The "Hobby Lobby" Lobby vs 1st Amendment

When Hobby Lobby sued the federal government to allow it to force the owners’ religious views on its employees, I was reminded of Henry Ward Beecher. The 19^th century abolitionist preacher, said, “When a person works in a factory, that’s where he worships.” That sums up Hobby Lobby’s employment practices.

Employers have often sought to discriminate against employees for one reason or another, e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation, and religious views. Legislators and courts have stepped up to protect employees, not because of kind hearts but because a stable employment force is as critical to the economy as wise employers. There has been a consensus that economic freedoms don’t end the day you’re hired.

The latest challenge to those principles follows Obamacare rules requiring certain healthcare benefits be available to all employees except in houses of worship. What’s at stake is the definition of “religious liberty.” Is it the right of people with power to impose their beliefs on others? Or is religious liberty the right to make your own religious choices?

News reports indicate Hobby Lobby admits its position is religious. “The owners of Hobby Lobby say their evangelical Christian beliefs prohibit them from providing insurance coverage for drugs like RU-486, which blocks a hormone needed to continue a pregnancy. They also are opposed to providing coverage for Plan B or Ella, known as the “morning-after pill.”

 These drugs, used as back-up methods for preventing pregnancy, stop the release of eggs from the ovary. 

“Plaintiffs have a sincere religious objection to providing coverage for Plan B and Ella since they believe those drugs could prevent a human embryo … from implanting in the wall of the uterus, causing the death of the embryo,” court documents show. 

 By forcing the owners to provide coverage for these drugs, the suit says the government is violating their rights to freedom of religion, speech and association. 
”

Not so. The employees are the captives. Depriving people who need jobs of healthcare because of your religious beliefs violates “their rights to freedom of religion, speech and association.”

Some argue, “It’s the employer’s business. They can do what they choose.” That’s the same argument employers used when they didn’t want to hire blacks, Jews, or women. Employers own the business but employees are just as indispensible to its success. They should be treated respectfully, not subject to non-employment related rules based on religious beliefs.

One commentator agreeing with Hobby Lobby said, “Obamacare gives unprecedented power to the federal government to dictate how private individuals and institutions must behave.” Hobby Lobby, on the other hand, seeks “unprecedented power” to dictate how their employers and their families behave.

Imagine what other “sincerely held religious beliefs” devout employers might seek to impose?

Obamacare grants conscience waivers to churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship. The Supreme Court has upheld their right to discriminate against employees on the basis of doctrine. If you take a job teaching at the Synagogue, you should expect to tow the theological line. But, if you go to work pumping gas at a filling station owned by the Rabbi, you shouldn’t be forced to accept his religious doctrines.

Those employed at Hobby Lobby may work for devout Christians but they don’t work in a house of worship. Employment law prohibits Hobby Lobby from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion. Yet the company seeks to impose its beliefs on employees through a denial of healthcare benefits they find religiously objectionable.

Hobby Lobby’s owners are good people who choose to live their lives according to their understanding of the Bible. That is commendable. But the simple fact that someone takes a job in their store doesn’t mean, as Rev. Beecher claimed, that they “worship” there.

From the beginning, there have been those who would use their power to force others to accept their religious beliefs. This is just one more example. Hobby Lobby’s attorney said, “No American ever wants to be forced to violate their conscious.” Indeed.




States are unwilling to assure the integrity of the vote

Despite the sacred nature of the vote, state governments have proved themselves unprincipled in their responsibility to safeguard this right. It isn’t the first time. Six decades ago President Truman’s recommended federal reforms.

Truman rejected the notion that state governments could solve the problem. Evidence proved they perpetrated the most egregious wrongs. The President argued the nation “cannot afford to delay action until the most backward community has learned to prize civil liberty.” Civil rights arise largely from the US Constitution. The federal government, therefore, took the lead then as it must now.

Truman’s recommendations eventually culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. President Lyndon Johnson outlined the deviousness of state officials. African-Americans were told they’d gotten the date wrong, to come back another day, that they weren’t literate, or were forced to pay a poll tax before voting. Finally Congress agreed states’ rights do not include denying qualified citizens the right to vote.

Election of the president and members of Congress are matters of national interest. The time has come again for the federal government to protect voting rights from a new generation of state officials who have put their party’s success above fundamental democratic rights.

Prior to the 2012 presidential election, several states purposely imposed barriers to the right to vote. Without any evidence, they claimed election fraud was the basis for these laws. It’s not a coincidence that the harshest restrictions were proposed in swing states where discouraging even a few voters from going to the polls could change the result.

Early voting, previously used by both parties to facilitate the voting process, was limited or disallowed. Early voting is popular even in Wyoming but is viewed in some states as giving an advantage to one party. The former Florida governor, Republican Charlie Crist, admitted party leaders approached him about changing early voting, in a blatant effort to suppress Democrat turnout.

Other states complicated the process of voter registration. Voter identification laws were enacted in states that also made obtaining an identification card difficult and expensive, the modern version of a poll tax.

