Hobby Lobby for freedom

Thank goodness there are women on the Supreme Court: That was a common sentiment I heard on cable news Wednesday in the wake of oral arguments at the Supreme Court challenging the Obama administration’s abortion-pill, contraception, and sterilization mandate on the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Mennonite cabinetmaker in Pennsylvania.

Here’s what the Hobby Lobby case is actually about: freedom

Under both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, it’s difficult to see how you can force a company – which is, in the end, an extension of the people who run it – to provide services and products that violate sincere, profoundly-held beliefs. This is particularly so when the aggrieved employees have the freedom to either choose an employer who is willing to subsidize their birth control or, even better, pay for it themselves.