When David Green started his family-owned business 40 years ago, it was an enterprise housed in a garage, financed by a $600 bank loan. The first retail store, he recalled in a recent article for USA Today, “wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word.” Forty years later, it appears that the faith and the work have been abundantly rewarded. The company, Hobby Lobby, is now one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.
But the faith of Green and his family stands to be penalized, not rewarded, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that requires coverage of contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, with no deductibles or co-pay, in the health insurance employers provide for their workers. Green, a devout Baptist, says his...