JAMES TARANTO NOTES THE NEW YORK TIMES’ INCONSISTENCY:

“Three years ago the Supreme Court threw away decades of precedent and watered down the religious liberty of all Americans. . . . By radically changing the ground rules for deciding claims of religious liberty, the Court alarmed organized religion, civil liberties organizations of all stripes and Senators as different in outlook as Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Orrin Hatch of Utah. . . . The Religious Freedom Restoration Act reasserts a broadly accepted American concept of giving wide latitude to religious practices that many might regard as odd or unconventional. The bill deserves passage. . . . With the Restoration Act, Congress asserts its own interest in protecting religious liberty. It’s a welcome antidote to the official insensitivity to religion the Court spawned in 1990.”–editorial, New York Times, Oct. 25, 1993

“The Supreme Court’s deeply dismaying decision on Monday in the Hobby Lobby case swept aside accepted principles of corporate law and religious liberty. . . . It was the first time the court has allowed commercial business owners to deny employees a federal benefit to which they are entitled by law based on the owners’ religious beliefs, and it was a radical departure from the court’s history of resisting claims for religious exemptions from neutral laws of general applicability.”–editorial, New York Times, July 1, 2014

Well, the tone of blustering moral superiority is consistent.