Contraceptive cases: One hearing, two dramas : SCOTUSblog

There's no doubt where I stand - NO business exception to the preventive care contraceptive mandate.  But there is a lot of doubt about Justice Kennedy and even about Justice Breyer (who is too rich a liberal for my taste).  Lyle Denniston does his usual masterful job in reporting on today's oral arguments in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. The stakes are high: Can an employer impose his/her own religious choices on employees, particularly women? - gwc
Argument recap: One hearing, two dramas : SCOTUSblog:
by Lyle Denniston

The Supreme Court, in a one-hour, twenty-eight minute session Tuesday, staged something like a two-act play on a revolving stage: first the liberals had their chance and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy gave them some help, and then the scene shifted entirely, and the conservatives had their chance — and, again, Kennedy provided them with some support.

So went the argument in the combined cases of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius.  The “contraceptive mandate” in the new federal health care law, challenged under federal law and the Constitution, fared well in the first scene, and badly in the second.

But the ultimate outcome, it seemed, will depend upon how Justice Kennedy makes up his mind.  There was very little doubt where the other eight Justices would wind up: split four to four.

In the first drama, Kennedy worried over the plight of women workers and he suggested that their interests could be protected with little cost to their employers.  In the second he worried over the plight of corporations owned by families opposed to abortion and he implied that forcing them to pay for it would be wrong.

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