Hobby Lobby wins: Where do we go from here?

By Ed Stetzer

The U. S. Supreme Court has given the Obama administration (and, hopefully the world) a lesson in religious liberty—the government cannot (and must not) require people of faith to violate their sincerely-held beliefs.

The High Court’s Ruling

The ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties underscores religious liberty as our “first freedom.” The freedom to exercise religion, enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, has been called “the cornerstone of the American experiment” because it is from our religious freedom all of our other freedoms flow.

Before the ruling, former U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr pointed out that religious liberty was certainly at stake behind the legalese of the arguments being made by the U.S. government:

If the Supreme Court accepts the government’s formalistic argument (that a corporation cannot exercise a right tao free exercise of religion), it will deal an unnecessary blow to the cause of religious liberty and simply create incentives for families of conscience to carry on their business enterprise in another form. The Greens will, win or lose, be able to carry on and continue their admirable mission to serve a cause higher and nobler than their own commercial success. But something very valuable—the nation’s historic commitment to religious freedom—will have been needlessly compromised.

The Court has, at least in part, agreed. You can read the PDF of the Court’s decision here.

Read more at http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/june/hobby-lobby-wins.html