(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court scheduled a new showdownover the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct and religious rights, agreeing to hear contentionsthat faith-based groups shouldn’t have to facilitate what theyconsider to be immoral insurance coverage for contraceptives.

The case, which centers on the Obama administration’s push tomake birth control a standard part of healthinsurance, will determine the extent to whichgovernment officials must allow exceptions for people who say theirreligious principles prevent them fromfollowing the law.

Critics say the administration hasn’t adequately accommodatedreligious employers that equate some forms of contraception withmurder.

"Many religious ministries are being forced to choose betweenviolating their sincere religious beliefs or violating federallaw," argued an appeal by the Little Sisters of the Poor, an orderof Catholic nuns.

The case has the potential to affect thousands of universities,hospitals, religious orders and other nonprofits. Hundreds of thosegroups have sued over the issue, citing a federal religious-freedomlaw.

It comes to the high court as religious objections to gaymarriage engender debates around the country.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that closely held companies canrefuse on religious grounds to offer birth-control coverage totheir workers.

The newest case involves religious nonprofits, rather thanfor-profit companies, and centers on the adequacy of the Obamaadministration’s system for letting those groups avoid having todirectly provide coverage.

The controversy stems from the Obamacare requirement thatcontraceptive coverage be included in health plans for employeesand students.

Shift responsibility

The administration gives objecting nonprofits two options: Theycan shift responsibility onto their insurer by providing it with a"self-certification" form, or they can notify the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services of their objection and provide contactinformation for their insurer.

Either way, the federal government reimburses the insurer forthe cost of the coverage.

"Taking either step relieves the employer of any obligation toprovide, arrange or pay for the coverage to which it objects," U.S.Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the administration’s topcourtroom lawyer, argued in court papers.

The administration says neither option imposes the type of"substantial burden" on religious exercise that would triggerprotection under the U.S. Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Theadministration also contends that the rights of religious groupsaren’t affected just because the government requires the insurer orplan administrator to provide the coverage.

"In our pluralistic society, that sort of substitution ofobligations is an appropriate means of accommodating religiousobjectors while also protecting the important interests of thirdparties, such as women’s interest in full and equal healthcoverage," Verrilli wrote.

Religious groups say they shouldn’t have to play any role in theadministration’s birth-control program.

Religion violated?

"This case is only about whether the government can commandeerpetitioners and their health plans as vehicles for deliveringabortifacient and contraceptive coverage in violation of theirreligion," a group led by the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.,argued in an appeal. The group includes Catholic University inWashington and Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula,California.

Most of the federal appeals courts to have ruled on the issuehave said the administration is adequately protecting religiousrights.

Churches are exempt entirely from having to offer contraceptivecoverage to employees, but most other religious groups must eitherprovide coverage or invoke one of the administration’s twooptions.

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