore then he can stop being who he is. The Supreme Court has not ruled that a Hobby Lobby employee cannot use abortifacient drugs, it has simply upheld the fact that the government cannot force the owner of Hobby Lobby to pay for it. By this decision, the freedom of the employee and the employer is maintained and unviolated.
Let us not be mistaken however. This case is less about abortion and more about religious liberty. It really doesn't matter what the issue is. The government has an important dual role to order our society and protect our liberties. Within those bounds, a Christian should render to the government appropriate submission to the laws of the land. But when laws are passed or regulations instituted that violate our consciences we must not be silent.
The first amendment guarantees that we have a right to live our lives by our religious convictions and the government cannot force us to act contrary to our consciences in a way that fundamentally opposes our deeply rooted faith. We must appreciate that if a faith is genuine then it is not something left at church. It is something that navigates every decision of life. Christianity for me is not just about going to church, it is about my whole life being devoted to things that glorify Jesus.
Chas Rowland is pastor of Bovina Baptist Church.