By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office, and Brigitte Amiri, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. This piece is crossposted at the ACLU’s Washington Markup blog.
A federal court in Colorado recently put a temporary halt on the implementation of the Obama administration’s contraceptive coverage rule, with respect to one company. The contraceptive coverage rule requires insurance plans to cover contraception and stop routinely discriminating against women. The decision, if upheld, could pave the way for businesses to use their owners’ religion as an excuse to discriminate.
Here’s what happened, in a nutshell: Hercules Industries is a manufacturer of heating, ventilation, 
and air conditioning products that employs 265 workers. It argued that the contraceptive coverage regulation violated the company’s religious liberty because its owners are opposed to the use of birth control. Two similar lawsuits have been filed by other businesses, one in Michigan and one in Missouri.
Businesses exist to make money through commercial activity. By definition, their purpose is profit, not religious exercise. And for decades, the Supreme Court has recognized that entering into commercial activity means accepting that your faith cannot be imposed on those you employ. But Hercules Industries seeks to upend that common-sense rule. In its place, it proposes a theory that would let a business owner’s beliefs trump protections designed to safeguard workers – a radical break from our laws as we know them.