Rick Santorum: Controlling Women's Reproduction Is My First Amendment Right! So Phhhbbbbbt!

[Content Note: War on agency; Christian supremacy.]


Yes, yes you are. The grossest and the worst.
Former Republican presidential candidate and constant despicable dipshit Rick Santorum is real indignant about the Affordable Care Act requirement that mandates contraceptive coverage, vociferously and typically mendaciously defending the Supreme Court's decision last week to hear arguments that Christian-owned Hobby Lobby had its rights violated by the requirement to cover contraception in its employee helathcare benefits:

[Santorum] on Sunday insisted that President Barack Obama was imposing his beliefs on corporations and preventing them from exercising their "right" to deny women contraception coverage in health care plans.

...In a Sunday interview on CNN, former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) pointed out that he viewed the Vietnam War as "immoral" but had continued to pay his taxes throughout the conflict.

"This is one country, we all have to live by a set of things that are passed in Washington and are agreed to by the court," Dean said.

But Santorum asserted that employees knew that Hobby Lobby's owners were "very clear about their religious content."

"I mean, the idea that the First Amendment stops after you walk out of church, that it doesn't have anything to do with how you live the rest of your life, I don't know very many people of faith that believes that their religion ends with just worship," Santorum explained. "It ends in how you practice and live that faith."

"And President Obama is saying, 'No, once you step outside that church, I get to impose my values on you, your religious values don't matter anymore, it's my values that I can impose on you,'" the Pennsylvania Republican continued. "I don't think that's what the First Amendment stands for. And I don't think that's what the court will say."

Dean, however, argued that the First Amendment allowed the "free exercise" of religion but did not allow companies to make health care decisions for others.

"It can't enable you to force your religious views on other people," he said.

Let us all take a moment to appreciate the hilaritragic irony of Santorum's argument: Telling a company that they cannot pick and choose what healthcare access to offer but instead must provide comprehensive healthcare to their employees, that those employees might use the coverage in whatever way they see fit, according to their own personal beliefs, is "imposing values," but denying coverage to women and other people who might have a basic healthcare need for contraception is somehow not "imposing values." Neat!

See, here's the thing: No one is forcing anyone at Hobby Lobby to use contraception, if use of contraception is not compatible with their religious beliefs. But Hobby Lobby is seeing to deny contraceptive access to people whose beliefs do not restrict their use of contraception.

Someone is indeed imposing their values on others, but it ain't President Obama.

Hobby Lobby doesn't—and shouldn't—have any control over how their employees spend their paychecks. And they shouldn't have any control over how their employees use their comprehensive healthcare coverage, either.

Employees are not companies' property. A lot of companies seem to have forgotten that.