George Takei Takes The Side Of Women And Calls For Hobby Lobby Boycott

Women aren't the only ones up in arms about the Supreme Court's Monday ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, upholding that corporations with certain religious beliefs could deny women the contraception mandate that was built into the Affordable Health Care Act.

Actor and human rights activist George Takei came out in strong opposition to the 5-4 majority ruling on Tuesday, featuring a post on his personal blog, That Blog Is So Takei, which lambasts the decision.

In his piece, Takei echoed the opinion of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissent for the case, by pointing out that corporations shouldn't have the same privileges as people, and shouldn't be allowed to impose their own beliefs over their employees.

Hobby Lobby is not a church. It's a business -- and a big one at that. Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Once the law starts permitting exceptions based on 'sincerely held religious beliefs' there's no end to the mischief and discrimination that will ensue.

Takei also smartly pointed out that this ruling could open up Pandora's Box for questionable companies that might want to impose strict religious stipulations over their workers.

Under this ruling, Takei said he feared that a corporation could decide that its employees must abide by any religious conditions, like Sharia law, which includes laws against "illicit" sex (often pre-marital or extra-marital).

In this case, the owners happen to be deeply Christian; one wonders whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.

The "Star Trek" actor clearly did his homework before opining on Hobby Lobby — he looked into the company's corporate history, and pointed to the hypocrisy in a company that wants a ban on contraceptives because it believes birth control causes abortion, while buying inventory from China, whose government occasionally forces women to have abortions.

Takei's critique of and disgust with SCOTUS' ruling is very much in line with how other dissenters have argued that the case decreases women's rights, while elevating corporations to a sort of "human" status that is entirely undeserved.

H/T: Huffington Post, Photo Credit: Getty Images