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| Kudos to Bill Day for this cartoon image. |
I spent part of my summer week reading the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case. It had some interesting language. Some of that language was Justice Alito's and in spite of Justice Alito's attempt to allay the fears of Americans that the Supremes decision to give religious rights to corporations would not necessarily include other right wing religious causes, the facts are proving his words to be just words. Other court decisions handed down subsequent to the Hobby Lobby decision have now put all contraception up for grabs. It didn't even take 24 hours for the pleas to religiously discriminate against LGBT to land on President Obama's desk. With one 'narrowly defined' decision, the Catholic males on the Supreme Court have opened the door to Catholic sexual morality in the public as well as private sector. Humanae Vitae can now spread through out America, though not by conversion or the lucidity of it's reasoning, but by the time tested method of coercion. Happy 4th of July Americans. We can all celebrate the fact the just five men on the Supreme Court have seen fit to once again expand the rights of corporations as individuals, and this time over the rights of slutty American women. You go boys.
I know I will sleep better at night knowing that if I owned a corporation like Hobby Lobby, I could profit from the things I object to, but not have to spend corporate money to pay for those. It would be really swell knowing that 'remote cooperation with evil' only extended to the expenditure side of my ledgers. Of course if I owned a company, I would be more likely to claim a religious exemption to ED drugs as too many men who use them are either single or past the point of being able to responsibly raise children. Four of those five male justices would not qualify for ED drugs under my religious scruples, but I also know that since ED drugs are Catholic kosher Judge Alito and company would probably not grant me such an exception under the belief that ED drugs serve a compelling public interest. After all boys will be boys and have a right to be chemically assisted boys.
To go along with the Hobby Lobby decision, I also had the pleasure of reading the paper written for the bishops going to the upcoming Synod on the Family. It was a predictable read, a boring read, and also had some interesting if not very pastoral language. Apparently the Catholic flock involves a lot of sub species of sheep the Vatican considers 'those people'....as in Catholics who do not live the pristine Catholic sexual and relational life. It was predictable in the sense that 'this people' knew right from the get go that the failure of the Catholic laity to embrace Humanae Vitae was going to be all our ignorant self centered cherry picking fault. And so it was. As one of the ignorant self centered cherry pickers, I would suggest in the future that Catholic bishops demand Catholic parents not send their Catholic children to schools where science is taught. I would also suggest that our bishops would better use their time throwing science teachers out of their jobs rather than Gay or pregnant single female teachers..unless those people happen to be one of those science teacher people. It was those damn science teachers and their damned science that completely eroded my ability to accept Humanae Vitae and not become one of those people. Instead I became an ignorant self centered cherry picker of a Catholic, really and truly one of 'those people'.
It seems I have a lot of company. So much company that we should form a real company and demand our religious rights to celebrate our diversity and get on with living a very different form of Christianity. A Christianity that does not seek to meld itself with the American Corporate oligarchy, or American Exceptionalism, or American Military Interventionism, or is a paid for shill for some of our most wealthy American Catholic families. And I'm pretty sure any corporation called 'Those People' would have to be a cafeteria style restaurant where the line moves to the left, but still serves everyone.
