American women have plunged into a bottomless dungeon of servitude -- by the Supreme Court no less -- in the new ruling that Hobby Lobby can be exempted from paying for employees’ abortifacients. Or so the liberal media and "women's rights" activists claim.
But they won’t let that long night of barbarism descend without raising the alarm, and resisting in small, symbolic and deeply stupid ways. From the media comparing the craft-store chain to the Taliban and segregationists to even suggesting protesters “redecorate” stores, here are the 10 of the worst media reactions to Hobby Lobby:
1. “Fantastic, Fun, Non-procreative Sex” Makes Women “Human”
Finally! Someone admitted birth control is about sex: a columnist for The Guardian US, Jessica Valenti argued, “Women like sex. Stop making 'health' excuses for why we use birth control.” A founder of Femninistg.com, Valenti also serves on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her piece, Valenti described contraception as “arguably the most important laboratory discovery for women of all time” that women use for the sake of “hot, sweaty, fantastic, fun, non-procreative sex.” “That doesn't make us ‘sluts,’” she continued, “it makes us human.” In a shallow, debased sort of way.
Ironically, contraception is about sex for conservatives too, according to Valenti. For them, “contraception is not about health,” but, “it's about sex, their fear of sex, and a panic over women having sex that doesn't lead to babies.”
2. Hobby Lobby is a “Religious Civil War” with Female “Slavery”
Writing for Salon, Al Jazeera columnist Paul Rosenberg claimed in his title, “This is a religious civil war” and warned Hobby Lobby was “only the beginning for new religious theocrats.” With the Tea Party in the House and “religious extremists” in the Supreme Court, he warned, “We're approaching a very scary time.”
Rosenberg described Hobby Lobby’s “deeply held beliefs” as “transparently bogus” and “scientifically invalid.” But with religious freedom, he explained, “You’re free to be a religious hypocrite, because letting someone else judge your sincerity can lead too easily to real religious tyranny.” Clarifying his “civil war” twist, he continued, “But when you’re already in a position to tyrannize others — as Hobby Lobby is — that’s a whole different ballgame. The tyrant’s freedom is everyone else’s slavery.”
OK, let’s think this through a moment. Hobby Lobby is in a position to tyrannize others by … paying them to work there? Because they’d rather not provide a certain benefit to employees who are absolutely free to go work somewhere else, the company is actively tyrannizing employees who choose to work there? Barbaric!
3. Use “Crafting Supplies to Spell Out ‘PRO CHOICE’ Aaaaaalll Over” Hobby Lobby Stores
At the blog Jezebel, Callie Beusman recommended a “fun craft idea” in her latest piece: “Pro-Choice Trolling in Hobby Lobby Aisles.”
For examples, Beusman applauded Feministing’s recognition of Jasmine Shea, a woman who “rearranged various alphabetical crafting supplies to spell out ‘PRO CHOICE’ aaaaaalll over” one Hobby Lobby store – and Policy Mic, which featured ThinkProgress Digital Editor Adam Nathaniel Peck who rearranged crafts to read “all women deserve birth control.”
To nurture the new trend, Beusman linked to the “official store locater” for Hobby Lobby, the “large corporation-person whose interests include crafting, God and denying women affordable contraception access.”
4. Hobby Lobby Supporters Similar to “Segregationists”
During a June 30 MSNBC “Morning Joe” segment, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson explained how “long, long ago, there were segregationists who made a religious argument and said that they found somewhere in the Bible a justification for racial segregation in the South and, obviously, that did not hold water.” While he admitted “this is perhaps a bit different” from Hobby Lobby, “it deals with employees of the company.”
With a nod to MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch, he continued, “nobody has an obligation to go to work for Hobby Lobby but there is another side of this and there is case law on the other side of this. I'm not sure which way they are going to go.”
So if “nobody has an obligation to go to work for Hobby Lobby,” how is it relevant to bring up segregation?
5. “The Supreme Court is at War with Women”
You’ll be shocked to find MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on the list. But he interviewed National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill for a podcast. Although, from his transcript, he appeared more as the interviewee: “This should be a real wake-up call to every women in America that the Supreme Court is at war with women,” he raged. “This is discrimination is what it is. And this, this puts the government between you and your employer!”
