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However, the RFRA itself has not been without its critics. While it has been relatively uncontroversial as applied to the rights of individuals, debate has emerged about whether businesses and other groups can be said to have religious liberty. In explicitly religious organizations, such as a fundamentalist congregation (fundamentalists adhere very strictly to biblical absolutes) or the Roman Catholic Church, it is fairly obvious members have a meaningful, shared religious belief. But the application of the RFRA has become more problematic in businesses and non-profit organizations whose owners or organizers may share a religious belief while the organization has some secular, non-religious purpose.
Such a conflict emerged in the 2014 Supreme Court case known as
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby .
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. , 573 U.S. __ (2014). The
Hobby Lobby chain of stores sells arts and crafts merchandise at hundreds of stores; its founder, David
Green , is a devout fundamentalist Christian whose beliefs include opposition to abortion and contraception. Consistent with these beliefs, he used his business to object to a provision of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) requiring employer-backed insurance plans to include no-charge access to the morning-after pill, a form of emergency contraception, arguing that this requirement infringed on his conscience. Based in part on the federal RFRA, the Supreme Court agreed 5–4 with Green and Hobby Lobby’s position and said that Hobby Lobby and other closely held businesses did not have to provide employees free access to emergency contraception or other birth control if doing so would violate the religious beliefs of the business’ owners, because there were other less restrictive ways the government could ensure access to these services for Hobby Lobby’s employees (e.g., paying for them directly).
In 2015, state RFRAs became controversial when individuals and businesses that provided wedding services (e.g., catering and photography) were compelled to provide these for same-sex weddings in states where the practice had been newly legalized (
[link] ). Proponents of state RFRA laws argued that people and businesses ought not be compelled to endorse practices their religious beliefs held to be immoral or indecent and feared clergy might be compelled to officiate same-sex marriages against their religion’s teachings. Opponents of RFRA laws argued that individuals and businesses should be required, per
Obergefell v. Hodges , to serve same-sex marriages on an equal basis as a matter of ensuring the civil rights of gays and lesbians, just as they would be obliged to cater or photograph an interracial marriage.
Obergefell v. Hodges , 576 U.S. ___ (2015).
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