Apologies in advance if someone has already made this connection: If I'm understanding it correctly, the effect of the Arizona bill would be to establish or confirm that the Arizona RFRA *does exactly what Hobby Lobby and its amici are arguing the federal RFRA already does* -- namely, extend protections to for-profit commercial operations.
And the Republican establishment, including not only both Senator Flake and Newt Gingrich, but also John McCain, an amicus in *Hobby Lobby*, are strongly lobbying against it. And they are doing so, presumably, because the Arizona bill -- *like the plaintiffs' argument in Hobby Lobby* -- would pave the way for claims of entitlement to religious exemptions from anti-discrimination norms in the commercial setting. I say this not to accuse those Republican officials of hypocrisy -- I'm sure they have not made the association -- but merely to point out that if Hobby Lobby did not involve the incendiary combination of contraception and Obama, it's very unlikely that so many would be arrayed in support of the rule they are asking the Court to announce about RFRA.
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