Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 5, 2014

B4

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 5, 2014 

 

Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

SENIOR COMMUNITY 
EDITOR

Pat Birdsall

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Lori Koop

Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Marc Garlett

 LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

GREG Welborn


HOWARD Hays As I See It


HOBBY LOBBY TO THE RESCUE

 “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and 
social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control 
their reproductive lives.”

 - Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

 That’s from Justice O’Connor’s opinion in a 1992 case upholding 
Roe v. Wade, cited by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent in 
(HHS Secretary Sylvia) Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. It was also included 
in Emily Badger’s blog for the Washington Post, in which she notes 
that while in Justice Ginsburg’s 35-page dissent “women” (singular 
or plural) is mentioned 43 times, it’s only 13 times in Justice Samuel Alito’s 49-page 
opinion.

 Women’s well-being isn’t mentioned at all.

 Although the case has been in the news a lot, it can be hard to figure out.

 Nobody has been compelled to accept any medical treatment, or help pay for it, that 
their conscience, religious or otherwise, might object to – neither the Green family, 
owners of Hobby Lobby, nor anyone else.

 As part of the Affordable Care Act, there are certain requirements insurance policies 
must meet to be offered on the exchanges. Businesses with more than 50 employees 
(Hobby Lobby has over 13,000) can choose to either make such policies available to 
their employees (perhaps with offsetting wage decrease) or pay a tax, instead.

 One of those ACA requirements is that preventive care be made available to both 
men and women with no co-pay – including certain types of contraception.

 Hobby Lobby didn’t seek to have contraception coverage per se removed from policies 
it offers employees. (And it never objected to coverage for Viagra or vasectomies.) 
Hobby Lobby’s objection was to four specific methods of contraception it considered 
tantamount to abortion – which is banned under the ACA.

 According to the medical and science communities, however, the methods Hobby 
Lobby objected to (Plan B, IUDs) as being “abortifacients” in fact, are not. Hobby 
Lobby contended these plans interrupt pregnancies, though what they do is prevent 
ovulation implantation. According to Judge Alito’s opinion, however, it doesn’t matter 
whether these methods are “abortion-inducing” or not; all that matters is Hobby 
Lobby’s “belief” that they are.

 There’s a lot of reference in this case made to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act 
of 1993 (RFRA). It arose from a couple of cases heard by the Supreme Court a few years 
earlier in which Native Americans complained their religious rights were violated; one 
involved a planned road through what they considered sacred grounds, and the other 
the use of peyote. In both cases, the Court ruled public interest trumped religion. 
The RFRA was passed to protect individuals from “unduly burdensome” restrictions 
on their free exercise of religion – but it was later declared unconstitutional by the 
Supreme Court.

 The two earlier rulings favoring the public interest over the religion of Native 
Americans were signed onto by Justice Antonin Scalia. The ruling finding the RFRA 
unconstitutional was signed onto by Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas. That’s right 
- two justices who later cited that same RFRA in favoring the “religion” of Hobby 
Lobby over the rights of its female employees.

 So, to sum up: the health and well-being of women is not considered in a case 
primarily affecting the health and well-being of women; plaintiffs complain of 
being compelled to provide coverage they aren’t compelled to provide; contraceptive 
methods are objected to for doing something they don’t in fact do; and Justices who 
previously ruled the public interest trumps religion now find the opposite, citing in 
their argument a law they’d previously found unconstitutional. Got it?

 It started to make sense when I realized the plaintiff was not the Green family, 
owners of the corporation, but Hobby Lobby itself.

 Justice Alito wrote, ”Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of 
exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of 
modern corporate law”. He was referring to corporations, not people, when adding, 
”the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their 
religious beliefs.”

 House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) commented,”The mandate overturned 
today would have required for-profit companies to choose between violating their 
constitutionally-protected faith or paying crippling fines.” He wasn’t referring to 
the “constitutionally-protected faith” of an individual or a family, but of a for-profit 
company.

 One of the most jaw-dropping examples of “judicial activism” in recent years was the 
Court’s finding, in “Citizens United” (2010), that corporations enjoy First Amendment 
protections of freedom of speech which our founders intended for We the People. 
Now, the Court maintains that corporations have constitutionally-protected rights 
regarding “religion”, as well.

 In its amicus brief, the Constitutional Accountability Center reminded, “From 
the Founding until today, the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty has been 
seen as a personal right . . . Business corporations, quite properly, have never shared 
in this fundamental aspect of our constitutional tradition for the obvious reason 
that a business corporation lacks the basic human capacities -- reason, dignity, and 
conscience -- at the core of religious belief and thus the free exercise right.”

