Two More Hobby Lobby Thoughts: 1. Flawed Logic On The Christian Right; 2. "It's Against My Religion Of Busterism"

Today, my morning paper greeted me with a photo of "Christian anti-abortion demonstrators" celebrating the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision to let certain employers opt out of contraception coverage in their health plan. What a bunch of moralizing morons!  On the one hand they'd like to outlaw to all abortions, and on the other they want to cut access to birth control -- those magic little pills which greatly reduce the chance of an unwanted pregnancy, and therefore directly reduce abortions.  If you really want society to have the fewest abortions possible, you should be all for the broadest possible access to contraception.  But these idiots can't recognize their own flawed logic.
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This new and convoluted interpretation of corporate "religious freedom" is essentially court-approved discrimination.  It's a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences.  Neo-Nazi "Christians"?  Nation of Islam?  Scientologists?  Jehovah's Witnesses?  You ready for these sorts of business owners to start exercising their "religious liberties" and deciding for themselves which laws they'll follow and which they'll ignore?  And what the hell is a "closely-held" company?  Aren't most companies closely-held?

That's the problem when you start letting corporations pick and choose the laws they'll follow based on the boss's religious beliefs.  Faith and belief are personal, intangible concepts that can't be proved or measured.  Religion is ultimately whatever you say it is.  Or what the boss says it is.

I'm a business owner.  Suppose I say I have a new religion called Busterism and I am Buster and I am a Divine Being and you better believe in me and pray to me and build me churches and houses and give me money and do what I say, or else.  Who are you to argue against my religion and beliefs?  By the way, the religion of Busterism teaches that my followers and I pay no income tax, property tax, sales tax, FICO tax, hotel tax or fee of any kind.  Our religion does not permit us to deal with organized labor, and we do not believe in paying our employees the minimum wage.  Religious belief prohibits us from paying any type of insurance premium.  Busterism says that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are evil, and so we claim a religious exemption and refuse to pay for them.  We Busterites also have a strong religious objection to picking up our own bar tabs.

If these religious beliefs sound good to you, join the Buster Church, and get off scot-free!  Whatever they ask us to do, it's always against our religion.