The "Hobby Lobby case": What's it really about?

As part of the liberal-minded world erupts in tremendous anger over the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. et al (going so far as the encourage people to engage in sexual relations inside Hobby Lobby stores and even to burn the stores down), it might be good to take a breath and consider what is really at the heart of the matter.

Though many of those dissatisfied with the decision of the Supreme Court claim the decision restricts access to contraception and harms women's overall health, Katrina (a.k.a. the Crescat) rightly points out, "you are not going to die from not having sex." More to the point, contraception was not the issue of the case, as the decision clearly states.

Of the twenty (20!) different forms of "birth control" required under the HHS mandate (which was not passed by the Congress and is not actually part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), Hobby Lobby willingly paid for sixteen (16!) of them.

Here we should pause to ask an important question, which Katrina brilliantly asks:

So I ask – birth control of all things?! I mean of all the drugs out there that people actually need to survive, why something as selective as birth control. No one is going to go into heart failure, kidney failure or diabetic shock without their Yaz. So what the hell, people! I seriously don’t know how anyone can legitimately think free contraception is a dandy idea and a good use of tax payer and government funds. 

I could have asked every single one of my patients what drug they would love to have for free and I can guarantee not a single one of them would’ve said, “Hook me up with some free condoms and pills, please.” Has anyone in our administration ever even met a sick person or someone suffering from a chronic disease and asked them what medications they would like Uncle Sam to foot the bill for?

The government has not yet offered to pay for my arthritis medicine, which I need to move each day. Why? No one will - or, perhaps, can - answer her question.

Back to the case in question. The four forms of contraception to which Hobby Lobby objects (one device and three medicines) do not prevent conception, but instead prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg; this is not contraception but abortion, as even the Obama administration has admitted.

N.B.: The issue before the Supreme Court was not contraception, but abortion and the free exercise of religion (even if the media and liberal politicians maintain otherwise, as only someone who has not read the decision could do).

So the rhetoric of the "war on women" goes on, despite the fact that a majority of the decisions that led to the declaration of the HHS mandate as unconstitutional were given by female judges:

All of this is irritating and frustrating because it is dishonest, immature, and illogical, but more troubling to me are arguments that go along the lines of this meme:

This is another immature and illogical argument, but one far more dangerous because of its lie and deception.

On a friend's Facebook page yesterday, I showed the error of this meme:

So far as I can tell, Islam does not accept abortion as morally licit. At the heart of the Hobby Lobby case was not contraception, but abortifacients. That being the case, inserting "Islam" in place of "Christian" - or even along side it - wouldn't actually change anything.

While it may be true that some Christians would be opposed to the above scenario, I do not think I know any of them. Certainly, the Catholic Church advocates for the free exercise of religion in general and not only of her own, as was clearly stated with the Second Vatican Council's declaration Dignitatis Humanae.

I have never before quoted anything from Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a., the Mormons), but this quote seems especially apt here:

If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing before Heaven to die for a 'Mormon,' I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbytarian [sic], a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves.

The issue at hand is the free exercise of religion - of any religion - as protected by the First Amendment. I am unaware of any religion that claims the use of abortifacients on religious grounds.