The Supreme Court Nov.
26 will consider whether to accept one or more of four cases it's being
asked to review that deal with faith-based objections to provisions of
the Affordable Care Act.
Part of what's at stake is a couple of
centuries' worth of history for the Free Exercise clause of the First
Amendment, as well as the durability and reach of the
Religious Freedom
Restoration Act.
RFRA, as the 1993 law is known, was the result of
concerted lobbying by an interfaith coalition allied to repair what was
seen as damage to religious rights from a 1990 Supreme Court ruling.
As
noted by panelists at a Nov. 7 conference sponsored by the Freedom
Forum, in the 20 years since RFRA passed, the debate over religious
liberty has shifted in ways its advocates never anticipated.
Indeed,
some of those who worked side-by-side to pass RFRA now are on opposite
sides of those lawsuits over the Affordable Care Act.
In short, they
disagree about what's more at risk: the right of people of faith to be
free from laws that clash with their religious beliefs, or, the right of
people to be protected from laws that affect them being shaped by
religious beliefs they don't hold.