Think It Can't Happen? Think Again

So, yeah, right after the Supremes ruled that Hobby Lobby, a corporation, could tell their employees what kind of contraceptives they could use—while Hobby Lobby invests in, and profits from, the very contraceptives they are ALLEGEDLY against — Carlos and I wondered about The Gays; specifically the Gays with HIV/AIDS.

What if some corporation decided that their faith said that being gay was a sin, and therefore against the beliefs of that person corporation, and that corporation decided that their healthcare plan wouldn’t pay for their gay employees HIV meds?

I thought, Well, that can’t happen here …

Then I thought again, because, immediately after the SCOTUS decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. a decision celebrated, celebrated, by a number of anti-LGBT activists, the thought has come up. The new Hobby Lobby decision could very well have an impact on Truvada, a controversial "miracle drug" that blocks HIV infection and may revolutionize the battle against HIV/AIDS.

When taken properly, Truvada — a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment combining two different antivirals, for use by patients deemed at risk for HIV/AIDS — reduces the risk of HIV by more than 99% effective.

However, with our new SCOTUS ruling that corporations are people and their corporate religious beliefs can impact their healthcare choices and options, perhaps Truvada might not be allowed under certain corporations healthcare plans because, well, God and The Gays.

Back in April, USA Today ran a piece on the similarities between the controversy surrounding Truvada and conservative opposition to birth control. In that piece, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis noted that the Truvada debate is very similar to the way birth control was viewed by many in the 1960s, who saw it as an excuse for promiscuity; women could run around having all the sex they wanted and never get pregnant because they had The Pill. Now, some folks think that gay men will use Truvada in that same way.

So, again, I wonder, is it any great leap to think that an employer might use his or her faith, using similar arguments to the ones made in the Hobby Lobby case to justify denying health insurance coverage for Truvada.

Think it can’t happen here? Remember how many of us thought the Hobby Lobby case couldn’t happen … until it did.

via Media Matters