Monday, June 30, 2014

Courting Unintended Consequences

Lots has already been written about the Supreme Court’s (wrong-headed) decision to allow certain so-called Christian companies - most notably Hobby Lobby - not to cover the cost of contraceptives for women as part of insurance coverage as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. For my money, this piece from thinkprogress.org does the best job of outlining what makes their decision truly dangerous to our country. Midway through, you'll find a quote from David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. To save you the trouble of clicking on the link, I have excerpted it below. 

“The whole point of establishing a corporation is to create an entity separate from oneself to limit legal liability...therefore, Hobby Lobby is asking for special protections/liability limits that only a corporation can get on the one hand, and special protections that only individuals, churches and religious organizations get, on the other. It seems awfully dangerous to allow corporations to have it both ways.“


Put another way, not only has the Supreme Court seemingly decided that corporations are people, some of them actually get more rights than people. Clearly, the one law that a majority of justices do not understand is the law of unintended consequences, which devours without motive or conscience, let alone any consideration of intention. Their ruling is a victory for those who fail to understand that liberty without responsibility is simply high-minded tyranny and deserves all the scorn we can muster.