The question was whether this was a legitimate claim under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act: Did the mandate "substantially" burden these companies' ability to practice their religion, and did the government have an alternative way to accomplish its goal of providing contraceptive access? For that matter, could companies even have religious-freedom rights?

The Court said "yes" to all three of those questions, but in doing so, it has created a lot of ire.

To some extent, this is like any other issue that gets split into two false sides: All the links above are statements from groups with a vested interest in making their particular viewpoints seem like facts. That's to be expected: It's the job of PR people to spin issues to their advantage.

But in this case, PR mirrors real life—or at least the rhetoric of the Supreme Court. The decision in the case clocks in at 49 pages authored by Justice Samuel Alito, followed by a 35-page dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (plus four pages of concurring commentary by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan). Throughout, Alito and Ginsburg write about the complaint in entirely different terms: Where he sees religious liberty, she sees a violation of women's rights.

This is clearest in the statements each justice chose to open with. Toward the end of his summary of the Court's decision, Alito puts on his well-worn moral philosopher's hat, questioning how deeply the justices can get involved in theological questions. "The belief of the Hahns and Greens implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy," he writes. "Namely, the circumstances under which it is immoral for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another." This is a reference to one of the main questions in the case: whether having to pay for contraceptives actually counts as a substantial burden on someone's religious beliefs.

Ginsburg, on the other hand, quotes a 1992 case that involved Planned Parenthood: "The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” She later takes issue with Alito's ventures into moral philosophy, saying it "is as wrongheaded as can be. In no way does the dissent 'tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed.'" The question is about women's rights, or "whether accommodating [a religious freedom] claim risks depriving others of rights accorded them by the laws of the United States."

But as John J. Dilulio Jr., the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, writes over at Brookings, "Love it or loathe it, the Hobby Lobby decision is limited in scope." It's about how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to this particular objection from Hobby Lobby and other "closely held" companies, or businesses that are mostly owned by a small group of people who also happen to run them. And the Court went out of its way to clarify that their ruling does not apply to other possible medical objections, like blood transfusions and vaccinations.