A list of states where vote restrictions were most aggressively pursued supports the conclusion that it’s not about voter fraud. It’s about the Electoral College. It’s a list of states where large 2008 turnouts helped Obama win. Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. When Pennsylvania passed its voter-suppression law, the Republican leader in the legislature acknowledged the purpose was to assure a Romney victory.

Many states intentionally designed procedures to lengthen lines as a means of discouraging people from voting. Florida’s Republican Party purged eligible black voters from the rolls and enacted a law limiting registration drives and early voting, reacting to Obama’s successful use of the system. Several of these state laws failed to survive judicial scrutiny. Even then election or party officials provided false or misleading information about voter requirements. In perhaps the most egregious example, Arizona election officials mailed notices to Hispanic voters telling them Election Day was November 8^th…when it was November 6^th.

Since Obama’s first election, at least 180 proposed laws limiting voting rights were introduced in state legislatures according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. Few passed. Fewer survived the scrutiny of the courts. But the new rules covered voters in 13 states. And it has already begun anew as Republicans look back on what happened this time and forward to what they want to happen in 2016.

Party control of a swing state shouldn’t be the rationale for local barriers. Voting rules should be uniform from state to state. Why should a voter in Florida or Ohio face obstacles not faced elsewhere when trying to vote for President of the United States? Congressional agreement on uniform, national voting laws would more likely create an incentive to make them fairer than when states are allowed to manipulate them to achieve a partisan result. Once again the states proved themselves unable to guarantee the right to vote.  Congress needs to act.

Yesterday's sermon at Highlands on the 2nd Sunday of Advent

It’s been a long time since Pat and I had little children around our house at Christmas time. At our age, we tend to forget how difficult it is for them to wait until Christmas morning. Beginning before Thanksgiving Day, images of Santa Claus and presents begin to appear everywhere these young eyes look. The decorations heighten their anxiety as they begin to appear in stores, on lampposts, on the neighbor’s house. Santa Claus seems to be here, there and everywhere…but telling a three year old…there are only three more weeks until the big day…might as well tell him there are three more years.

There’s an art to waiting. An art that makes it worth the wait. Children get it. We have forgotten it.

Psychologists have long recognized the importance of waiting, what they call delayed gratification. Years ago, psychologist Walter Mischel conducted an experiment on a group of four-year olds. Each child was offered a marshmallow, and was told that they could have it now, or if they could wait several minutes, they could have two. Some children were unable to wait and they grabbed a marshmallow, giving up an opportunity to have two. Others waited and were rewarded.

As the children became adults, the researcher discovered that those who didn’t eat their marshmallows that day were generally more self-motivated, successful in school and considered emotionally intelligent. On the other hand those who simply couldn’t wait generally had low self-esteem and had suffered in school, branded by both their teachers and parents as being stubborn, envious and easily frustrated.

The wait matters. But it’s more than delaying our gratification. It’s also about the joy of anticipation, the sensation of our participation in the path, the journey from now until the promise is rewarded. Its about knowing there is something worth waiting for.

Advent is about waiting…knowing that we are not waiting simply for a second marshmallow but for the day Christians set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Advent is a spiritual season of preparation before Christmas celebrated by many Christians. In Western Christianity, the season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday prior to Christmas Day, or the Sunday closest to November 30, and lasts through Christmas Eve.

Advent is the wait. The wait can be itself the goal, using it deliberately as a time of contemplation, of spiritual growth. It is simpler perhaps to think of what the wait means to a child. We help our children through their long wait by taking them to see the lights, the Christmas Tree at the Capitol, watching “Charlie Brown’s Christmas” or reading “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and giving them a role in the Christmas play. We use Advent calendars to teach the importance of the wait.

But what about us adults? How do we regain the spirit of the wait, the joy of anticipation? After we leave our childhood and become adults, it’s easy to lose the spirit as we become overwhelmed with all the culture says must be done before Christmas Day.

This year I encourage you to think about the wait. What does waiting mean to those who know that at the end of the wait is a day we set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus? Let me suggest it means thinking about the great significance “waiting” has in all of our lives. Waiting for the birth of Jesus, for the promise of peace and justice and joy can mean different things to different people.

For example…as Christmas approaches this year…we are awaiting the birth of another grandchild. Before or very soon after Christmas Day…perhaps on that day…little August McDaniel Jacobsen will join the family.

But while we wait for that joyous day…our brother-in-law Bob and Pat’s sister Margaret are also waiting…waiting to learn whether chemotherapy will shrink the tumor in Bob’s throat to a size that will permit doctors to save his life with surgery. Waiting for joyous news, all of us and preparing spiritually.

Advent is a time for us to reflect theologically on where God is during those times in our lives when we wait. It’s a time to think even more deeply about the times in the lives of others…those who experience the injustices of life that the birth of Jesus is intended to overcome and our Christian role in ending the injustices.

It is a time when we prepare for the birth of him whom the prophet Isaiah calls “the Prince of Peace.” So we wait for the peace God promised through the Christ child even as some of our neighbors wait to be deployed to fight a war that has lasted more than a decade and others await the return of loved ones from that war. Waiting.

