Title: How the Hobby Lobby ruling helped and hurt religious freedom - Deseret News
Headings: How the Hobby Lobby ruling helped and hurt religious freedom
How the Hobby Lobby ruling helped and hurt religious freedom
The Hobby Lobby case
Controversial ruling
After Hobby Lobby
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Content: Religious freedom protections continue to be a hot topic five years later. Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press
The Hobby Lobby case was one of dozens filed on religious grounds to challenge the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate, which required most employers with 50 or more employees to cover a variety of forms of birth control in company health insurance plans. Religious objectors to the mandate said it forced them to pay for drugs that cause abortions. Because abortion went against their religious beliefs, they argued the Affordable Care Act infringed upon their religious freedom rights. The government had exempted churches and other houses of worship from the mandate and offered an accommodation to religiously affiliated nonprofits. Nonprofits could notify their insurance provider about their objections, and the provider would then arrange contraceptive coverage directly with employees. As a for-profit business, Hobby Lobby could not access this accommodation, despite being owned by a conservative Christian family. It faced lofty fines for not covering a full range of birth control options. It challenged this arrangement in court, claiming that the government could accomplish its goal of expanding access to contraceptives without forcing business owners to violate their religious beliefs. "Given that the government was already providing an accommodation to a whole bunch of other types of groups, it didn't have any good reason for denying one to Hobby Lobby," said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.