[NYer]

Hobby Lobby owners noted that they also felt compelled by their religious beliefs to provide health insurance to their employees — including coverage for 16 different types of contraception (Hobby Lobby’s objection was to mandated abortifacient coverage).

This is an important distinction which the mainstream media is not addressing. Ping!

[colorado tanker]

Hardly anything reported about this case in the MSM is correct. Betcha hardly any of them know the opinion is based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress, not the First Amendment.

[Salvation]

**One of the main reasons the Obama administration’s arguments failed to convince five justices is that the federal government did not necessarily need to mandate employer-provided contraceptive coverage in order to ensure access to contraceptive coverage. For example, rather than mandating employer coverage, the government could have easily established its own program to provide or pay for contraceptive coverage:**

And it may happen that the government will pay for such contraceptive coverage......guess whose pocket that comes out of?

[Steve_Seattle]

Fact: A liberal 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

Liberal reaction: "Settled law!!!"

Fact: A conservative 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

Liberal reaction: "Activist right-wing judges!!! Shredding the Constitution!!! George Bush!!! American Taliban!!! Fascism!!!"

[ilgipper]

Thanks, Justice Roberts, for creating this mess.

[Alberta's Child]

Good summary. While today's court decision was drawn along very narrow lines, I believe they've opened an enormous hole in the ObamaCare mandate for many private employers. In this particular case one of the employers did not object to providing contraceptive coverage in general (only abortifacients), but the court's exact same reasoning would apply to another employer whose religious morals dictated that no coverage for contraceptives could be provided.

[nickcarraway]

This decision was actually a near total loss for conservatives.

[RKBA Democrat]

I would call this barely a win. Basically, a company that provided contraceptives didn’t have to provide a few abortifacients. While at the same time the oligarchs deemed that those with other medical religious objections wouldn’t necessarily be protected. So in effect they decided that there is politically correct religious objection, and politically incorrect religious objection.

[DoodleDawg]

This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice.

I find this kind of troubling. Is the court now saying that it decides what some religious beliefs are protected while others aren't? Some religious sects are opposed to vaccinations. Some are opposed to blood transfusions. If a member of those sects own a company are they forced to provide insurance services that violate their beliefs until they sue, take the case to the Supreme Court, and win?