There are currently two cases in front of the U.S. Supreme
Court regarding the Affordable Care Act, its coverage of birth control and the
rights of corporations to exercise their religious beliefs. You read that
correctly: the right of a for-profit corporation to exercise ITS religious
beliefs. Not a non- or not-for-profit entity. What a country! One of these
corporations is Hobby Lobby, which is openly Christian and goes so far as to
close on Sundays.
This Thursday is the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a holiday
that celebrates the coming together of people of different backgrounds and
faiths at a communal table. For as long as I can remember, Black Friday was the
big shopping day of the year, with all sorts of “door busters”. Then, over the
past few years, more and more corporations started opening earlier and earlier
until the sacred midnight hour was recently breached. Now, a significant number
of retailers will be open Thanksgiving night and it wouldn’t surprise me if
they were open the entire day next year. For the record and from what I can
tell, Hobby Lobby will be closed on Thanksgiving and will open at its normal
time on Black Friday.
So I wonder: which is worse? Is it worse to work for a
corporation that imposes its religious views on its workers, but observes
holidays as they were intended? Or is it worse to work for a corporation that
may not impose any religious views, but fails to observe national and state
holidays?
The answer is that our government should stop dicking workers around and start protecting them. Duh.
