Renteria v. New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance

Issues: (1) Under Employment Division v. Smith, whether state laws must always be deemed “neutral” unless plaintiffs prove officials acted against them with subjective religious animus and discriminatory motive; (2) under Smith, whether courts determining a law’s “general applicability” must disregard the law’s preference for secular over religious organizations on the grounds that secular and religious organizations are inherently motivated by different purposes and thus incomparable, or alternatively, whether courts must consider the law’s preference for secular over religious organizations so long as their activities pose a similar risk to the government’s asserted interest in the law; (3) whether hostile statements of government actors against religious adherents are sufficient to establish a First Amendment free exercise violation, or whether states may try to justify their hostility by satisfying strict scrutiny; and (4) Whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s exemption for individuals who participate in health care sharing ministries (HCSMs) preempts New Mexico’s determination that those individuals’ HCSMs may not operate in New Mexico until they forfeit their federal statuses as HCSMs under the ACA.