From Status to Contract to Status: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and the Primitivism of Politics
In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court was called upon to play referee in a dispute that should never have happened. That dispute—ostensibly between women seeking access to birth control through their employers and religious-based employers—was manufactured by a bizarre set of laws that incentivized the creation of our employer-based health care system. Those laws and regulations thus pitted employers and employees in an unnecessary fight over the characteristics of that employer-based health insurance.
While Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties did and should have won, there are deeper lessons to be taken from the case. Hobby Lobby should remind us that the principles of a free society can help avoid unnecessary conflict and strife by simply defining and delineating our rights and responsibilities. When societies move away from the “simple rules for a complex world” that characterize properly limited government, what results is often increased and unnecessary conflict. In other words, the overly politicized world resembles the primitive one, defined by battles between competing tribes over politically achieved exemptions, disbursements, and special solicitude.