 The Court conveyed upon corporations “rights” to unlimited campaign participation 
like the rest of us, though corporations have never felt patriotic at a Fourth of July 
parade, worried about what we’re leaving the next generation or mourned the loss of 
a loved one at Arlington.

 Now, they can have “religion” – though corporations have never had to temper 
conviction with concern over the health and well-being of a wife, mother, sister or 
daughter.

 Decades ago, Justice Ginsburg was a pioneer in protecting the rights of women 
and fighting sex discrimination. Now she serves on a Court which rules that not 
allowing a corporation to come between a woman and her doctor would be “unduly 
burdensome” - on the corporation.

 “I still cannot understand how the Court’s majority could put the ideology of closely-
held corporations above the health and religious freedom of thousands and thousands 
of their female employees”, says our Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

 Neither can I – but I’m beginning to.

 This week, with the kind permission of the editors, I have turned 
over my column to my daughter, Abigail Welborn. Abbey is a 4th 
year student at the University of Virginia, playing volleyball for 
the UVA Cavaliers, majoring in political theory and now making 
her debut as a political commentator. No dad could be more 
proud. Here is her spin on one of the week’s events.

 Feminists and Liberals of all sexual orientation are 
foaming at the mouth over this week’s Supreme Court decision in the 
so-called Hobby Lobby case. Average Americans think the decision was 
pretty reasonable – expected even – which just infuriates the left more. 
The mainstream media, which has largely abandoned any pretense of even 
pretending to be objective, just parrots back the talking points. This leaves 
serious analysis of the decision as road kill.

 Lefties can’t figure out why the Supremes and every other American can’t 
see how hateful, mean-spirited, discriminatory, bigoted and apartheid-like 
refusing to pay for someone else’s birth control is. It flummoxes them and 
agitates them to the point where they’ve given us some pretty outrageous 
sound bites.

 Courtesy of N.OW.’s president, Terry O’Neill, “apartheid in South Africa 
was justified on religious grounds. The Southern Baptist convention 
justified slavery and later Jim Crow and segregation on religious grounds… 
The Supreme Court is simply wrong to honor gender bigotry… It’s bigotry 
to keep women away from basic healthcare.”

 Wow! In the delusional world which these Liberals inhabit, a court 
decision stipulating that someone is not obligated to pay for the 
consequences of someone else’s sexual hijinks is discriminatory. Making 
someone pay for their own abortification procedures is equivalent to 
sweeping women’s rights back to the dark, dark ages of the late 19th 
century. It’s all outrageous rhetoric, of course, but it’s also deeply flawed 
logic.

 Hobby Lobby (the employer) will still provide its employees a health 
insurance plan with several forms of birth control. In fact, of the 20 HHS-
mandated birth control methods, which were stipulated in Obamacare, 
Hobby Lobby will still offer 16. To claim anyone is being denied basic 
birth control is just factually wrong

 The key issue in this case was whether a closely-held company, owned by 
deeply religious people who object to abortion on well documented religious 
beliefs, should be forced to pay for medications which cause a women’s 
body to self-abort a fetus (the medication known as an abortifacient). To 
force someone to act against their most deeply rooted religious beliefs 
is immoral, impractical and most certainly unconstitutional, and the 
Supremes got it right.

 The most hyperbolic of the Left’s criticisms and fears is that this decision 
allows a slippery slope down which all forms of healthcare could be denied. 
Such a fear represents a terrible misreading of several hundred years of 
court decisions which shape our understanding and implementation 
of the first amendment to the constitution. It also belies a dangerous 
misunderstanding of what representative democracy should look like.

 Our constitution provides us with a form of government in which the 
majority’s will can be implemented while at the same time protecting the 
rights of the minority. If there were no restrictions on what the majority 
could decide, then any majority of people at any given time could take 
advantage of a small minority. The framers’ genius was to provide a series 
of amendments (the first 10 known as the Bill of Rights) which stipulated 
which rights were inviolate.

 The first amendment states in elegant simplicity, “Congress shall make 
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof…” Straightforward, simple and tremendously valuable to 
each and every American. We are each free to practice our religion, but 
none of us can impose our religion on others. Catholics can be Catholic, 
Protestants Protestant, Mormans Morman, and atheists can play golf on 
Sunday mornings.

 The Hobby Lobby decision simply recognized this. If a woman wants to 
use birth control or to use an abortion pill, she can do it. Hobby Lobby, 
on the other hand, is not obligated to pay for it. This doesn’t mean that 
Hobby Lobby is preventing the woman from obtaining the pills. No right 
has been stripped from anyone. In fact, one of the most important rights 
for every American has been affirmed.

