Two centuries ago, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote admiringly that the early Americans had “brought to the New World a Christianity that can best be described as democratic and republican….From the beginning, politics and religion were in harmony, and have remained so ever since.” That, he believed, prevented the excesses and the abuses of power of the French Revolution. After last week, however, the harmony of politics and religion is now in doubt.

It is no accident that the same Court decided to entrench the power of the federal government–not just to carry out a staggeringly huge policy like Obamacare, but also to distort the plain meaning of the law on which that policy is based. The decline of tradition and the family only offers incidental liberties to the individual: in the long run, it emboldens the state.