Corporate Media: Ignore the Hobby Lobby Behind the Curtain

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s appalling and un-American ruling in Hobby Lobby, I find fascinating the lengths to which corporate media go to soft-pedal the ruling’s obvious implication: that religiously based discrimination is for all intents and purposes the law of the land.

For example, Reuters assures us “the decision…applies only to a small number of family or other closely-held companies,” waving its hands at predictable liberal outrage because all this really means is that “an estimated several thousand women whose health insurance comes via such companies may have to obtain certain forms of birth control coverage elsewhere.” 

Well, when you put it that way, I guess it’s okay then. Only “several thousand women.” And they only “may have to obtain” coverage elsewhere.  We certainly don’t want to throw the religious freedom baby out with the bathwater for the sake of just “several thousand women” who “may have to obtain” birth control coverage elsewhere, especially since we’re only talking about “a small number of family or other closely-held companies” — you know, the kinds of Mom-and-Pop storefront places on a corner in Main Street U.S.A. where you might bump into a Jimmy Stewart character walking out as you’re walking in.

You know, places like these “small…family or other closely-held companies,” courtesy of Forbes: Bechtel, Bloomberg, Cargill, Dell, Del Monte Foods, Dole Foods, Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments, Foster Farms, Heinz, Hilton, Koch Industries, Kohler Plumbing, Latham & Watkins, Levi Strauss, Mars, Nieman Marcus, Petco, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, SC Johnson, Skadden Arps, Smart & Final, Sports Authority, Toys ‘R’ Us, and Tribune Media.

So, yeah — just the occasional small, family-owned business. No market power there, no sir. No need to fear being systematically discriminated against. Ignore the Hobby Lobby behind the curtain. The great and powerful Alito has spoken.

By: Russ Burgos

Interested in foreign affairs, global conflict, and political narratives and discourses