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Too Heavy A Burden: Testing Complicity-Based Claims Under The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Kaleb Brooks

Indiana Law Journal

This Note argues that courts ought to recognize, in the context of complicity-based claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a sound distinction between burdens on religious conduct, which enjoy protection, and burdens on mere religious sentiment. In light of the structure of complicity-based claims, such a distinction between conduct and sentiment is the only sound approach that respects the Act’s requirements. The Note reaches this conclusion through a survey of the various complicity-based challenges to the Health and Human Services contraceptive care mandate for religious non-profit employers under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the period between Burwell …