Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Hobby Lobby case is disturbing on an even deeper level than the already-notable issue of women’s reproductive health.

The case’s entire premise was that the company should not have to pay for specific products that it considered to be abortifacients. Putting aside whether you think companies should cover such products in general, the facts appear cut-and-dried: Plan B, ella and IUDs act as contraception. Birth control. As in, they are used as measures to prevent fertilization, and are useless if the individual is already pregnant. (If someone can post a source that contradicts this, I genuinely welcome it.)

Hobby Lobby’s belief in this case wasn’t even really a religious one. It was a gross misconception about the physiology/chemistry of a medical product. The company was allowed to submit a literally incorrect statement under the umbrella of religious belief. If people had seen reason, they might have observed that the aforementioned products act as fertilization prevention measures, just like the other 16 that Hobby Lobby agrees to cover. So why not just suck it up and accept those other four products as well?

So what makes this ruling so fascinating to me is that a plaintiff’s blatantly wrong, disproved-beyond-reasonable-doubt “belief” survived long enough to make it to the Supreme Court, and the court legitimized the company owners’ ignorance. The precedent appears to be that as long as a belief is sincerely held and is merely labeled as religious, the factual legitimacy and logic are completely irrelevant.

In conclusion: I’m going to get out of paying taxes due to my sincerely held belief that taxpayer funds were used to coerce Fox into canceling “Firefly.” (My religion forbids Joss Whedon’s unemployment.)

Andy Hyun
Davis

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