Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Sweatshop Goods and Religious Freedom

I'll be straight up, I don't know much about the Hobby Lobby situation. As a person who is typically skeptical, my initial thoughts are that the Hobby Lobby owner was using his beliefs to avoid the cost involved with RomneyCare aka ObamaCare. HL after-all is a for profit business and not a Church. Like I said... "Skeptical".

So starting off with complete transparency, this Hobby Lobby ruling leaves me with more questions than answers. And I'll also say that I am anti-abortion.

More and more I've come to believe that the greater the reach of the government the greater the loss of personal liberties. BUT is there a point where anarchy does the same thing? Simplistically speaking, the government requires drivers to have insurance and drive within specified lanes. That is government involvement in our daily lives, if there were no rules of the road it would be chaos at best and deadly at worst. So where are the lines drawn or are there no lines?

So here are some of my thoughts...

  • Is the owner of Hobby Lobby actually supporting abortion by having it covered by insurance or is it on the conscience of the employee who chooses to use that provision? Is this similar to me giving a panhandler some change with the desire that they use it wisely?
  • The ruling of the Supreme Court on Hobby Lobby creates "case law", a precedent. Does that open the door to any "religion" to opt out of this or that? Mormons don't believe in blood transfusions. Christian Scientists don't believe in doctors or medicine. The Creativity Movement (formerly known as the "World Church of the Creator) believes that non-whites are sub-human. 
  • Should capitalism be used as a regulatory means vs government regulation? Meaning, if an employer doesn't provide the benefits you want you move along to an employer that does; or if an employer isn't paying well you move on to an employer that does pay well.
  • Who defines what is a "religion", "religious belief" or "religious exemption"?
  • How does the government find and preserve the balance in religious freedom without religious freedom becoming exclusionary, vague, a monarchy, extinct, or a violent dictatorship? 
Like I said, more questions than answers. And why I sometimes have a hard time getting to sleep.

1 comment:

  1. This has nothing to do with abortion. Abortion wasn't mandated coverage. This was contraception (eg. IUD).

    ReplyDelete