Dangerous religious privilege prevails

Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision exempting "closely held" corporations from paying for employee birth control is a win for religious privilege, not religious freedom.

It's deja vu all over again. Ring-wing theocrats are taking over the United States bit by bit, just as they tried to wrest ultimate power in Azgard and ended up destroying it.

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the court ruled that private corporations owned by a few people do not have to pay for any birth control to which they hold religious objections. The court claimed that this decision applies only to birth control under the Affordable Care Act's coverage mandate, but that's wishful thinking. It won't be long before closely held corporations claim religious exemptions as their basis for not paying for other healthcare procedures, like blood transfusions.

The court essentially allows these private businesses to have their cake and it it, too. They get the considerable legal protections associated with being incorporated plus the individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. And they get to force their interpretation of religion down their employees' throats.

If this issue affected men as directly as it does women, I wonder if the Supreme Court would have ruled differently.