Hobby Lobby has protected the rights of people of faith in business who want to protect families and their children in the belief that life is sacred. Today the Supreme Court determined that the first amendment protects closely held businesses in their pro-life views.
Washington Times reporter Tom Howell, Jr. reported:
The government cannot require for-profit employers to insure birth control in company health plans if it violates their religious beliefs, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The 5-to-4 decision in the "Hobby Lobby" case is a political blow to the Obama administration, which had allowed nonprofit groups to avoid direct responsibility for Obamacare's contraception mandates but held firm against corporate owners who complained and filed suit.
"Hobby Lobby wins! Hobby Lobby wins!" shouted protesters outside the court, referring to the Oklahoma-based crafts store that became the face of the challenge.
The court said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 offers protection to the closely held corporations that sued, and the government had not demonstrated that the mandate was necessary and the "least restrictive" means to extended coverage to women.
Read more at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/30/supreme-court-settles-hobby-lobby-dispute/#ixzz368OvtFLj.
Gender equality was important in this case as well, as dissenting Justices noted. Women, however, are clearly leading the way in protecting life. Learn more about how a woman's faith can inform her views on gender equality in "A Christian Perspective on Gender Equality" at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2112419, published by the Duke Journal of Gender & Law.
Furthermore, the notions confronting gender equality can work for or against a woman's happiness - a paradox discussed at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2001387, a multi-disciplinary article published by Regent authors in the Trinity Law Review entitled "Christianity, Feminism, and the Paradox of Female Happiness."
This case focused on Health and Human Services agency mandates that required businesses to provide to their employees contraceptive drugs that terminate fertilized human zygotes, coercive laws created by an unelected agency. That posed a great problem for Justice Kennedy, who wrote a separate but concurring opinion.
Today the Supreme Court has protected faith rights for business women interested in protecting life, and restoring families.
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