The Supreme Court took a necessary step to preserve one of the most basic foundations of our liberty in its 5-4 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby and the Green family. At the same time, it severely damaged the Obama administration’s push to very narrowly restrict our First Amendment right to religious liberty to non-profit religious organizations.
Make no mistake, contrary to those who think that the Obamacare contraception mandate was simply inadvertent regulatory overreach, the administration knew exactly what it was doing here with the Obamacare law–going directly to the heart of religious liberty to gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which was adopted by large bipartisan majorities in both houses and signed by President Clinton specifically to protect this right. Why? Because the left knows that the religious liberty embedded in the First Amendment and spelled out in the RFRA is the firewall that not only slows the sexual revolution, but damages the century-long progressive dream of the transformation of the Constitution from a document of “negative” liberty (things the government can’t do to us) to one of “positive” liberty (things that government must provide for us or mandate that others do so).
The spin on the decision from the left has already been over the top, unfortunately led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent in the decision, which was more of a rant than a legal brief, and the coming demagoguery on women’s “rights” will be deafening through 2016. But the frightening thing about this decision is that four justices voted against religious freedom and how close we are to a tipping point in this country.
