Ginsberg Explains Hobby Lobby Dissent

Joan and I have been on vacation in the San Diego area, and that's the reason it's been awhile since I last posted on Brave Gnu Whirled.  I'm now back in Visalia and getting ready for a new semester of History classes at College of the Sequoias.

I have a special item for you today, an interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  In it she discusses the recent and famous Hobby Lobby decision.  That's the one in which the 5-4 conservative majority ruled that a "closely-held for-profit corporation" can have a religious view and can enforce that view with respect to their employees' access to birth control coverage.

Ginsberg's 35-page dissent against that opinion has been described as "scathing."  It's actually legalistic and circumspect, arguing from constitutional and legal principles rather than simply mouthing religious or political opinion.  Click on this link to read for yourself.

Just as interesting in summation is this interview with Katie Couric.  I know, it can be hard to decide what to make of Couric.  The onetime CBS News anchor later went back to doing celebrity fluff journalism.  Lately hired by Yahoo, this piece certainly shows Couric at her best with respect to substance.  She's serious and prepared.

As for Justice Ginsberg, she touches on her principal objection, that religious freedom does not convey the right to impose one's religious views on others, employees in this case.  She also agrees that the men on the court have a "blind spot" when it comes to the concerns of women.  Ginsberg and the other two women justices, not surprisingly, were all in dissent in this case.  Readers of this blog will not be surprised to note that my views are in complete accord with Justice Ginsberg's.   

And finally, Ginsberg  is ultimately hopeful that her dissent will one day be adopted as the proper constitutional interpretation.  She cites as an example Justice John Harlan's dissent against the Court's infamous 1896 Plessy v Ferguson ruling as a case in point.  In that case the Court ruled in favor of the constitutionality of racial segregation under the doctrine of "separate but equal."  A later Court reversed that decision, something she expects to happen again in the Hobby Lobby case, though the 80-year-old jurist says she may not be around to personally see it.

Click on this link to watch the five-minute interview segment featuring Ginsberg's thought processes.