Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to provide objectionable forms of birth control (abortifacients) to its employees, because paying for that would violate sincere religious beliefs held by its owners.

That’s what most moderately-informed Americans are likely to take away from the most recent Supreme Court decision in favor of the family-owned company. Some conservatives have expressed disappointment that the decision, as written by Justice Samuel Alito, wasn’t broader, and the precedent it set was indeed deliberately narrow. But it’s still a win for religious liberty, and after the debacle last winter concerning Arizona’s Senate Bill 1062, it’s good to have another chance to present religious liberty, and in particular the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), in a more positive light.

We should seize that chance. Americans are in real danger of losing sight of the value of religious freedom. Coming off a victory like this, we need to redouble our efforts to explain to them why they should care.

First, They Came For The Christians

Defenders of religious liberty can sometimes find it difficult to infuse real pathos into their arguments, especially because the cases around which our legislation is often shaped tend to be unsympathetic. People ask themselves: am I personally bothered if religious universities or hospitals or businesses give contraceptives to their employees? Do I find it offensive if Christian bakers service same-sex weddings? It’s never easy to be in the position of defending people’s right to be (as much of the public will see it) in error. It can be hard to move ordinary past considerations of the rightness or wrongness of the belief itself.

Then there are the people who just don’t care. Violations of religious liberty don’t leave starving orphans or war-torn villages in their wake, so ordinary voters aren’t easily energized about them.

Everyone understands, of course, that religious freedom has limits. Our respect for religious faith must sometimes take a back seat to other serious public interests. No one is suggesting, for example, that we should ever permit honor killings or human sacrifice in the name of religious liberty. Still, a sincere belief shouldn’t have to be clearly right (or popular!) in order to be protected. This is the basic point that the public needs to understand, and often doesn’t.

We’ve all read multiple histrionic missives on the Health and Human Services mandate, in which angry women argue that it’s unreasonable for them to be denied contraceptives on the basis of someone else’s religious views. Many voters actually seem to think there’s a worry that women will be forcibly prevented from contracepting because their employers don’t want them to. Of course there has never been any question of that happening, but the fact that we constantly need to clarify the point only shows how far astray the discussion has wandered.

We need to refocus it, and quickly. Americans need to understand that religious liberty is good for the nation; it’s not just a form of right-wing special pleading. Here are the three ways of promoting religious freedom that are specifically tailored for your liberally-inclined friends and relatives.

1) Personal Integrity Matters

We have always prided ourselves on being the kind of society in which earnest and hardworking people can live in the way they think is right. The Pilgrims came here looking for that kind of freedom, and we still want people to be able to pursue the good life in accord with their personal convictions.

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