8 Other Laws That Could Be Ignored Now That Christians Get To Pick And Choose The Huffington Post | By Ryan Grim Posted: 06/30/2014 3:42 pm EDT Updated: 06/30/2014 5:59 pm EDT Print Article STONING The owners of a chain of stores called Hobby Lobby dont like Obamacare. In particular, they really dont like the part that requires insurance companies to cover contraceptives. Normally, people who dont like a law petition the government to change that law. Thats how a nation of laws works. But these men are Christians. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Christian business owners are special. Their deeply held religious belief that some particular form of contraception is immoral carries more weight than the force of law, five conservative Christian justices ruled. The court -- in a fairly bald admission that its ruling is incoherent -- added that no general amnesty from other laws should be assumed to be the result of its ruling and that its reasoning was strictly limited to womens contraception. Such a limitation raises legitimate questions about the rather perverted and obsessive minds of the five men who made the ruling, but it also carries little legal weight. Precedent is precedent, whether the precedent-setters say so or not. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wondered aloud in her dissent, Would the exemption ... extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovahs Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus)? As long as were doing a la carte law-abiding, here are a few additional ones that could become optional to certain people with deeply held beliefs. NUDITY LAWS Entire colonies of people are dedicated to the belief that being compelled to wear clothes is wrong. Others dont believe they should be compelled to make love only indoors. Dont wanna see this on your Saturday stroll? Hey, freedom isnt free. public nudity TAXES Most religions profess a deep affinity for peace (while drenching history in blood in the name of religion, but whatever). Why should religious pacifists be compelled to pay taxes that subsidize war? Why should Randians, believers in Atlas Shrugged, the bible for dorm-room free-market evangelists, be forced to support the evil that is government? paying taxes LSD There isnt much more religious of an experience than talking directly with God. Hell, Huston Smith included a section on acid in his definitive book The Worlds Religions. While were at it, all drug laws rub up against religious practice. Sorry officer, this is our church. lsd GROWING HEMP If youve ever talked to a hemp evangelist, you know belief in the crop borders on the religious. growing hemp STONING The Bible is packed with tales of impure women meeting a just end under a pile of stones. Today, in certain countries, theyre known as honor killings. Will the court make an exception to murder for the deeply religious? stoning GENITAL MUTILATION Female circumcision -- more commonly and accurately known as genital mutilation -- is central to the practice of some religions, according to some people who have strong beliefs. What is a democracy to tell people otherwise? In fact, the same could go for domestic violence, polygamy and whatever else. scared girls mutilation PASTEURIZED MILK For some Amish folk, following a strict religious interpretation of Do unto others what you would have others do unto you means selling raw, unpasteurized milk, a practice banned under U.S. law for its potential to carry dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria. cows DOMESTIC VIOLENCE To hell with the Violence Against Women Act, when the Quran authorizes you to strike a disobedient wife, as illustrated in Chapter 4, Verse 34. And we dont have to limit the freedom to Muslim men. As Deuteronomy 25:11-12 testifies, If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 10:56:01 +0000
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