Conservatives were ecstatic about the court’s ruling Monday that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, because of their owners’ religious beliefs, could not be required under the ACA to include certain types of contraception in their employee health plans. But Democrats have the better hand. ...AlJazeera
When the Supreme Court issued its Hobby Lobby decision, campaign money started flowing in. The decisions has put the Democrats on the receiving end of serious campaign contributions, Jill Lawrence writes. This may be getting an assist from the right’s insistence on keeping the “personhood” issue in the headlines.
There is already controversy brewing over personhood initiatives to give fertilized eggs the same legal rights people have — the idea at the root of the Hobby Lobby case. Though other such measures have been resoundingly defeated, variations will be on the ballot this fall in North Dakota, Colorado and possibly Ohio. In addition, certain candidates are under pressure to reinforce their support of personhood or to back off from past support. (In Colorado the latter category includes Senate nominee Cory Gardner, who will be trying to win moderates this fall and recently said he no longer supports personhood measures. House candidate Ken Buck made the same flip in Colorado in 2010 when he was the Senate nominee, and personhood advocates are going after him now.)
Unsurprisingly, contingents on both the right and the left started raising money feverishly as soon as the Hobby Lobby opinion was released, which happened to be on the last day of the year’s second-quarter fundraising period. “I’m SO furious right now,” began a plea to donors from grass-roots progressive outfit Democracy for America.
There will be plenty of money raised on the right under the banner of religious liberty. But my money’s on this statistic: More than 99 percent of sexually active women in their childbearing years have used contraception. You don’t want to pick a fight on this turf. …AlJazeera
There’s another aspect to this that doesn’t get a lot of emphasis: women in general — right and left — have a real dislike for male politicians whose language gives them away: some men really believe they know what’s best for women. That is a big mistake and the reaction will continue to do considerable damage to the right.