Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Hobby-Lobby, past public distrust of Catholics

If I remember history correctly, there was considerable distrust of Catholicism amongst the American public back in the 1950s and John F. Kennedy had to make a strong speech that he would not be bound by the Catholic Church's doctrines in his presidential decisions, before people would trust him.

Well, if the Detroit Free Press is to be believed, the Catholic Church is indeed worthy of distrust, they have smuggled their religious doctrine into public policy -- via the Supreme Court justices.

Quote:
There is nothing particularly conservative about Monday’s Supreme Court ruling excusing closely held corporations from a federal mandate to provide female employees with insurance coverage for certain forms of contraception.

Flying under the false colors of religious liberty, the five Catholics in the majority insisted they were acting to protect the constitutional rights of two closely held corporations owned and operated by Christian families.
 I'll pose my thoughts as questions:

I'm curious as to what happens to a corporation's exemptions based on religious belief, when:
1. The corporation changes ownership, or

2. The owners convert to a different religious belief.

Also, suppose some of the owners of the corporation that have claimed an exemption from providing contraception coverage, are discovered to be using birth control. Are they merely sinning against their religious beliefs, and are accountable only to their God for their hypocrisy, or have they committed a public fraud?

I don't see, following the Supreme Court decision, how we can avoid having a periodic audit of corporate owners' religious beliefs by the government. And what is more offensive to the First Amendment - such audits, or everyone uniformly having to follow public policy?