If there is one concept underpinning our legal system, it is the rule of law. It is comparable to the right to a trial by jury, the right to know any charges brought against you and the right to protect yourself from self-incrimination. Without it, our legal system is so malleable that it borders on useless. So, seeing the Supreme Court undermine such an essential principle in the recent Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision is absolutely alarming.
When the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to exempt certain businesses from provisions requiring contraceptive coverage in employee health plans, it was shocking. Besides the problems involved in depriving employees of things the employer finds immoral, without caring to ask if the employees feel the same way, it was a complete aberration of our basic democratic principles.
Rule of law is a principle central to American society. Thomas Paine summed it up concisely with a simple contrast. He said that in despotic societies, the king is law. His whims overrode written law, and the law became nothing but words on a page when it contradicted his wishes. However, in free societies, law is king. Laws passed by the democratic representatives of the people are the only true rulers in free societies. And when law is king, the dynamism of the relationship between laws and people becomes clear. People elect those who make the laws and are subject to the laws of the country. Everyone from the President, to Congress, to your neighbors are subject to the same laws.
The Affordable Care Act was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. It is law; there is no gray area here. The Supreme Court issuing an exemption to account for the faith of employers is not only paternalistic and unfair, it is completely outside of their constitutional purview.
The Supreme Court, in recent years, has become an outlet for making policy outside of the presidency and congress. While Obama has been ramping up his presidential edicts, sorry, I mean executive actions, in order to bypass a deadlocked congress, the Supreme Court has been, for years, making large policy decisions through the court system, and this is not what the Supreme Court was designed for. The Supreme Court was designed for testing the constitutionality of legislation and resolving disputes between states.
The increasingly activist court has been used on all sides of the political spectrum. While the Hobby Lobby and Citizens United rulings have been landmark cases for the right wing in this country, the liberals of this country have enjoyed accelerated progress on the issue of gay marriage due to the court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
While the court may do things that I agree with from time to time, it is still clear that it is over-stepping its boundaries. Nothing makes this more apparent than the Hobby Lobby ruling, in which the five justices who ruled in favor of religious exemptions to the laws of this country were supposed conservatives who tend to practice restraint and avoid making such broad rulings. However, their judicial conservatism took a backseat to their political conservatism, and they chose to make a bold precedent to favor their political leanings.
Justice Ginsberg expressed concern at the idea that something as personal as a sincere religious belief can make one exempt from nearly any law. In this case, it means that you can contradict established law when making decisions for other people, namely your employees. It does not end at birth control either, this case sets a precedent for any religious person heading a business to deny their employees basic medical services that they themselves do not believe in. Working for a company owned by Scientologists may soon mean that you will not be allowed to use your insurance to pay for psychiatric medication. Working for Jehovah’s Witnesses may mean something as vital as a blood transfusion may not be covered. This defies logic and essentially forces the employer’s morality upon their employees, a complete bastardization of the ideals of religious freedom and rule of law.
To put it simply, this decision is a mistake. It is obvious to anyone who paid attention in a history class that the Supreme Court has not always been on the right side of history. One only has to look to their decisions upholding slavery, segregation and the Japanese internment camps, to see that the court has been in the wrong on many key decisions. Unfortunately, it seems that the Hobby Lobby precedent valuing employer rights over employee rights is just another damaging decision in their long history, and future lawmakers and judges will have to work hard to undo the mess that will surely result from this.