Obama Admin Tells Court: Hobby Lobby Must Obey HHS Mandate
The Obama administration told a federal court today that the Christian business Hobby Lobby must obey the HHS mandate that forces religious companies to pay for drugs for women that may cause abortions.
The administration’s arguments in this case are shocking. Here’s what they are saying: once someone starts a “secular” business, he categorically loses any right to run that business in accordance with his conscience. The business owner simply leaves her First Amendment rights at home when she goes to work at the business she built. Kosher butchers around the country must be shocked to find that they now run “secular” businesses. On this view of the world, even a seller of Bibles is “secular.” Hobby Lobby’s affiliate, Mardel, sells Bibles and other Christian-themed material, but because it makes a profit the government has now declared it “secular.”...