An Open Letter to Hobby Lobby, Opus Dei Catholics and Other Conservatives having Butthurt over the Contraception Mandate

It didn't have to be this way.

You could have played a constructive role in the healthcare debate. You could have helped ensure increased access to healthcare for many millions of Americans, and on terms that were preferable for you. Americans who, by the way, support the current taxpayer subsidized, employer-based healthcare system but don't get anything in return for it. And yes, anyone who works and draws a paycheck in the economy pays taxes. No matter their earnings level, federal income taxes are taken out of every employee's paycheck every time they get paid, and those taxes help subsidize health insurance for many working Americans.

Politically, you also enjoyed the benefit of having a new president who campaigned on the basis of changing the political culture and reaching out to members of the other party and to those with different ideas. You might not have believed this of him, but you could have pursued the olive branch he was extending and participated in a process that aimed to establish, finally, a universal healthcare system, or something much closer to it than we have ever had before. And even if taxpaying Americans weren't "worthy" of better, or any, healthcare, and even if the president wasn't agreeable to you, universal healthcare access is a goal you should have supported as your Freaking Christian Duty anyway. And I shouldn't have to remind you about that.

Instead, you, by your silence or active contrivance, helped incite the mob of John Birchers who raged at congressional town hall meetings across the country about "Socialism", "death panels" and "2nd Amendment solutions". Remember that? You either acquiesced or zealously supported the hateful and deceitful vitriol spewed forth about healthcare reform (not to mention everything else) by the conservative media complex of talk show radio hosts, cable television pundits, and "family" research institutes. Maybe you hoped this mob would successfully intimidate the president and members of Congress into not doing anything.

But you fucked up. The healthcare law passed without you and because you didn't help or participate, you got nothing.

So how's that workin out for ya?

I'm real sorry for your precious religious liberty you now say is being violated. But you had your chance to exercise your Christian Liberty in a helpful way that would have generated good will and helped many vulnerable Americans. Now, you have to hope the courts will yet rule in your favor. But if they don't, you will have gotten what you deserve.