Bricker, I think you need to deploy your parsing tweezers to explain the huge difference between compensation and benefits. Here on the Boards, you have no rival when it comes to precise semantic distinctions.
They have moral objections, and so cannot participate in an insurance program that would permit their employees to make an immoral choice about their birth control options. But apparently have no problem with providing their employees with money to make those same choices. This is the sort of precise and exacting moral distinction that calls for your special set of skills.
Substitute pornography. Can you imagine a company saying, “We object to pornography, and feel it degrades women. We will not, therefore, provide our employees with the benefit of company-paid subscriptions to the porn site Naughty Stewardesses From Planet Nipple.com But we won’t prevent an employee from taking some of the money we pay him and using it to buy his own subscription.”
I bet you can. Or if you can’t, I bet almost every other person reading this can. Nothing about that example is remotely puzzling or bizarre in the slightest.
Is access to porn a standard benefit, widely and commonly offered? Is there some national program in place to ensure that most American citizens have access to porn? Is access to porn a public health issue?
I will generously assume that your answer is Republican humor, and await a more serious response.
You asked about a moral dilemma. Here was your question:
My answer was an illustration of how a line is drawn between the company’s actions being immoral, and the company simply neutrally paying money to the employee, who then chooses to do something immoral with it.
Nothing in your question suggests that your question hinged on a “standard benefit,” or a “health issue.” You asked about why a moral objection can exist when the company supplies something, but vanish when the company pays money to the employee and he chooses to buy that same thing.
A law passed in 1993 prevents the government from forcing Hobby Lobby to pay for medical insurance that pays for all of your birth control choices. You can still pay for your own birth control or pay for your own medical insurance that covers your birth control choices.
The company is not taking any action at all, in either case. They are not supplying contraceptives, the insurance does that. The moral choice rests with the employee to make use of that opportunity, or not. As it rests on the employees choice on how to spend his money.
No, they must pay for the possibility of contraceptive coverage.
How is it that they do not want to pay for the possibility of contraceptive coverage, but they are okay with providing the possibility of contraceptive coverage through wages?
It seems that their “morality” is somehow dependent on how far removed they are from the actual decision, but then, the employee deciding to use his wages for something they find objectionable is actually a closer relationship than the employee deciding to use insurance for contraceptive coverage.
But then, logic doesn’t really come into it, because “faith” is a trump card thanks to the RFRA.
That’s a very common method of reaching moral decisions.
But the “closer” still is them providing their money to the insurance company to cover the employee’s choice. That’s what they object to. The don’t object to the employee using his money. They don’t want to pay the insurance company for four types of contraception coverage.
What you call “stupidity” or “ignorance,” others call “religious exercise.” And your view of its importance is not shared by the rest of this country. That’s why the RFRA was passed: to ensure that people like you don’t decide to trample religious exercise because you view it as “stupid” or “ignorant.”
And atheism can’t come fast enough to America, to the point where Americans see that what is being “trampled” is something that’s only been hurting them all along.
Would it be a little more complicated if the company offered it’s employees company-paid subscriptions to the site before the ACA was passed, and only changed this afterwards?
It would be a reason to question the sincerity of their claims. Their explanation could no longer simply be, “We believe this is sinful,” because the natural follow-up question would be, “Then why did you previously provide the subscription?” And their answer would need to satisfy the government, or the reviewing court if the government was unsatisfied.
Maybe a working analogy, if one is needed, is that the government decides companies must have a supplier for a wide variety of safety gear which the employee can choose from as needed, but the company has some religious objection to orange hardhats or whatever, because their scripture says orange clothing is sinful.
Isn’t your morality influenced by how far away from the actual decision being made? You doing X is a lot different than doing Y which may lead to X. If you’re morally opposed to diamond mining in Africa, you may avoid purchasing mined diamonds. Would your morality be intact if you purchased other goods from a store that sold mined diamonds? What if you lived in a city that provided tax credits to the store that sold mined diamonds? What if your taxes helped the infrastructure necessary for that store to operate?
No, I have no illusions that’ll happen. I’m hoping the Americans undergo a gradual social abandonment of religion (or a downplay of its importance, anyway), to the point where campaigns that mention religion are met with mild bemusement.
I think this is starting to happen. Fingers crossed!
And can I take a moment to compliment you on attacking a real aspect of this decision? It’s undeniably true that this decision rests on a legally codified privileged position for religion. If Hobby Lobby had said, “We have a philosophical, non-religious objection to these types of contraceptives,” their claim would have failed in court. The RFRA granted them a right to complain via religion that simply doesn’t extend to non-religious grounds, and so when you complain about religion producing this result, you are absolutely correct.