There is nothing new here. The only time a religious objection has been used successfully to challenge a civil rights law pertains to marital status. That's because states have undermined their claim of a compelling interest by doing precisely what they tell religious people they can't do-discriminate against the unmarried. And well they should. When it comes to behavior rather than immutable characteristics such as race and gender, one person's discrimination is another person's morality.
Religious liberty is a civil right.
Still, political reality must be faced. In the United States Senate, where a single senator can block a bill until 60 of his colleagues vote him down, the opposition of the civil rights community coupled with the home schoolers and others from the right may prove insurmountable. The Supreme Court has complicated matters further with a series of decisions that curtail Congress's power to legislate under the commerce clause. Unless the activity to be regulated has a substantial impact on interstate commerce, it may lie beyond Congress's regulatory reach. The upshot of this is that the religious community is scrambling for a solution.