In recent weeks, the news has been dominated with stories on the significant U.S. Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, 573 U.S. ____ (2014), which laid out, at least in part, how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) interacts with the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA, also known as Obamacare) in the context of the mandatory contraception coverage.
The terms of the RFRA prohibit the “government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” The aforesaid prohibition only applies if it can be demonstrated that the law from which the exception is sought is not in furtherance of a compelling government interest and/or is the least restrictive means to accomplish that compelling government interest.
