Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Religion / Constitution
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“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791)
The Supreme Court displayed its ineptitude this past week as it sided with a corporation on its religious beliefs. That's right, folks, corporations are people too. They have religious rights over their employees.
Sound to idiotic to be true? We only wish.
"What this ruling does is it moves in the direction this court has been moving already, which is talking about corporate personhood -- really treating corporations like people, saying that the corporation has a religion itself and that should be imposed on its employees," said Emily Tisch Sussman of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Still do not believe we are enslaved by the corporate governmental structure? Here's the breakdown:
Monday's 5-4 high court ruling allowed some family-owned or other closely held businesses to opt out of a federal requirement to pay for contraceptives in health coverage for their workers.
What this decision amounts to is the Witch Trials. Contraception is the witchcraft and women are the witches. When are people going to grow the hell up? Your religion does not dictate other people's rights or freedoms. Sharia Law, uber-conservative Christian style has been established in the United States by the Supreme Court.
In America, if you are a woman: you pay double for your health insurance and now birth control, get paid 30% less for the same amount of work, and are expected to mindlessly follow edicts that some old guys make up just because, even if you do not subscribe to that religion.
Welcome to the 21st Century Witch Trials, where brains are optional.
“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
- Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)
Exactly, Mr. Jefferson, but who is listening? Apparently not the Supreme Court who should know better. When religion and politics mix, people get burned at the stake.
Maybe it's time women went the way of Lysistrata but with a positive outcome instead of catering to men's needs in the end like SCOTUS just did with Hobby Lobby. The battle of the sexes is a long one because religion and society are male dominated concoctions. So why comply?
If you haven't gotten the clues yet, the Founding Fathers of our nation as well as other thinkers of the time were dead set against religious glorification in law.
"Christian establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
- James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr. (1774)
And, of course:
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."- James Madison, General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1785)
But what do I know? I'm just a woman.
