From the White House press briefing yesterday; the first question was about the Hobby Lobby ruling.

The Supreme Court ruled today that some bosses can now withhold contraceptive care from their employees’ health coverage based on their own religious views that their employees may not even share.  President Obama believes that women should make personal health care decisions for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them.

Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of women who are employed by these companies.  As millions of women know firsthand, contraception is often vital to their health and wellbeing.  That’s why the Affordable Care Act ensures that women have coverage for contraceptive care, along with other preventative care like vaccines and cancer screenings.

We will work with Congress to make sure that any women affected by this decision will still have the same coverage of vital health services as everyone else.

President Obama believes strongly in the freedom of religion.  That’s why we’ve taken steps to ensure that no religious institution will have to pay or provide for contraceptive coverage.  We’ve also made accommodations for non-profit religious organizations that object to contraception on religious grounds.  But we believe that the owners of for-profit companies should not be allowed to assert their personal religious views to deny their employees federally mandated benefits.

Now, we’ll of course respect the Supreme Court ruling and we’ll continue to look for ways to improve Americans’ health by helping women have more, not less, say over the personal health decisions that affect them and their families.

That crap about the freedom of religion is crap. Religious institutions and non-profit religious organizations shouldn’t get special exemptions from laws that apply to everyone else – and that includes employment laws; religious institutions should not be exempt from equal employment laws; yes even as applied to the clergy. As Amanda Kneif pointed out yesterday, Obama made a big damn mistake carving out those special exemptions. One Law For All, people.