Dumb Stuff People Say About Hobby Lobby

If you believe any of the following about the Hobby Lobby case, you are a drooling nearnderthal, fit decoration for the swamps of a less civilized epoch, incapable of coherent thought but self-centered and blind enought to believe your views should be aired, like a monkey hurling feces without realizing it stinks you should rethink your reasoning.

1. The emergency contraceptives HL objected to don't really cause abortions. So the whole case is pointless.

Ok, let me get this straight. You're saying all nine members of the Supreme Court, plus the Green family, plus the Green family's legal counsel, spent weeks or months of their lives preparing to argue a case based on the fact that certain contraceptives cause abortions...when they actually don't?

These are all highly intelligent people. Some sit on the highest court in the land; some run a multi-billion-dollar corporation; others lobby for multi-billion-dollar corporations.

And what you're saying is, these people made a kindergartener's mistake. You think they're scratching their heads and saying, "Well, shucky darn. Why in tarnation didn't we learn this extremely relevant and readily available piece of information during our months and months of preparation and research?"

Yeah, I'm calling bull on that one.

Here's the truth of it:

According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's definition, pregnancy doesn't begin until the blastocyst implants in the uterine wall. Most gynecologists don't use this definition anymore, but let's accept it anyway. Going by the ACOG, emergency contraceptives like Plan B don't actually terminate a pregnancy, since Plan B halts the whole process before implantation. By their definition, pregnancy hasn't begun yet, so you can't terminate it.

...Which makes no difference. All this is nothing but semantics (read: poppycock, malarkey, rubbish, hooey, baloney, bunk, drivel, BS).

Does Plan B halt a pregnancy? Depends on how you define pregnancy. Does it kill the blastocyst (the little clump of great-grandbaby cells from the fertilized zygote)? Absolutely. And that's what Hobby Lobby objects to.

But hey, progressives, we'll gladly quit calling what plan B does "abortion." That term's a little sanitized for our taste anyway, so if it's the word you object to, we'll come up with a new one.

I'm thinking: murder, manslaughter, butchery, carnage, homicide, infanticide, massacre, extermination, slaughter or annhiliation. We'll workshop it.

2. "Keep the boardroom out of my bedroom!"

Would you hold up a sign like this? Do you think it's a pithy sum-up to all the evil that is Hobby Lobby?

I've always wanted to meet someone like you! Do you maybe have, like, really good memory like Rain Man? Or maybe it's more like A Beautiful Mind, where you aren't aware of what's going on around you, but secretly you're a super genius. ...Ok, well, you should at least charge tickets, like at the state fair. Can you do tricks? Like jumping through rings or something? ....No?...

Ok then, I'll do a trick. Watch me refute this position in one sentence. Ready, set, go:

Hobby Lobby doesn't give its employees free food either.

That was fun. That got a little something off my chest. Now let's go into it deeper.

Imagine you're unemployed.

Not by choice, either. The economy has chewed you up and spat you out. You find yourself pounding the pavement day and night with no luck.

Are you receiving free birth control from your employer? Of course not. Does this mean your boss has interefered in your bedroom? I doubt it, seein' as how you don't have one.

Now let's say you're offered a job in retail. Whereas a year ago you scraped by on minimum wage, you've now been offered a $14-per-hour job at Hobby Lobby. That's about 28K per year, starting wage.

Here's the catch: Hobby Lobby won't provide emergency contraceptives. You've got to buy them yourself (note: Hobby Lobby isn't preventing you from buying emergency contraceptives. They just don't want to hand them out for free).

Remember, Hobby Lobby didn't have to offer you a job. You didn't have to apply. You are not guaranteed gainful employment in this life; you must pursue it on your own steam. That's called being an adult.

So you sit across from the Hobby Lobby manager. She slides 28K across the table, one great big stack of Benjamins. That's 28K more than the $0 you were making ten minutes ago. Even if your emergency contraceptive bill for the next 12 months is $27,999.99, you're still ahead.

You can take the 28 or walk away with nothing. Up to you. "So, what do you say?" the manager asks.

"HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!" you scream. "ANY and EVERY employment opportunity I receive MUST include free emergency contraceptives or I AM BEING MISTREATED!! Keep your boardroom out of my bedroom!!!!!!!" You leave the 28K and storm out, irate.

Would that be a rational response?

My point is this: Hobby Lobby does no harm to its employees by hiring them without providing emergency contraceptives.

After all, emergency contraceptives aren't the only thing Hobby Lobby doesn't provide for its employees. I don't see free food in the contract. Or water. Or gas. Or clothes. Yet no one parades around with signs that say: "Keep the boardroom out of my pantry/gas tank/wardrobe!"

Here's another thought experiment.

Let's say you own a chain of fast-food restaurants: Benny's Bakin' Bacon Burger Barn. Let's say a law was passed last year, requiring employers to provide free assault rifles and gun safety training to all employees. For protection, the politicians say. It's all for your own good, they croon.

But you disagree. You think the new law is insane and dangerous. You believe guns end lives instead of protecting them.

You take the issue to the Supreme Court and win. You are no longer forced to supply heavy armaments to your employees. Sure, they can buy them elsewhere, and sure, in most cases they can get them free from Uncle Sam. But at least now your hands are clean.

Next day, the backlash begins. "My wife was murdered in our home last year while I lay helpless," one man sobs on TV. "If you work at Benny's Bakin' Bacon Burger Barn, the same could happen to YOU! And Benny, their blood will be on your hands."

Next, protesters flock to your stores.

One sign says: "Keep BAD GUYS and BOSSES out of the BEDROOM!" Another reads: "Don't shove your pacifism down MY throat!"

"Wait!" you say. "I'm not shoving anything on anyone! You can still buy guns if you want them. I won't interfere. If anything, the gun law was forced on me! Besides, before the law was passed, you couldn't get free guns anyway. I wasn't giving them away then, and I'm not giving them away now. Nothing has changed! Why are you protesting all of a sudden?"

But no one listens. They keep chanting. They keep waving their signs. They drone on.

Get the picture? See why this line of reasoning is insane?

One more thought:

If Hobby Lobby closed its doors tomorrow, it would never offer anyone birth control again. Everyone agrees it has the right to close. Since Hobby Lobby doesn't do any harm to anyone by remaining open--it's not taking away anyone's birth control--what exactly is all the fuss about?

3. It's a slippery slope!

Check out Salon's article on the Satanists who want to opt out of some states' mandatory counseling laws (these are the laws requiring abortion patients to receive counseling before the procedure). They'd like to take it to the Supreme Court per Hobby Lobby's precedent.

This is supposed to be an ironic victory against conservatives. A sort of, "Aha! By thine own logic art thou undone!" Salon's Katie McDonough writes, "Satanists are now using the Supreme Court’s sweeping Hobby Lobby decision to challenge coercive mandatory counseling laws."

Which would be fine...if the HL decision were actually "sweeping."

Actually the decision was based on a carefully defined interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The act says the government may restrict religious freedom IF:

1. It has a compelling reason to do so, and
2. It can accomplish its purpose by no less restrictive means.

Here the Supreme Court decided the government did have a compelling reason to restrict Hobby Lobby's religious freedom. They also, however, found it could accomplish its purpose by a less restrictive means: by providing free emergency contraceptives directly.

That logic doesn't apply to the Satanists' example. If the states have a compelling reason to provide counseling to abortion patients, there's no less restrictive means by which they could accomplish that purpose.

Sure, you could argue the states have no compelling reason--but you won't be using Hobby Lobby for a precedent.

That is all.