There are those who are waiting the joyous day of their marriage while others are waiting to see whether a troubled marriage can be saved. Still others are waiting for a time when the law will permit them to marry. Waiting for justice.

Where is God during the wait? Where is God as families await the return of a loved one from prison…where is God as families await the day when an addicted member of the family finds recovery or a homeless family member a home…or one denied adequate healthcare finds it? Where is God when hungry children await a meal or when neglected children languish in foster care or juvenile detention facilities? Where is God when elderly loved-ones suffer the natural consequences of growing old in bodies and minds that have betrayed them long before they are called home?

God is in the wait…but the wait is not a time of idleness, not a time of passive hope…the wait is in the words of the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. A culture that celebrates the birth of Christ without using the times we wait as a time of preparation is indeed the wilderness…and through it all, as we wait, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

During this time of Advent…think of one thing you can do to be a voice crying out in that wilderness. Instead of waiting for a savior how about being one? What can you do to prepare the way of the Lord…to make the path straight?

As you prepare to receive gifts, give God one very special gift just from you…a gift that prepares the way of the Lord in a unique, special way…unique to your calling and calling. Start where you are, where God has placed you as God has all of us…in the path of injustice and need…injustices we can help resolve, needs we can help to meet.

Let this gift be something personal that no one else needs to know about, and let it be a sacrifice using the unique and special gifts God gave you so that you can give back.

Imagine a world so prepared for the birth of Jesus that “every valley would already be filled, and every mountain and hill already made low, the crooked made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all of us prepared to see the salvation of God at the birth of our Lord.”

And this is my prayer, Paul wrote in Philippians 1:1-11…that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

That would be an Advent worth the wait. AMEN

Medicaid: The Facts vs The Politics

Name the last Wyoming governor elected by Democrats. Dave Freudenthal? Nope. It was Republican Matt Mead. Hundreds, some say thousands of progressives, many of them Democrats who switched parties in the primary, gave Mead the nomination assuring him the governorship. He won by 703 votes, a fraction of the Democratic crossovers.

Mead wasn’t elected by Tea Partiers or other conservatives, but by Wyoming progressives. Most Republicans wanted someone else. Like the Democratic-switchovers, they thought Mead was a moderate. As governor he’s worked hard to prove both wrong. Once elected, he calculated his political future is best secured by appealing to those who didn’t trust him in the beginning.

When the Supreme Court ruled Obamacare constitutional, it regrettably created one last playground for playing the politics of Obamacare with the lives of people who have no health insurance, limited access to healthcare and even less access to decision makers.

Mead insists the decision on whether to expand Medicaid shouldn’t be political. Yet there’s no other, genuine explanation for his decision to kick the can upstairs to legislators who have already demonstrated a penchant for playing politics with the issue. To be fair, let’s take his claim not to be playing politics at face value. Here, Mr. Mead, are the facts

Meet the uninsured who could be covered under Medicaid expansion. “I am one of the 30K,” one emailed. “I am the director of a non-profit agency that creates hope, saves lives and builds Wyoming communities. Most non-profits cannot afford health care for their employees, but we do the work because we believe that making a difference is more important.”

One-fourth of all veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan don’t have health insurance (WTE November 20, 2012). Governor Mead talks loftily at Veteran’s Day ceremonies about their service but is quite willing to allow the legislature to leave them behind and uninsured.

Most of the remaining are among the working poor, working hard at multiple jobs earning so little they cannot afford health insurance or healthcare. Many work in the food service and construction industries, home healthcare and childcare, each critical to Wyoming’s economy.

The federal government covers 100% of the costs for newly eligible citizens in the first three years, gradually dropping to 90% after 10 years. Mead’s response, “What if they don’t?” Notice that although his budget recommends accepting tens of millions of federal dollars for other programs, he doesn’t ask the “what if” question about any other dollar coming from Washington on which Wyoming routinely relies for everything from roads to education and a myriad of other healthcare programs.

The governor has long claimed expanding Medicaid will cost a great deal of money. He knows better but only yesterday did his administration announce that Medicaid expansion is “a better budgetary choice for the State General Fund. Pursuant to the Department of Health’s analysis, expanding Medicaid to cover optional expansion adults would result in a net savings to the General Fund of $47.4 million from FY 2014-2020."

How is that? Wyoming spends millions funding health programs serving the uninsured, from substance abuse treatment to prescription drugs. Today hospitals write off or shift costs of uninsured patients who can’t pay their bills. That could end. Nearly all of those dollars could be saved if Medicaid is expanded.

The infusion of federal dollars resulting from expansion would be an economic opportunity, increasing revenue to Wyoming providers, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and pharmacies while offering good jobs to Wyoming people.  The Department of Workforce Services projects 10,000 new jobs in the healthcare sector over the next 10 years.

Earlier in the week the Governor visited with a crowd at a Circles meeting. Many were low income, hard working folks. He graciously stopped to talk to each family though I know he was behind schedule. I’ve been told he and his wife quietly, with no fanfare, serve meals at COMEA, the homeless shelter. Governor…these are some of the 30,000 people who depend on your decision. You have their lives and healthcare in your hands. The facts are not standing in your way.