Today's Victory is Tomorrow's Destiny

We should and do celebrate as a victory, women standing together successfully defeating the injustice of denying contraception to millions of women.  With its decision, the Obama administration stood with women drawing a bright line between the religious exemption that covers employees of houses of worship, such as churches, synagogues, or mosques themselves and religiously-connected or associated schools, universities, hospitals and other non-profit institutions.

Celebrate that the broadened exemption, primarily lobbied by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, was rejected and now millions of American women will have contraceptive coverage, including students, teachers, nurses, social workers, other staff and their families.  But also know that the corporations owned by religious institutions have a powerful lobby in Washington and in every state house.  This effort seeks to secure constitutional protection to use the first amendment to legitimize discrimination and segregation against anyone a religious organization or individual finds objectionable on religious or moral grounds.  Five Supreme Court Justices are ready to establish a constitutionally sanctioned Jane Crow Era.

It should never be lost on anyone who works for social justice that only a few days separate the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday and the commemoration of Roe v. Wade.

In a prophetic letter written by Dr. King on April 16, 1963 from a Birmingham jail, he wrote, “Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” 

The truth is, all of us are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny when the law segregates out women as being different and treats them unequally.  When that occurs, everyone is affected directly and indirectly.  Dr. King fought against Jim Crow race segregation, a practice based on religious and moral grounds - justified by an argument that the government should not coerce individuals into participating in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable, such as treating African Americans at "white" hospitals, or teaching  African Americans at "white" schools.  Race segregation in its most vicious form may be gone, but its remnants and justifications are alive and well.  Today Jane Crow, sex based segregation remains the law of the land, where our government allows individuals and institutions to refuse to treat pregnant women in distress because they find such actions religiously or morally objectionable.  Our government goes even further by allowing religiously affiliated hospitals to be certified despite knowingly providing substandard care and thereby remain eligible for taxpayer funding.
 
Churches are constitutionally protected in this country but when those rights are enforced through the lens of dominance, as this Court now routinely does, we are but a breath away from theocracy with the full weight and force of the law protecting "religious" corporations' right to discriminate against their employees and patrons while receiving guaranteed government funding while doing so.  When the law allows a religious institution to legally provide substandard care to their patients, we are all affected.  That injustice not only affects the patient but her family, the community she lives in and our society.

Our victory today against the Catholic Bishops shows the power of women rising.  Women, individually and collectively must participate in both direct action and voting.  By that I mean getting up out of your chair and into the street.  And we ALL have to vote, in every single election, not just every four years.  Because our destiny is in our hands.  It’s time we take control of it!