Pat Vaughn
AFA general counsel
September 2014 – Christians in the old Soviet Union were excluded from many schools and professions that were reserved for Communist Party members. Although the Soviet constitution promised religious freedom, Christians were marginalized because their faith would not allow them to embrace the Communist Party’s atheism.
This summer, God used two Christian families, the Greens of Hobby Lobby Stores and the Hahns of Conestoga Wood Specialties, to save Christians in the U.S. from Soviet style marginalization.
By a 5-4 decision in the case Burwell v Hobby Lobby, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious liberty for people engaged in business.
It all started with passage of the Affordable Care Act, generally referred to as“ObamaCare.” The administration interpreted that law as requiring companies that 1) had more than 50 employees and 2) provided them with health insurance, to also provide abortion-inducing drugs to their employees.
Both Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties are owned by Christian families who are pro-life. The ObamaCare mandate would have forced them to choose between violating their consciences and being shut out of full participation in American commerce.
The Obama administration refused to offer religious accommodation, arguing that the government has no duty to respect the religious rights of a for-profit business, even if it is obviously being operated according to religious principles.
Moreover, the administration threatened the companies with crushing fines for non-compliance. The fines – adding up to more than $1 million a day – would have effectively closed those businesses. The pro-life owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood were literally risking their family businesses to stand against the demands of the federal government.
God heard the prayers of the Greens and Hahns and many other Christians, and on June 30 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even for-profit corporations operated according to religious principles have some protections available for those beliefs.
Those rights are protected under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which requires federal law to provide reasonable accommodation for religious persons wanting to exercise their First Amendment freedoms.
However, the Supreme Court ruling was not as far-reaching as many Christians had hoped. What did the decision say – and not say?
1. The Hobby Lobby decision means that under RFRA, corporations operated according to religious principles have some protection from federal laws or regulations that would violate those principles.
2. However, RFRA is a federal law. Protections for Christian businesses under state laws will vary depending on whether the state has adopted its own version of the federal statute.
3. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s ruling does not address state laws that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation when such laws collide with religious freedom claims. That means, for example, the Hobby Lobby decision does not automatically provide relief for florists, bakers and photographers who have been sued under state laws for refusing to participate in homosexual weddings. The high court’s decision does establish that those businesses have religious liberty rights, but depending on the laws of the state where they are located, those freedoms may or may not trump the state’s legal protection against anti-homosexual discrimination.
4. The Hobby Lobby decision reverses the trend toward viewing business and religion as totally independent from each other and perhaps in opposition.
Nevertheless, there are questions remaining that will need to be answered. For example, the Hobby Lobby ruling indicates that ObamaCare will be required to provide a better “accommodation” for religious organizations which object to covering abortificients under their employee health plans. However, what if the Obama administration’s accommodation is to provide these medications on the basis of the employer’s health plan, but the government pays for them? An employer would still have a connection to the provision of such drugs. That might still violate a strong pro-life conscience.
Still, the faithfulness of the Greens and Hahns has given beleaguered Christians some breathing room. In a society that has seen the advancement of secularist ideals for well over 50 years, that’s a step in the right direction. 
