RANT WARNING: Be advised, this post may cause bouts of annoyance, defeatism, and pessimism.

Courtesy of Wifflegif

Initially, I planned to write an upbeat post about the recent celebrations of pride happening across the country: the Puerto Rican Day Parade, LGBT Pride, America’s success in the World Cup, and the Fourth of July, to name a few. I thought it would be interesting to extrapolate from these events a larger analysis of celebrating (or not) one’s identity. And then damn Hobby Lobby happened. Womp womp.

Last week, the Supreme Court held in two cases collectively referred to as Hobby Lobby that for-profit corporations are exempt from complying with the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate on the basis of religious beliefs. Specifically, the Court found that the ACA’s contraception mandate was not the “least restrictive” way for the government to implement this law and thus it created too substantial a burden on the religious freedoms of the companies at issue. In reaching this conclusion, the Court pointed to a less restrictive workaround in the ACA for nonprofits: If there are religious objections to a medical treatment, third parties will provide coverage to the employees.

More broadly, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg argued in her 35-page, no-I’m-not-retiring-yet-assholes, dissenting opinion, Hobby Lobby stands for the principle “that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

That’s right: corporations are indeed people. Those legal entities (which, by the way, are created for the purpose of separating the individuals involved from the corporate entity so that those individuals may be shielded from legal liability) apparently eat, sleep, breath, love, and pray? They sound more human than Darth Vader Cheney.

And as persons, corporations can also speak freely (i.e., wholly bankroll political campaigns) and freely exercise their religion (i.e., infringe on a woman’s reproductive rights).

Hell, with the direction in which this Court is taking corporate personhood, businesses — like any actual individual person in this country — may be able to discriminate on a wider scale. What happens when a business owner’s religious beliefs clash with, say, Title VII’s ban on discrimination in employment? What happens when a business owner acts on his belief that being gay is a sin? In answering these questions, I keep seeing the Jim Crow days when business owners were free to discriminate on the basis of race; I keep seeing the 1980s when they were openly homophobic and sexist. That idea is indeed what makes this “a decision of startling breadth,” as Justice Ginsberg put it.

Sure, I understand that slippery-slope, parade-of-horribles arguments are necessarily illogical. But tell that to African Americans who lived through the aftermath of Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate-but-equal holding. Yes, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in Hobby Lobby, did promise that the ruling would not open the door to discrimination (exemptions to our anti-discrimination laws). Call me cynical, call me a blasphemer, but frankly I don’t have a whole lot of faith in this Court’s word — this Court that has been so adept at totally flouting precedent and stare decisis when it suits its political ends. Remember Citizens United? Bush v. Gore anyone?

Courtesy of DPMS via Flickr

In fact, we need look no further than last Thursday. Just days after the Court issued its Hobby Lobby ruling, it granted an unsigned emergency order in a new case involving Wheaton College, finding that the very workaround it had hailed as a less restrictive means by which the government could implement the ACA was also unconstitutional — that it substantially burdened the religious freedom of religious employers. What on Earth?! In the span of less than a week Hobby Lobby has already gone further than Hobby Lobby!

So now I sit here wondering what’s next. I wonder how far down this road the Supreme Court will take us. Debbie Downer over here, I know. But this is seriously like the worst season finale ever.

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Chris Copeland (@ChrisRCopeland) is a staff attorney at a non-profit organization in the Bronx, a blogger, and a California ex-pat living in Brooklyn. When he’s not reading, writing, or watching horror, he explores the intersection of race and LGBT issues with Law Street.

Featured image courtesy of [American Life League via Flickr]

Chris Copeland

Chris Copeland is a staff attorney at a non-profit organization in the Bronx, a blogger, and a California ex-pat living in Brooklyn. When he’s not reading, writing, or watching horror, he explores the intersection of race and LGBT issues with Law Street. Contact Chris at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Down the Hobby Lobby Rabbit Hole: Are Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws Next? appeared first on Law Street.

That headline I just typed, “Pregnant Women Will be Treated Humanely in New York?” Well I cringed while I wrote it, because really, it shouldn’t be a headline. That should be a given; a no-brainer. But apparently it’s not. Because last week, New York City passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The law is incredibly basic, it essentially says that pregnant workers are entitled to reasonable accommodations so that they can stay at work, if possible.

Here’s an example to illustrate the incredibly basic rights these women are looking for. Think of a grocery store where the cashiers stand up. Under current laws in most states and cities, the store has no obligation to provide a pregnant cashier with a stool, even if that stool would not hamper her job performance and would allow her to work longer into the duration of her pregnancy.

Philadelphia and New Jersey already have similar laws in place, although under different names. Our federal laws already say that women who are pregnant cannot be discriminated against, but those laws don’t go far enough. The laws do prevent an employer from getting rid of an employee purely for the reason that she is pregnant. But what they don’t prevent are women getting forced out of their jobs by a lack of accommodations, like an inability to take breaks when needed.

So women are left with two choices: quit their jobs to be able to take care of their health, or continue working in dangerous conditions. Most women have to choose the latter, because for most Americans, giving up a paycheck simply isn’t an option. The National Women’s Law Center, working with another group called A Better Balance, issued this report last summer. The report includes testimonials of women who either lost their babies, or were fired, or forced on leave because their jobs would not provide fair accommodations. The testimonials are heartbreaking and infuriating. One of them is Guadalupe Hernandez, a woman in DC who was fired for not following draconian rules that were instituted after she became pregnant at the fast food place where she worked. Her takeaway from the entire situation sums up why protections for pregnant women are so badly needed,

This incident devastated me. Now I wouldn’t be able to bring any money into the family. For the first time in my life, I had to ask for government assistance (food stamps and unemployment benefits). I tried to look for other work, but every time I went to a potential employer, they looked at my belly and said “no.” My husband, who was not working at the time, my older child, and my baby paid the price.

The New York Times also highlighted the story of a woman for whom this law is deeply personal. Her name is Floralba Fernandez Espinal. She has worked at a thrift store in the Bronx for a few years. Her job specifically was moving clothing. She asked for a more low-impact job while pregnant, such as working as a cashier or putting tags on clothing, and was denied. She even provided a doctor’s note confirming what she needed. Instead, she was placed on unpaid leave. There’s currently a legal battle brewing between the store and her union. 

The United States as a whole has a disgustingly bad track record on issues regarding mothers working. The US does not require paid maternity leave. I would say major kudos to Philly, NYC, and New Jersey for taking action, but the fact that such action is needed in the first place is beyond offensive.

My mother was put on bed rest for a few months before I was born. Luckily, she and my father were fortunate enough to be financially stable on his salary alone. Who knows what would have happened if that wasn’t possible for them. I bring this up because this should be a given. A child’s life should never be put in danger because their mother is either put in an unsafe working environment or can no longer work. So I would hope we eventually get action at the Federal level on this issue, because this shouldn’t be news. This should be basic human decency.

[New York Times]

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Johannes Jander via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Pregnant Women Will be Treated Humanely in New York appeared first on Law Street.