I would probably like the owners of Hobby Lobby, as they are depicted in the Time magazine article, The Contraceptive Showdown. They run a nice company, with pretty frames for pictures. Hobby Lobby pays a fair wage, and makes sizable donations to charity (even if the charities are creating a Bible museum, it is still charity, right?) The Greens seem like a nice family who lives by their principles, even if our theologies are quite different. I’ve got plenty of friends whose views of God and sacred texts vary from mine and I like them all quite well. According to the article, the Greens were courted “by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative religious-freedom law firm, to challenge the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it infringed on their Christian beliefs by requiring employers to cover contraceptive methods that the family regards as forms of early abortion.” (Biema 2014) So, the Becket Fund searched for a case to prove their point, and convinced the Greens to bring suit. It wasn’t even their original idea.
The Greens prayed about it and found inspiration from the book of Daniel that led them to litigation. Daniel was in a religious minority, who stood up for his faith, for instance, refusing to eat the ruler’s meat. He was sent to the lion’s den for his beliefs. God closed the jaws of the lions and saved him. The Greens felt that they were like Daniel, a persecuted minority within an oppressive state. Here’s where I get itchy and nervous. Really? Hobby Lobby is a persecuted entity? First of all, is it an entity at all? Are corporations, designed to be separate from people and subject to laws as such, entities with beliefs? Beliefs that can be threatened? No one is saying the Greens themselves have to use contraception, they just have to offer an insurance plan in which their employees (who may or may not share their employers’ beliefs) may choose an option. To be fair, it is not all contraception that is the objection, only a few specific types which offend the Greens’s pro-life stance. If you’re curious, there are plenty of articles by people more educated than I am about the law in this case. I have a slightly different bone to pick.
The thing is, it really bugs me to think of an evangelical Christian family as persecuted people who need to stand up for religious freedom. I know, as Christians, we do set ourselves apart from “the world”, and hold values differently. I grew up in a Mennonite church and I understand setting one’s self apart, based on religious beliefs, specifically pacifism. I know people who were conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War, rather than serve in the military. I know other people who calculate the portion of their personal income tax that pays towards the military. They give that portion to a peaceful charity, so they do not have to support a war effort. They, too, live by their principles. But they do not go to court to insist their employees do the same, or to deny benefits to them with which they disagree.
We live in a country where we are free to practice our faith, and the Christian faith is predominant. Churches abound where people worship freely. Many people (bankers, post office workers, business men, stock traders) do not traditionally work on Sundays, the Christian day of worship, not so for Saturdays, the sabbath for other traditions. Some towns still have Blue Laws and will not sell liquor or open certain businesses on Sunday. We say “One Nation, Under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and schools start with a moment of silence every day. As a teacher, I do not have to use a sick day to celebrate Christmas or Easter, unlike my Jewish colleagues for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. It is not hard to be Christian in America. It might be difficult to live faithfully, resisting the pull of commercialism, greed, and self-interest, but it’s not government regulations that make that difficult. It might be hard to care for the needy, be respectful of differences of opinion, and love our neighbors as ourselves, but it is not an oppressive state that makes it hard.
Today, our government did NOT rule in favor of religious freedom. Today, our government ruled that the religious views of a small group of people, who happen to own a company and employ many workers, exempt those people from providing the same benefits to their workers as non-religious companies. Today, our government ruled in favor of the rich, white Christians. To be a Christian in America and pretend to be an oppressed person is downright offensive to the many, many oppressed people in this world.
References:
Biema, D.V. (2014) The Contraceptive Showdown. Time. July 7-14, 2014. 28-33. Print.
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