Welcome to Gilead

A federal judge has just ruled that employers can deny HIV preventative drugs because they hate gay people, because ……… religious freedumb!

This is not just an isolated nutjob, though Judge Reed O’Connor is a partisan hack and a complete nut-job, this is what the right wing wants.

They have been itching to recreate a private right to discriminate since the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, though the parties have swapped since then:

A conservative federal judge in Texas ruled Wednesday that requiring employers to cover PrEP HIV prevention drugs in their health insurance plans, as the Affordable Care Act does, violates their right to religious freedom.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, decided in favor of Braidwood Management, a Christian-owned, Texas-based company. He ruled that it shouldn’t have to cover the cost of Truvada and Descovy—drugs that hundreds of thousands of Americans take daily to prevent HIV transmission—because Braidwood’s owners have religious objections to gay sex. O’Connor cited the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the same law that the Supreme Court ruled in 2014 protects employers’ right to refuse to cover birth control.

When I say that the right is not the opposition, but is instead the enemy, this is what I mean.