Supreme Court takes up Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the contraception mandate

WASHINGTON (RNS) When two corporations—one owned by evangelicals and one owned by Mennonites—filed suit over the Affordable Care Act, they described their complaint in stark and fairly simple terms: The government is forcing them to either break the law or betray their faith.

But at the Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 25), nothing was so clear as the justices explored the murky territory where an employer’s religious rights collide with the interests of its employees or the government.

On the one side is the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain and Conestoga Wood Specialties cabinetry company, both owned by devout families. On the other is the federal government, which argues that the landmark 2010 health care law gives women a statutory right to choose among 20 methods of birth control.