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Hi, and welcome to Amicus, Slate Supreme Court podcast.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and I cover the Supreme Court for Slate.

This week, we're going to focus on a big case argued this week at the court.

It's called Zubik v. Burwell, although you may know it better as Hobby Lobby Act 2 or the Little

Sisters case. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided by a five-four split that closely

held for-profit corporations with religious objections to the so-called contraception mandate

in the Affordable Care Act could opt out of covering those devices and products,

even though the Obama administration had deemed them necessary for basic preventive health care for women.

Now, in the majority opinion in Hobby Lobby, authored by Justice Samuel Alito,

the court said that the fact that there was a workaround, an opt-out that was granted to objecting

not-for-profits, meant that that was a workaround that Hobby Lobby should get, too. Here is Samolito

reading that portion of the opinion from the bench. Although HHS has made this system available to

religious nonprofits, HHS has provided no reason why the same system

cannot be made available when the owners of for-profit corporations have similar religious

objections. And we therefore conclude that this system constitutes an alternative that achieves

all of the government's aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty.

And under RFRA, that conclusion means...

Fast forward two years, and the problem for the court and the principal issue in Zubik

...