In 1620, the Pilgrims landed in New England in search of freedom from the religious persecution they had endured in England, and they were followed a decade later by the Puritans for the very same reason. Freedom of religion was ultimately made a constitutional right in the United States, included in the First Amendment alongside freedom of speech and freedom of the press; these rights were added to the US Constitution in 1791 along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. While conflicts between established, new, and controversial religions still inevitably erupted in subsequent centuries, the principle of protecting the freedom to live by one's religious convictions remained an American ideal.
In 1990, the Supreme Court case Employment Division, …show more content…
The 1993 RFRA was designed with minority religious groups and their protection in mind. The law stated that the US government "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability." The bill applied a doctrine from a previous case known as the Sherbert test, which set a standard of "strict scrutiny" for any case where the government would be infringing on an individual's freedom of religious exercise; this is the strongest possible form of judicial review and requires a "compelling interest" for interfering with such a …show more content…
Flores saw the court rule that the RFRA only applies to cases where the federal government is directly involved, not to individual states or their legislatures. States then began passing their own versions of the RFRA, generally referred to as RFRAs or religious freedom laws, to ensure similar religious protections at the state level. These were passed with little fanfare until several events in the 2010s changed the legal and cultural landscape in the United States. First, in 2010, President Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known colloquially as "Obamacare") -- a statute of which requires that employers provide female employees access to birth control at no cost via insurance. This caused friction between the federal law and businesses run by conservative religious individuals, who felt providing contraception to their employees would violate the religious principles by which they ran their companies. Furthermore, contraception had already been a topic of massive legal and cultural debate throughout the United States for many
In 1990, the Supreme Court case Employment Division, …show more content…
The 1993 RFRA was designed with minority religious groups and their protection in mind. The law stated that the US government "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability." The bill applied a doctrine from a previous case known as the Sherbert test, which set a standard of "strict scrutiny" for any case where the government would be infringing on an individual's freedom of religious exercise; this is the strongest possible form of judicial review and requires a "compelling interest" for interfering with such a …show more content…
Flores saw the court rule that the RFRA only applies to cases where the federal government is directly involved, not to individual states or their legislatures. States then began passing their own versions of the RFRA, generally referred to as RFRAs or religious freedom laws, to ensure similar religious protections at the state level. These were passed with little fanfare until several events in the 2010s changed the legal and cultural landscape in the United States. First, in 2010, President Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known colloquially as "Obamacare") -- a statute of which requires that employers provide female employees access to birth control at no cost via insurance. This caused friction between the federal law and businesses run by conservative religious individuals, who felt providing contraception to their employees would violate the religious principles by which they ran their companies. Furthermore, contraception had already been a topic of massive legal and cultural debate throughout the United States for many