Recent court decisions have highlighted the ongoing controversy over the scope of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) contraceptive coverage requirement and, more generally, whether religious freedom rights extend to commercial entities as well as nonprofits and individuals. Although illustrated by the contraceptive coverage requirement, the question of whether secular, for-profit entities qualify for religious freedom protections reaches farther than the ongoing debate over ACA. Congress has enacted a number of exemptions to accommodate religious objections to legislative requirements, but those exemptions generally have been limited to individuals and nonprofit organizations. That is, for-profit entities' right to exercise religion generally has not been recognized in existing law. Litigation of the contraceptive coverage requirement as well as cases involving commercial entities' objections to providing services for same-sex wedding ceremonies reflects heightened attention in courts to the question of accommodation for such objections. Several federal courts and some state decisions that have considered the issue have reached different conclusions, and the U.S. Supreme Court, by granting certiorari in Conestoga and Hobby Lobby Store , appears poised to provide guidance on this issue in the future. This report examines the constitutional and statutory protections related to free exercise of religion, including current Supreme Court interpretations, as well as judicial and legislative avoidance of defining the parameters of religious belief. It also discusses significant examples of existing religious exemptions in current law, including employment nondiscrimination, health care, and public accommodations law. Finally, it analyzes recent federal judicial decisions that have considered the religious freedom rights of commercial entities whose owners have religious objections to the contraceptive coverage requirement. Since 1879, the Supreme Court has drawn an important distinction in religious freedom cases, noting that religious exercise includes both protection of religious beliefs and actions based on those beliefs. The Court has permitted the government to regulate actions stemming from religious belief, but not the religious belief itself. Over time, the constitutional protection against interference with religious beliefs has been augmented by statute. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.... " Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court had interpreted the Free Exercise Clause to require that the government show a compelling interest for any government action that interfered with a person's exercise of religious beliefs. However, in 1990, the Court reinterpreted that standard, issuing a decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith in which the Court explained that the Free Exercise Clause never "relieve[s] an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability." The Court's decision lowered the constitutional baseline of protection, meaning that laws that do not specifically target religion are not subject to heightened review under the First Amendment. Accordingly, it is less likely that individuals and entities with religious objections will be able to argue successfully for constitutional protection from laws that only incidentally burden their religious exercise. The Court's decision in Smith emphasized that the legislature remained free to consider whether an exemption for the accommodation of religious exercise would be appropriate through the political process, even if the exemption were not required as a matter of constitutional law. In other words, religious exemptions generally are a matter of legislative discretion under current Court jurisprudence. Congress responded to Smith by enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which essentially reinstated the heightened standard of protection applied to government actions that interfered with the free exercise of religion. RFRA requires that a statute or regulation of general applicability may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it (1) furthers a compelling governmental interest and (2) uses the least restrictive means to further that interest. RFRA has been interpreted to apply only to federal government actions, but it should be noted that state legislatures have enacted similar protection against interference with religious exercise by state government actions. Legal protection under RFRA is a matter of statutory law, meaning that a future Congress may choose to preempt RFRA or otherwise amend the protection it provides. One of the principles underlying the First Amendment is the prevention of government interference with religious institutions and matters of religion. The Court has long recognized that such institutions have a right to address their internal matters independently and without interference from government institutions. Furthermore, such action by the government likely would entangle the legal system in an inquiry of religious doctrine, suggesting the type of probing interference historically considered unconstitutional by the Court. The Court has explained that the First Amendment ensures the freedom to believe, even if those beliefs cannot be proven, and thus has prohibited courts from judging the veracity of religious beliefs. Accordingly, Congress and the Court have refused to define with specificity what constitutes religion. While courts must avoid determining the validity of religious beliefs, at times it may be necessary to determine whether beliefs would qualify as religious for certain purposes, including religious exemptions for statutory requirements. To do so, the Supreme Court has explained that the test for whether a belief is religious depends on whether the belief is sincerely held and whether it is applied consistently by the objector. This test illustrates a subjective standard by which courts evaluate the religious practice of parties challenging interference with religious exercise. Legislative attempts to define religion have reflected similar aversion to stating explicitly the parameters of religious belief, practice, or exercise. Statutory definitions related to religion often use the word to define itself. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes an exemption for religious institutions and is often used as a model for exemptions in other contexts. Title VII defines religion to include "all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.... " Religious practices and observances are defined "to include moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views." The aversion of courts and legislatures to identify specific parameters of religion often leads to the adoption of general exemptions. If an exemption is specifically tailored to identify particular religions that would qualify, it may violate the Establishment Clause by indicating a preference of particular sects or exclusion of others. However, if the exemption is offered generally to individuals or entities having a religious belief in conflict with the requirement interfering with religious practice, it likely will meet the subjective standard used by the court and avoid both the appearance of preferential treatment in violation of the Establishment Clause as well as the infringement on religious exercise in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. The statutory exemptions discussed below attempt to accommodate religious objections to legislative mandates. These exemptions are limited to the statutory context in which they were adopted and, therefore, the definitions enacted in statute or adopted by courts cannot be conferred to other contexts automatically, unless the exemption was written in such a way that cross-references one exemption to incorporate it into another. These exemptions and their interpretations serve as examples of how Congress and the courts have addressed the scope of religious objections thus far. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their religious beliefs and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees' religious practices. However, Congress has recognized that while these provisions protect employees' religious exercise, restrictions on employment decisions by religious employers may interfere with the employer's religious practices. As a result, Title VII includes exemptions for religious entities, allowing qualifying employers to consider religion in hiring decisions. The general exemption available to religious organizations states that the prohibition against religious discrimination does not apply to "a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities." Title VII also includes a separate, but similar exemption that applies specifically to religious educational institutions. That exemption allows educational institutions "to hire and employ employees of a particular religion if [the institution] is, in whole or in substantial part, owned, supported, controlled, or managed by a particular religion or by a particular [religious organization], or if the curriculum of [the institution] is directed toward the propagation of a particular religion." Title VII's religious exemption often is used as a model for other religious exemptions, but it does not define which organizations would qualify for exemption. The Supreme Court has declined to review cases in which the parameters of the exception are unclear, and courts have not established a uniform standard, though many have considered the issue. For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained that an entity would qualify for exemption "if it is organized for a religious purpose, is engaged primarily in carrying out that purpose, holds itself out to the public as an entity for carrying out that purpose, and does not engage primarily or substantially in the exchange of goods or services for money beyond nominal amounts." Overall, lower courts generally have appeared to agree upon several factors relevant to deciding whether an organization qualifies for exemption, including (1) the purpose or mission of the organization; (2) the ownership, affiliation, or source of financial support of the organization; (3) requirements placed upon staff and members of the organization; and (4) the extent of religious practices in or the religious nature of the products and services offered by the organization and whether it operates for a profit. As discussed earlier in this report, the contraceptive coverage requirement enacted under ACA has brought the debate over which organizations qualify as "religious" in order to claim legal protection from generally applicable policy mandates. The contraceptive coverage requirement requires that group health plans and health insurance issuers provide coverage for certain preventive health services, including a range of contraceptives, without imposing cost-sharing requirements. Among the stated goals and benefits of the preventive health services requirements at issue are the improvement of public health and the equitable distribution of costs for preventive services, both of which have been deemed compelling interests by courts when considering claims of interference with religious exercise. However, some employers have objected to the requirement for contraceptive coverage, arguing that doing so would mean facilitating access to services that directly conflict with their religious beliefs regarding human reproduction.