The protracted nationwide ruckus over the Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby” ruling has been astounding to witness.

One would think that the case carries monumental importance, that people have been grievously injured, that repercussions from the decision will reverberate for decades to come.

Hardly. 

This was a narrowly defined decision recognizing that the family that owns the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts retail chain does not have to provide its employees insurance covering birth control that is at odds with their religious beliefs.

Yet critics of the decision are in a lather, claiming that it denies employees, particularly women, “access to health care.”

Hogwash. That is a misleading and widely used mischaracterization of the ruling that almost suggests birth control has been banned. Nobody is being denied anything, at least not on a scale that warrants the outrage that has been generated.

Critics conveniently disregard the fact that Hobby Lobby insurance still covers 16 out of 20 federally approved birth-control methods.

From there, the critics take the line of argument that employers are now free to impose their religious views on their employees, as if contraception is and always has been a right that employers owe their workers in their insurance plans.

But that simply hasn’t been the case, at least not until the Affordable Care Act came along with its contraception mandate. 

Think about that term: “contraception mandate.” This is a concept that was unheard-of prior to the Obama administration. 

This is what happens when government meddles in something along the lines of insurance, requiring things from employers that once were considered the responsibility of individuals. It’s as if car insurers were required to provide insurance plans that paid for oil changes and wiper fluid refills.

The Hobby Lobby case, like many others, is really about government control and coercion, a law forcing employers to implement the will of the federal government. And Obamacare insurance is full of coercive provisions, starting with its main premise of requiring people to purchase insurance, whether they want it or not, or else face tax penalties.

Why is it that an elderly woman can end up with an Obamacare insurance policy that includes birth control and child delivery coverage that she doesn’t need or want? 

One of the other standard fuming complaints about the Hobby Lobby ruling is that corporations aren’t people and therefore they don’t need religious liberty. But that is a plainly unconstitutional position.

People do not surrender their rights to religious conscience and beliefs simply because they create a place for people to work that becomes incorporated. And the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was narrowly defined in a way that would exclude a publicly traded multinational corporation, for example, from making a constitutional claim similar to the family-owned Hobby Lobby chain.

“Protecting free exercise of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them,” the majority wrote.

And justly so. 

If not for one single justice ensuring a 5-4 majority, it could have been a ruling that would strip people who own businesses of their right to religious freedom and conscience. That would be a true outrage.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.