Birth Control, the Supreme Court and Me
What started with Jack Daniel’s and birth control has ended up at the Supreme Court.
Under the Affordable Care Act’s guidelines, which went into effect last year, private insurance plans must cover contraceptives. While explicitly religious institutions are exempted, 43 for-profit companies have sued, saying they oppose birth control and that the regulation violates their religious freedom. One of the companies is organic foods maker Eden Foods, which in March sued in federal court in Michigan over the requirements. The company lost twice.
Last week, it asked the Supreme Court to review the decision, arguing that the appeals court relied on a “low-quality” “web ‘blog’” to rule against Eden Foods.
That “blog” is actually the online magazine, Salon. The Sixth Circuit had noted in a footnote an April interview I conducted for Salon with Michael Potter, the founder and chairman of Eden Foods.
“I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control,” Potter had said in the interview. “What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.”
No mention of religious freedom.
The interview, wrote Sixth Circuit Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, indicated that “Potter’s ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ more resembled a laissez-faire, anti-government screed.”