Hello everybody!

I applaud people investing their money and making products and services
people want to patronize. Unfortunately there have been recent crises in
the news about the religious beliefs of the owners of companies and
government. Recent news have brought forth the refusal of Oklahoma based
craft store Hobby Lobby to fund the morning after pill because it leads to
termination of pregnancy and various business owners in states that opened
up marriage to same sex couples not wanting to do business with them.

Unfortunately we are entering the uncomfortable topic of should we allow
private business owners to object to laws on moral grounds. It is a very
dangerous precedent if allowed by our courts. I certainly would not want a
Jehovahs Witness employer to refuse to cover my blood transfusion if I got
in a major medical incident. I would not want a cost cutting employer to
deny medicines for Diabetes if I should need them to function properly.

The irony is craft and hobby stores have a dominant female clientele and
they are going to be hurting their female employees big time by their
decision. I remember during the Sandra Fluke incident earlier in 2012, she
was asking for her schools health plan to cover contraceptives and she got
major flak from Rush Limbaugh. Economically speaking, health care costs are
higher when more items are subsidized and in some cases you can get cheaper
prices by paying in cash. However people elected Democrats for better or
worse and we got this health care reform and we need to learn to live with
it. As long as Hobby Lobby is not covering Viagra or any other male
comparable drug, that would be the only out I could see viable.

If we want to prevent conservative business owners from going Galt as in
the case in Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged where the productive people of society
ran away from an oppressive government, we need to adapt single payer.
Single payer would give all of us universal health care that would be free
from the dictates of the employer. This would lead to healthier workers and
increased productivity. Nothing prevents people in single payer health care
systems to take out private health insurance as in the case in the United
Kingdom.  If conservatives dont want abortions dont have abortions. We
could even pay women to have an IUD device to prevent future abortions from
happening which could be a perfect compromise in Obamas America.

For Hobby Lobby they should understand that they are operating a business
that serves the public, it is not selective like a church where they can
boot people for not believing their principles of faith or boot people
because they may be queer. If you want to do business with the public you
have to follow the laws of the government no matter how silly they may be
perceived to be. If you do not like the rules of Caesar, you are more than
welcomed to change the government by donating money to politicians to make
your world view come true. I was bewildered that Hobby Lobby would not dare
open up in California due to its hostile regulatory climate and
anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people in the state, but they did, if
Hobby Lobby was allowed to nullify the Obama rules on contraceptives,
imagine them saying we want to be allowed to discriminate against LGBT
employees in states that have those laws.  However, what LGBT person in
their right mind wants to work there? Religious nullification of laws would
be very dangerous and outright stupid. If someone is a Muslim and wants to
be a supermarket checkout clerk at Albertsons, they should realize that
they will have to handle ham once in a while and there would be no excuses
or a designated ham holder to step in when the time arises.

For the photographer, innkeeper and the trolley owner who refuses to do
business because there are same sex couples in our society. Who in their
right mind wants to turn down customers in todays economy? I may feel
uncomfortable serving customers with face tattoos where the individuals
likely came back from prison, but I serve them with the best
professionalism I can offer. We do not need to carry a Four Square type
application to find out which businesses do not want to serve LGBT people
or which businesses those are inclusive to LGBT people. That is why there
are public accommodation laws. Anarchy would indeed give us liberty, but
anarchy would be one massive headache if the Burger King refuses to serve
black people and the McDonalds across the street do not want to serve
Asians.



Matt


... An armed populace is the greatest insurance against tyranny.
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