A broad decision or a narrow one?

Is there any case to be made that liberals should support the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision yesterday?

After all, some who are left of center maintain that we should be broadly supportive of the sort of freedom of conscience the decision prioritizes. Conservatives aren’t the only ones with consciences, after all, and the shoe will at some point be on the other foot. That makes a measure of sense.

Then there are the particulars of Justice Alito’s decision. Yes, the government may have other means of ensuring that people have contraception coverage—and turning things back to the feds may ultimately ensure wider coverage. Add Alito’s move to explicitly narrow the decision to the contraception mandate itself—as opposed to being a precedent for all manner of claims, inflected religiously—and you basically have a small-bore decision that does a fair job of balancing the competing interests. Sure, that makes a certain amount of sense, too.