The last and most troubling aspect of this decision is the fact that it was a 
5-4 decision. Four Liberal justices believe that an American can be forced 
to violate their religious beliefs to pay for another person’s abortion. As 
outrageous as the belief is, it’s scarier to think what one more Liberal 
justice would mean. Tip the Supreme Court’s scales just one more person 
to the left, and basic American freedoms could be eliminated. Now that’s 
worthy of some hyperbole!

The great irony in all this is that the Hobby Lobby decision did more to 
protect and affirm civil rights than most Liberal activists can lay claim 
to in a lifetime. When Liberals finally emerge from their fever swamps, 
they’ll realize just how lucky they are.

 Contact the author: Abigail C. Welborn can be reached at abbeywelborn@
gmail.com and her work can be seen at www.abigailwelborn.wordpress.com 
She’s only 5’4” tall, but she’s feisty and dedicated to helping people better 
understand the benefits of conservatism.

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OUT TO PASTOR A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

The Haves, the Have Nots and the Whatnots

When it comes to politics, I am as confused as the politicians 
themselves. I do not like to discuss politics because I do not 
understand it and just as soon as you understand one opinion, 
everything changes and you do not know where you are at. Just 
as soon as a politician voices a position on an issue, he spins it 
around and it sounds like he has taken an opposite view. All that spinning has me in 
a whirl.

 Politicians change positions more than the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage 
changes her mind.

 It seems to me that when God ran out of brains and intellectual capacitors, He 
turned to an angel and said, ”I know what I will do. I’ll make me a politician.” He 
gathered up all the leftover dirt He could find and threw together what we now know 
as a politician.

 I do not know if this was a joke on God’s part or if He is just trying to test us to see 
how much pain we can endure. The only consolation I have, and I have read my Bible 
over 100 times, there is no mention of politicians in heaven. Maybe that is one of the 
things that makes heaven, heaven.

 I know I do not understand much that goes on in the political arena, but one of the 
things I have been hearing has to do with what they call, ”The Haves and the Have 
Nots.” It must be important because now there is a TV series with this name. Do not 
dare ask me if I have watched it because I will have to tell you the truth. I ”Have Not.”

 What do people mean when they use this phrase? Who are these Haves? And who 
are these Have Nots?

 Probably more importantly, what is it that these Haves have that the Have Nots 
want?

 I am reminded of my old uncle Amos, who often brags, ”I can afford anything I 
want, I just don’t want anything.” If you ever saw old uncle Amos, he really does not 
have anything. At least, he did not have anything that I wanted or any sane person, 
for that matter.

 The problem as I see it is simply this. If I want what somebody else has, am I really 
going to be happy when I have what he has?

 There are many things that I do not have and I am quite happy that I do not have 
them.

 I do not have an incurable disease. I do not have a debt so far above my head that I 
am going into bankruptcy. I do not have a table full of bills that I cannot pay.

 I am happy that I do not have any of these things.

 It could be the benefit of getting old. I guess I am getting old, at least I am getting 
older and my plan is to get as old as I possibly can. Next month I will celebrate another 
birthday, but I am getting to the age that I cannot remember how old I really am. I 
”Have Not” a clue. I guess I will have to count how many candles are on my cake if I 
can see through the smoke.

 But as a part of the ”older generation,” I do not really need anything that I do not 
have. I suppose it would be nice to have a new truck, but there is nothing wrong with 
my old truck. It still gets me where I want to go, the air conditioner still works and the 
radio still plays my kind of music. Why would I need a new truck?

 It probably would be nice to have a new house. At our age, my wife and I do not have 
the energy to pack up everything and unpack everything in a new place. As it stands, 
everything in our house is exactly where we want it. I think I will be happy with what 
I Have and not waste time on what I Have Not.

 I choose to focus not on what I ”Have Not” but on what I really do ”Have.”

 I have a wonderful wife, but do not tell her I said so, it might get me into some kind 
of a situation. This year we will have been married some 43 years and why she has put 
up with the likes of me all this time I will never know. Actually, the fact that she has 
put up with me all these years brings into question her sanity.

 I know I could not put up with myself all that time. Last week I was beside myself 
and had to get up and move.

 I have some wonderful children and grandchildren. It would be nice to live long 
enough to see my great-grandchildren, but I am not pushing that issue. I am rejoicing 
in what I have.

 The best thing that I have, the thing I treasure the most, is my relationship with 
God. I can identify with what David said, ”The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not 
want” (Psalm 23:1).

 What David is really saying here is that when ”the Lord is my Shepherd,” then the 
reality is simply, ”I shall not want.” The other side of the picture is true as well. If I find 
myself constantly in want, maybe the Lord is not my Shepherd.

Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, 
FL 34483. He lives with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 1-866-
552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net or website www.jamessnyderministries.com.

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