Reading Hobby Lobby in Context

[lsanderson]

Reading Hobby Lobby in Context
JULY 9, 2014
Linda Greenhouse

To grasp the full implications of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, it helps to read it not in isolation but alongside the court’s other major religion case of the term, Town of Greece v. Galloway. Issued eight weeks before Hobby Lobby and decided by the same 5 to 4 division, Town of Greece rejected a challenge to a town board’s practice of beginning its public sessions with a Christian prayer. A federal appeals court found the practice unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by conveying an official endorsement of one particular religion. Moar