Title: Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 | The First Amendment Encyclopedia
Headings: The First Amendment Encyclopedia
The First Amendment Encyclopedia
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (1993)
By David Schultz (Updated September 2017 by David L. Hudson Jr.)
Congress passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act after First Amendment free exercise case
RFRA said courts have to use strict scrutiny when examining laws relating to religious freedom
Court limited RFRA, cited separation of powers
Congress created a narrower religious liberty law
Court used RFRA to uphold Hobby Lobby's religious-based exemption to federal health care law

Content: Congress created a narrower religious liberty law
Moreover, in Gonzales v. O Centro Espi­rita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal (2006) the Court ruled that the RFRA was valid as it applied to the federal government. The debate between Congress and the Supreme Court over the level of religious liberty protection remains ongoing. After the Court’s decision in Boerne, Congress responded with a narrower religious liberty law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The Court rejected an establishment clause challenge to institutionalized persons aspect of RLUIPA in Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005). Kristin Hughs, left, announces to supporters the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby case in Washington in 2014. The Supreme Court applied the RFRA to corporations and said they can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women. ( AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, used with permission from the Associated Press)
Court used RFRA to uphold Hobby Lobby's religious-based exemption to federal health care law
The most recent controversy regarding RFRA concerns its application to corporations. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court determined that closely held corporations were persons within the meaning of RFRA and could assert a religious-based exemption to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to having to provide contraceptive coverage for employees. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, writing that “ [although the court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public, or private.” Later, the Court in Zubik v. Burwell (2016) vacated judgments from four federal courts of appeals – the Third, Fifth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits – that had found that federal regulations requiring employers to provide contraception coverage to their employees did not violate non-profit religious organization-employers’ religious liberty rights under the RFRA.