Americans are stupid: SCOTUS, Hobby Lobby, and the ACA.

Why would I arrogantly headline this blog entry by saying Americans are stupid?

It's real simple: we are.

The interpretations of this weeks Supreme Court's favorable ruling on Hobby Lobby's objections to certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The condemnation of the ruling is one-sided and split much like the SCOTUS was along ideological lines of liberal/conservative, and in this case the conservative dogma won.  Thus, the liberal side has set the social media world aflame with all sorts of accusations about what the rule "really means", and it runs from the absurd to the downright idiotic.

Simply put, Hobby Lobby is a family owned company that follows Christian principles in the way it is run and they are opposed to abortion. The Affordable Care Act mandates that companies provide contraceptive medications that include the "morning after" pills.  Thus as they object to abortion on religious grounds they filed a suit that went before the SCOTUS citing rights that protect them under the first amendment and with a 5-4 split on Monday the Court struck down that part of the ACA.

Well, this didn't set well with the side that lost.

The interpretations of the ruling have run from the pathetic to the absurd, and it's mainly because people do not understand the concept of moral objection as they apply to the rights we are guaranteed under the law.

What happened the other day is frightfully simple.  The Supreme Court ruled correctly that under the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom that people cannot be forced to do anything that violates their moral responsibility.  ACA mandated by law that companies have to provide drugs that cause abortions and assumed incorrectly that because of the canard that "it's a law" that companies that may have strong moral objections would just lay down and go along with it.

One of the more ridiculous interpretations of the first amendment is that not only does it give it freedom of religion it protects us from religion.  Indeed it does, but in the ESTABLISHMENT of a national religion, like what was present in England when we revolted against the crown.  

Thus they assume that because Hobby Lobby is trying to force their religious views upon the rest of the country by way of opposition to this part of the ACA law.  That is not the case. Hobby Lobby sued because they felt they were being forced to provide things that morally object to based on a federal mandate.  They were not demanding that the government establish a religion in order to satisfy their morals, they were just exercising their right to not be obligated to execute a law that they object to on moral grounds. 

 

In short, the Supreme Court did what they were supposed to do the other day when they provided a correct interpretation of the first amendment in this case.  The outrage and predictions of gloom and doom are flying eild at the moment but the ruling that came down was a textbook example of why there must be a legal check on the legislative and executive branches.  

It doesn't mean that laws cannot be made for noble reasons, it simply means that the law of the land...the original law of the land as the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights must be followed.  You have to make sure that the spirit of the law is obeyed and that your bases are covered.