Hobby Lobby One: How those five Catholic men got where they are and are able to do what they do

You probably noticed all five conservative Supreme Court Justices are male and Catholic.

I’m not sure how much that signifies.  Justice Sotomayor is Catholic. Justice Breyer is male. The combination, male and Catholic, might seem to matter, but it’s more of a coincidence or, at any rate, a contingency.  What the five really have in common is that they were appointed by conservative Republican Presidents because they could be counted on to act as conservative Republicans on the high court bench---Pro-Big Business first of all, then anti-worker, and then socially conservative and anti-choice.  Yesterday’s Hobby Lobby case was decided in 2006 when Sandra Day O’Connor retired or, you could argue, in 2000 when the Republican partisans on the Supreme Court then decided to make George W. Bush president.

…a group of conservatives led by Representative Trent Franks of Arizona said they wanted to speak with the president, so they convened in a room off the House floor and gathered around a phone.

“Congressman, I understand you have a plan for getting the bill passed,” Bush told Franks as the others strained to listen.

Franks made clear he and his colleagues actually did not like the bill because they felt it expanded the government role in health care.

“I misunderstood,” Bush said. “I thought you had a plan.”

“I just needed to tell you that,” Franks said, referring to the way conservatives viewed the bill. “The only way they could change their minds on a proposal like that is if they believed they were getting something more important for the country.”

“Like what?” Bush asked.

Trying not to sound pushy, Franks switched to the third person. “If we could get the president of the United States to give his word of honor tonight that he would only appoint Supreme Court justices that he knew would overturn Roe v. Wade, would uphold personhood for the unborn in the Constitution and be strict constructionists, we could get this done right now,” he said.

That’s from Days of Fire by Peter Baker.  There’s more.

…Franks believed he had a commitment from the president to appoint anti-abortion justices; Bush of course was inclined to do so anyway, but the conservatives would try to hold him to it.  Franks later sent him a list of ten candidates who fit his criteria. Among them were a couple of appeals court judges named John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Next time a supposed progressive tells you there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats, point to Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

Comments

[S McCoy]

First of all, I have no interest in buying any of the crap Hobby Lobby sells, and don't particularly agree with the reasons why they want to exclude most of these "birth control" items. But they're a privately held company and ought to be able to run their business as they want to (within reason)....no one is being forced to shop there or work there.

It's interesting that you continue to rant about Christians imposing their fanatical views on the country, when in fact most of them are simply asking to be left alone. Hobby Lobby had the freedom to include or exclude these items prior to the coverage mandate decreed by regulatory fiat by the HHS -- it's not even included in the Obamacare bill!!

[Lance Mannion]

S McCoy, does that mean they can hire whomever they want? Only men? Only married women? Only people over 40 or under 17? Only Christians? Can they lock the doors on their stockrooms and turn off the air conditioning and tell the stockboys they can't come out until they've put in a whole 14 hour workday? Can they sell products that are unsafe for children to children?

Or how about can they tell their employees on payday "You can only use OUR money to buy an approved list of food, clothing, and household items? And you may not use a single dollar of it on a contraceptive?"

Even privately owned businesses have social responsibilities and responsibilities to the people who work for them.

Health insurance is part of your compensation. It's not a gift from your betters. It's part of what you earn. It's not Hobby Lobby's money going to cover your contraception. It's yours.

The ruling doesn't uphold Hobby Lobby's owners religious freedom. It privileges their religion. So, guess what, it's conservative Christians imposing their religion on the rest of us.

And the reason it's not in the ACA is a conservative Christian among the Democrats threw a temper tantrum and said he wouldn't vote for the bill if it was in there.

Ever hear of Bart Stupak?

Yes, he's Catholic. Same difference.

[Lance Mannion]

For what's it's worth, nobody is forcing the Hobby Lobby owners to use birth control, have abortions, or even keep their mouths shut on either matter. THEY however are forcing many of their female employees to choose between staying at their jobs and give up regulating their cycles, risk getting pregnant despite health problems, or not having sex with their husbands and quitting to go look for other work in a still miserable job market. I'd call that worse than imposing their religious beliefs on others. I'd call it extortion.

[S McCoy]

Lance, I said they should be able to run their business as they want "within reason". Of course, that's a subjective benchmark, but your examples obviously don't meet it.

And by the way, no one is telling these women and men they can't use their paycheck to buy whatever pills they want, Hobby Lobby simply doesn't want to be forced to provide them.

I know you and I will never agree on this case, but maybe we can find some common ground. The best way to solve this is to completely un-tether health insurance from employment....pay people what they're worth and let 'em buy their policy on the open market, like we buy our car insurance. Now that would be freedom. But it would deprive the politicians of their chance to extort and bribe and wheedle and pander and control. That, my friend, is the real imposition here.

[paintedjaguar]

"But the Supreme Court!!!" Yeah, not falling for that one anymore, sorry.

Next time a supposed progressive tells you there’s a significant difference between Republicans and Democrats, ask them to explain how and by whom these bozos got confirmed.

[Lance Mannion]

paintedjaguar, in the case of Roberts and Alito, the same way Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor got confirmed, with the votes of the majority of the Senate plus some from members of the minority who honored the longtime courtesy that the incumbent President gets to appoint the Justices he likes. So the way to prevent confirmation of bozos like Roberts and Alito would seem to be to make sure the majority and the incumbent President are always Democrats, don't you think?

[paintedjaguar]

That's a very reasonable answer, Lance. Except for the part where you ignore everything Republicans have done for the last five or six decades. You don't extend professional courtesy to a rabid dog unless your prorities are such that a little rabies epidemic doesn't disturb you -- or even furthers your own agenda.

[Lance Mannion]

paintedjaguar,

You'll have to ask my conservative readers if I've been ignoring what the Republicans have been up to for, oh, the last 10 years. I don't have a lot of those readers. They don't like to come over to hear themselves being railed at and insulted. Can't say I blame them. I wish they'd at least stop by for the movie reviews, but I feel their pain and understand.

As for the courtesy, if the President's party holds the Senate, the courtesy isn't necessary, as a simple majority is all that's needed to confirm. The Republicans had the majority when Bush put Alito and Roberts on the bench. Obama had it when he nominated Kagan and Sotomayor. He very well may not have it after January 1, so if he has to appoint another justice, he'll need some Republicans to be courteous. And then, unless the Democrats take back the Senate in 2016, future President Clinton will need some courteous Republicans too to get her justices appointed. Since I don't trust the Republicans to extend that courtesy, the best thing to do is, like I said, see that Obama and Clinton don't need to rely on it.