With the Supreme Court ruling hinging on the religious rights of Hobby Lobby, John Oliver takes a look at other ways corporations can be more like people. Obviously John did this piece mere hours before the landmark Supreme Court ruling giving Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood of Pennsylvania and all other corporate entities the same rights as human beings, because in the words of Mitt Romney, “Corporations are people my friend.” It turns out, they’re superhuman, my friends.
Thanks to Citizens United, for-profit corporations are ‘people’ with rights…Only more so. For instance, you have religious rights, but you don’t have the legal right to inflict your religious views on others in a meaningful way. Now corporations can make their employees tow the religious line…However absurd it may be.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, today it’s birth control. Tomorrow your employer could decide that blood transfusions are not moral and that your insurance is not going to cover them. In their wisdom, your employer might feel they’re looking out for you by denying vaccines – or treatment by physicians. Many religions don’t believe in medical intervention you know. These concerns are being raised, and we’re told not to trouble our little heads about such things.
The Supreme Court thought the heart-felt argument that Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to pay for something that could take a human life was compelling. The fact the birth control prevents a human life from beginning seems to escape them.
They feel the sincerity of their beliefs should override the law. Aren’t we – the non-corporation humans, sincere?!
As John Oliver points out – with a great deal of humor, everyone has their own issues that we don’t want our tax money to fund…Beets, shrimp on a treadmill or Mexican prostitutes – or maybe it’s shrimp that are pimped out, I’m confused.
I do understand that if corporations want to be ‘people’ they should suffer some of the same limitations and indignities that we do. Will they be called for jury duty? Can they be drafted if the draft is reinstated? Will female corporations make .83 cents for every dollar a male corporation earns?
I sincerely hope that every fertile Hobby Lobby employee takes this to the limits of absurdity. While The Lobby is saving literally pennies each month on your birth control pills, take the opportunity to enlarge your family. Make Hobby Lobby a festival of fertility and raging hormones. The cost of pre-natal care and delivery may cause them to see reason. Soon, they may distribute birth control pills much as the Catholic Church distributes the Holy Eucharist.
It’s a fond dream…Only you can make it a reality.