article_snippet.sent: (CNN)The United States has seemingly erupted this week about what CNN)The United States means to live your religion, especially in Indiana, where United States new Religious Freedom Restoration Act faces a firestorm from critics who say United States uses faith as a pretext to discriminate against gay people.
article_snippet.sent: Such state laws have been growing ever since the U.S. Religious Freedom Restoration Act became law in 1993, designed to prohibit the federal government from "substantially burdening" a person's exercise of religion.
article_snippet.sent: So far, 20 states have some version of the religious liberty law, and the legal controversies have grown, too.
article_snippet.sent: Nonetheless, claims under those state RFRAs are "exceedingly rare," and victories involved mostly religious minorities, not Christian denominations, experts say.
article_snippet.sent: There is reason to doubt whether these state-level religious liberty provisions truly provide meaningful protections for religious believers," wrote Wayne State University law professor Christopher Lund in a 2010 analysis, when there were only 16 states with such laws.
article_snippet.sent: Here are some of the more interesting cases arising from the federal and state laws, touching upon an array of religious matters from a knife carried by an IRS accountant to a tea from the Amazon: .
article_snippet.sent: Invoking a religious freedom law and related statutes doesn't always equate to victory.