The Supreme Court has granted certiorari on two cases involving for-profit corporations which brought claims pursuant to the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act against the federal government’s contraception mandate (which is part of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act). The two cases that the Court agreed to hear were the Hobby Lobby case out of the Tenth Circuit and the Conestoga Wood case out of the Third Circuit.

Note that these cases solely involve the issue of for-profit corporations. They do not concern the question of the “accommodation” granted to certain religious non-profit corporations which the government has decided are not exempt from the mandate. As this breakdown indicates, the Tenth Circuit found en banc that the corporation had free exercise rights which had been violated (it did not decide the issue of the rights of the individual owners), while the Third Circuit panel rejected all claims. One last note of interest (for now): neither of these corporations is owned by Catholics. Hobby Lobby’s ownership is Evangelical, while Conestoga Wood Specialties’ ownership is Mennonite.