Why liberals should cheer the Hobby Lobby decision - The Week
Which is unfortunate. Because liberals should be cheering the decision on.
The notion that liberalism is primarily an ideology of personal liberation and social egalitarianism an ideology imposed, upheld, and enforced by the government uniformly across civil society has become widespread among American liberals only in the past few decades. Prior to that time, liberalism was understood to be a system of institutions designed both to protect individual liberty and to foster a robust civil society in which those individuals can freely join together in collective pursuit of various and often conflicting visions of the human good. Churches are one important part of such a civil society, but so are corporations.
Yes, liberals should uphold individual rights, but they should also uphold the freedom of private entities like churches and businesses to maintain their religiously based identities, even when part of that identity clashes with the rights of individuals.
But it's also a liberal position to accept that not everyone agrees with the liberal position on every issue and that those who dissent remain our neighbors and fellow citizens. This is their country, too. Until liberals begin taking that vision of tolerant generosity to heart, they will fall short of what liberalism at its best demands and requires.
