Supreme Court halts contraception mandate for religious groups

[Jim Lane]

57. Remember that it's just a temporary stay.

One standard for granting such a stay in federal court, IIRC (I'm almost always in state court these days), is that there's a fair question on the merits (i.e., neither side has an obviously ridiculous position), and there's a significant imbalance of hardships. Here, the argument probably was that if stay is denied and the appellants end up winning, then the hardship is that in the meantime they will have been unconstitutionally forced to act against their religious beliefs. On the other hand, if the stay is granted and the appellants end up losing, then the hardship is that some people will have to wait a little longer for insurance coverage for abortion or contraception or whatever else may be involved.

As to the first point, religious issues of this sort usually aren't as clear-cut as the DU consensus would make them seem. There are vast gray areas caused by the tension between two parts of the First Amendment: the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. Under the former, the government can't compel people to do things that go against their religion. Under the latter, people with religious beliefs can't be given an exemption from laws that affect everyone else. Such exemptions are therefore both required and prohibited. Sotomayor wants this difficult decision to be made by the entire Court after full briefing and oral argument by both sides. I can't fault her for that, under the federal standards for granting a stay.