But wasn’t it the government that inserted itself there in the first place? Yes, Ed, it was.
6. Hobby Lobby like a “Taliban” Corporation
Former Washington Post reporter and New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll repeatedly compared Hobby Lobby to the Taliban. After the Supreme Court’s decision, he asked, “If the Pakistani Taliban, aided by clever lawyers, organized a closely held American corporation, and professed to run it on religious principles, might its employees be deprived of insurance coverage to inoculate their children against polio?”
But he didn’t stop here. Coll continued to say that if “the Supreme Court’s majority cannot fully imagine that religiously motivated litigants—Muslim, Christian Scientist, Hindu, or other—as qualified and as American as the Hobby Lobby owners might ultimately use Monday’s ruling to enforce beliefs” then “that is another failure of their reasoning.”
As an example, Coll continued:
T]he impact on children, living and unborn, of the Taliban public policy on vaccines is not, arguably, different in category from the impact that the Hobby Lobby decision will likely have on the families of those who work at companies whose owners claim to run them on Christian principles, in one respect: the extrapolation of religious beliefs into public policy will damage the over-all health of affected families.
Except that, “arguably,” it is. Justice Alito’s ruling made clear that the government might have compelling interests that trump Hobby Lobby’s exemption. Vaccinations would be one of them. But it’s just fun to call religious folks “Taliban,” isn’t it, Steve?
7. “Religious Extremists” Are Taking Away Rights
Featured by lefty site Upworthy, a video produced by the Coalition for Liberty & Justice declared that “religious extremists” use freedom of religion to “claim that any organization should be able to discriminate against their employees, whether it's a church, a school, or even a business, like Taco Bell.”
The video uses cartoon drawings to erect cartoon straw men, which are then knocked down with cartoon reasoning. The enemies are scary, frowny-face Catholic bishops. “Using bogus arguments about religious freedom to deny women birth control is just the tip of the iceberg.”
8. Hobby Lobby “Endangers” the “Lives of Many American Women”
Huffington Post Blogger Lincoln Mitchell set out to explain “How Hobby Lobby Undermines All Americans' Freedom.” He bashed the Supreme Court for “set[ting] a horrible precedent that if followed will endanger the health and lives of many American women.”
“If Hobby Lobby can tell people how they can or cannot use their health care benefits,” he questioned, “why can't they also tell people they can't, for example, use their salaries to donate to pro-choice political candidates or pro-marriage equality causes?” He concluded that while the answer should appear obvious, “the recent court decision makes it considerably less clear.”
Slippery slopes are horrible things when liberals find themselves on them.
9. SCOTUS Ruling Will Drive Women to Democratic Party in 2016
MSNBC Contributor Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy noted how, “With this whole notion of corporate personhood, I think that you are going to see women think that this is a large problem that corporations are not people.”
Looking into her glass ball, she continued, “And you will see married women, I think you will see single women, you will see African-American women, Hispanics, the quote/unquote other category of women that are looking at a long list of issues” and “saying if corporations are equal to individuals this is not the party that we want to vote for.
So women aren’t intelligent enough to understand that when people open businesses they do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to religious freedom? That’s a winning argument.
10. Hobby Lobby is Somehow About Shaming Women Over Sex and Abortion
That seems to be what the morally disabled former “Goonies” star Martha Plimpton was stating on the abortion-celebrating blog, “A IS FOR…” Offing your offspring is the most natural thing in the world, according to Plimpton. “It is time we stop pretending that abortion is some anomalous act that is outside the realm of the acceptable and normal.” No, it’s like getting a haircut or hitting the warehouse store, with even less mental strain. “That it somehow damages the family structure or the meaning of motherhood. It does neither of those things. It reinforces them. Anything that strengthens the health and lives of women is good for families.” Unless you’re the unwanted member of the family. Kinda sucks for you. But it’s all about Martha’s rights.
She concluded: “Until our culture accepts that abortion is a normal aspect of women’s lives, an essential one, a natural one in fact, we will be struggling with the political fight over our right to be respected as citizens with equal rights under the law.”
--Editor's Note: Matt Philbin contributed to this report.
