Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) was an attempt by the U.S. Congress to reinstate the compelling state interest standard of judicial review of state laws that was abandoned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990) for a standard that stated that the law must be one of equal applicability between secular and religious groups. The act recognizes that the government must respect the free exercise of religion, an unalienable right in the eyes of the U.S. Constitution framers. The act also states that while a law may be neutral toward religion, it may nevertheless pose a burden on citizens’ free rights to exercise their religion. Congress saw this as a governmental intrusion ...