In light of the Supreme Court’s ridiculous, infuriating ruling that the religious beliefs of a “closely-held” corporation trump women’s own bodily and reproductive autonomy, a group of clergy are protesting at a Hobby Lobby in Illinois in protest.
The protest was reportedly initiated by a local United Church of Christ (UCC) minister, and it included representatives from the UCC, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and Planned Parenthood. Of course, Hobby Lobby’s health care plan willingly covers male condoms (probably because male condoms gently embrace and protect penises, which is the religious right’s mission on this earth), but that’s beside the point: the religious leaders say the protest was meant to show that not all religions hold draconian and antiquated views about contraception.
Rev. Mark Winters of the UCC told the Daily Herald that his purpose was threefold: he wants to help people recognize that Christians have a wide spectrum of opinion about birth control; he wants to get people to question whether the Supreme Court ruling was fair; and he wants to question the (ab)use of power inherent in denying women affordable contraception access. “Jesus had a lot of issue with powerful people using power over the powerless,” he said.
“We believe in the freedom of individual conscience (and) support the rights of others to have their individual conscience respected,” Winters stated. Exactly. This is a sentiment that many religious leaders agree with — but, I guess, acknowledging that women have the right to have their own consciences respected means that they might choose to have “consequence free” sex, which is something the old men running our country simply cannot deal with.
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