February 13, 2012

Conscience for Me, But Not for Thee

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The world has long needed a Shorter John Holbo, and today Matt Yglesias provides it:

Start with the assumption that ObamaCare is repealed, in its entirety, tomorrow. The day after tomorrow Abdul Hussain, owner and CEO of a large private firm with 5,000 employees, announces that his firm will no longer offer employees health insurance that permits women to visit male doctors or male employees to be treated by female doctors. This is a newsworthy event, and the day after the day after tomorrow Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder both offer the opinion that this is a form of illegal discrimination and that if it’s not already illegal it should be made illegal. Will Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans stand up for Hussain’s “freedom of conscience” in this case? Will my conservative Twitter followers?

I’m going to guess no.

Yeah, that’s my guess too. Likewise, if a hospital owned by a Muslim charity insisted that its patients all sign arbitration agreements that were governed by Sharia law, I think the conservative view of freedom of religion would take a sudden turn for the worse.

But I’m cynical that way. Perhaps some outspoken conservative will prove me wrong.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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