How Hobby Lobby supporters talk about "religious liberty": 5 outrageous quotes that show it's all about sex Court briefs from Hobby Lobby's supporters show how the case is all about controlling women's sex lives

Hobby Lobby executives and other conservative opponents of the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act have argued that the legal challenge before the Supreme Court right now is about "religious liberty" -- not controlling women's access to healthcare or their personal lives.

That veneer falls away pretty quickly when you read the court briefs filed in support of Hobby Lobby, which are almost uniformly about controlling women's sexuality and the apparent horrors of decoupling sex from reproduction.

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It should probably be noted that virtually everything these groups claim about birth control (including calling it an "abortifacient") is wrong. For actual information about birth control, please see here.

Here are five excerpts (emphasis added):

Beverly Lahaye Institute

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Relying entirely on the 2011 IOM Report, the Government asserts that by increasing access to contraceptives, the Mandate will promote public health by decreasing unintended pregnancies. At the risk of stating the obvious, getting pregnant is not like catching a contagious disease. If the Government intends to broaden the definition of ‘women’s health and well-being,’ and thus the goal of the Mandate, to include non-health related concepts such as emotional well-being and economic prosperity, then it should likewise have considered the documented negative effects the widespread availability of contraceptives has on women’s ability to enter into and maintain desired marital relationships. This in turn leads to decreased emotional wellbeing and economic stability (out-of-wedlock childbearing being a chief predictor of female poverty), as well as deleterious physical health consequences arising from, inter alia, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence.

American Freedom Law Center

Thus, it has come to pass that the widespread use of contraceptives has indeed harmed women physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually — and has, in many respects, reduced her to the “mere instrument for the satisfaction of [man’s] own desires.” Consequently, the promotion of contraceptive services — the very goal of the challenged mandate — harms not only women, but it harms society in general by ‘open[ing] wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.’ Responsible men and women cannot deny this truth.