I know that this is a law blog, so I should be writing deep lawyerly thoughts on the Hobby Lobby case, but my comments are related to policy and feminism:
Did anyone else notice that the anti-Hobby Lobby argument (i.e. that women need their employers to buy their contraception) is really insulting to women?
My boss doesn’t pay for my rent, car, cat’s vet bills, food, or gun, but no one thinks that he’s denying me housing, transportation, the health of my pet, nutrition, or personal protection.
Yet these “feminists” are applying a different set of rules to contraception, claiming that if their boss doesn’t pay for it, they are denied access to it. The underlying assumption seems to be that sexually active women are too mentally incapacitated to use their paychecks to buy whatever contraception they need or do not need.
Isn’t THAT insulting to women? How insane would it be to say, “My boss won’t buy me my groceries he wants me to starve to death”? Normal people just buy their own food and leave their boss out if it – after all, the entire point of money is that it’s fungible and can be used for whatever legal ends the owner wants to use it for.
Why are empowered women too stupid to figure out how to use this thing called a “paycheck” to buy birth control, when they already use that very same paycheck to take care of other adult needs? Isn’t that assumption the one that is really infantilising to women, i.e. that we need smarter people to figure out basic life skills for us?
The Fog of Law 
There is a BIG aspect that you are missing. Health care isn’t a free market. It is an extortion racket. The difference between having contraception covered and not isn’t like paying your rent. Having contraception covered would be more like paying off a local warlord so that the employees have the option to rent an apartment without being murdered.
You’re kidding me, right?
You are actually arguing that it’s not possible to buy contraception ($9/month, or even free at Planned Parenthood) without health insurance? You’re just proving my point: the entire intention of the mandate is to prove that women are too stupid to function in modern life.
Can you link me where someone actually made the argument that women are to stupid to make the choices for themselves?
I’ve checked a few articles about this now. The claim is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation. As a Corporation it is it’s on independent entity. The religious beliefs of the stock holders has no bearing on the religious freedoms of the corporation. Corporations are legal fictions that are incapable of having religious beliefs.
This isn’t a question of what women are capable or incapable of. This is a question of what are the limits of “Corporations are people”. And what all obligations can business avoid through loop holes.
Oh, heavens. Let’s debunk.
Not true at all. One of the amicus briefs in the case, authored by Dwight Duncan, contains a historical explanation of the role of corporations in America for advancing religious agendas. Not only can corporations have religious beliefs, but they can be made expressly for that purpose. (Disclosure: the amicus brief was written on behalf of severa non-profits; I am on the BoD of two of them.)
Moreover, “corporations” don’t do anything: actual people do. As underscored in the Little Sisters of the Poor case, actual human beings are the ones who pay the money, go through the effort of providing services, and otherwise do that which needs doing. A “corporation” does nothing – it is only human beings within the corporation who are capable of action.
As a final thought, you would throw the biggest fit EVER if your “logic” were applied to a corporation that you are part of (or an owner of), but with the roles reversed. “Hey, you’re a corporation; you don’t have conscience rights or free speech rights. Therefore, we’re going to force you to promote traditional marriage and pro-life!”
Your head would explode.
Can you explain how that is not the logical consequence of this?
Back in 2001, my gynaecologist put me on the Pill to attempt to diagnose persistent abdominal pain. My health insurance paid $0.50 towards each pack of the Pill; the other $32 were on me (even though it was exclusively for a health issue). I’m here to tell you that I was still able to pay for the Pill, even though my insurance functionally did not cover it.
I wasn’t legal to drink and I could buy my own Pill. Why is it that allegedly adult women with full-time jobs can’t? Find me an explanation besides “They aren’t capable of acting like adults” and I’ll listen, but that’s the only explanation in sight.
By that “logic,” we can force corporations to pay for people’s housing, food, amusement park entrance fees, dues to non-profit and trade groups, dog-walking services, nannies, and gardners, because they are “corporations” and don’t have the right to refuse to pay for those things.
The obvious flaw in your quote-logic-unquote is that you are ignoring the POLICY behind asking corporations to pay for this. Why are you not capable of addressing the fact that women shouldn’t be looking to their bosses to pay for their sex lives?
Oh, wait, because when you put it like that, it shows how asinine this whole thing is.