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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

What’s to Prevent Segregation in the Post-Hobby Lobby World?

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I am not talking just racial segregation here, but all forms of segregation.  So long as it is a sincerely-held religious belief and separate but equal facilities are provided, what is there to stop a closely-held corporation from imposing segregation post-Hobby Lobby?

Imagine there is an owner who believes, as a matter of sincerely-held religious beliefs, that the sexes should not mix, what is there to prevent that owner from establishing separate aisles in his or her store and separate checkout lines so long as the aisles are identical, there are an equal number of checkout lines and those checkout lines are always equally staffed.  What exists to prevent that owner from establishing that system?

What if the owner of such a closely-held corporation has such beliefs except that instead of the sexes mixing, he or she believes that it is whites and non-whites that should not mix?

What if the owner believes that members of his or her religion should not mix with members of another religion?

Where, exactly, will this all end?

There is a reason for generally-applicable laws.  There are reasons that in certain instances persons can receive religious exemptions.  Persons, however, are not for-profit corporations that are created with the primary purpose of making money.  If we were discussing religious employers here, then, yes, I could see why there can and should be a carve out.  However, we are discussing for-profit corporations.

The logic put forward today by the Supreme Court has no end.  Just as it easily justified the idea that men and women should be treated differently when it comes to the provision of their health care, it can be used to justify differential and/or separate treatment for all different groups.


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/ 5 Comments

5 comments

  2. JanF

    But in the Roberts Court’s view we are in post-discrimination America. There is no racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no discrimination against minority religions. Because, you know, who doesn’t want God in the prayers that open secular gatherings or during the 7th inning stretch at a ballgame or in the freaking Pledge of Allegiance??? And now in our wombs, thank you very much.

    As we come up on the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, it is sad to see that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that religious rights are the only right they feel is worth preserving.

  3. Diana in NoVa

    Imagine there is an owner who believes, as a matter of sincerely-held religious beliefs, that the sexes should not mix, what is there to prevent that owner from establishing separate aisles in his or her store and separate checkout lines so long as the aisles are identical, there are an equal number of checkout lines and those checkout lines are always equally staffed.  What exists to prevent that owner from establishing that system?

    Again, welcome to the Republic of Gilead.

  4. DeniseVelez

    in 2011

    Mississippi Polling: Roughly Half of Polled Republicans in Mississippi Believe Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal



    http://jonathanturley.org/2011…

    A poll released this week shows that 46% percent of Mississippi Republicans believe that interracial marriage should be illegal. That staggering number is accompanied by only 40% who believe that adults should be free to marry who they want. This poll just happens to come out on the anniversary of the argument in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), where the Supreme Court in a 9-0 vote struck down Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute.

    The poll means that one out of two Mississippi Republicans want to return to the pre-Loving status where (under Pace v. Alabama (1883)) couples could be thrown into jail for marrying outside of their race. In the case of Mildred Loving and Richard Perry Loving, Virginia police raid their home in an effort to find them in a sexual act to bring a criminal charge but quickly changed the charge when shown a marriage license of Washington, D.C. They were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia as well as the miscegenation provision under Section 20-59. After they pleaded guilty, Judge Leon M. Bazile handed down a one-year sentence (suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia) with these infamous words:

       Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

    Yeah – Almighty God.  

    Shudder.

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