Where Did the Religious Nuttery Come From?

Minneapolis residents Jess and John Pentz — a couple who’ve been married for 17 years — were traveling through Hayward, Wisconsin over the 4th of July weekend when Jess realized she’d forgotten to bring her birth control pills.

They pulled into the local Hayward Walgreens pharmacy, where Jess picked up a box of condoms from a shelf and handed them to the clerk manning the register.

“Manning” seems to be the right verb here: “John,” the Walgreens clerk, refused to ring them up.

Jess, confused, asked him why, pointing to the shelf where she’d picked up the condoms.

“We can sell that to you,” clerk “John” told Jess with a smirk, “but I won’t because of my faith.”

There’s no law in America against being an ass, so this Walgreens clerk was entirely within his rights to behave like one. But, because of five Republicans on the Supreme Court, it now is problematic — and soon could be against the law nationwide, if Clarence Thomas gets his way — for Walgreens to fire him for “exercising his faith” when working in a drugstore.

The vast majority of Americans, opinion research shows, think a situation like this is absurd. As Jennifer Brooks notes in an article about the Pentz’s experience for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“When the Pew Research Center surveyed American attitudes about birth control, just 4% viewed contraception as morally wrong. Condoms protect us from disease and prevent unwanted…