https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/supreme-court-upholds-religious-liberty-joseph-klein/
The Supreme Court this term has thwarted the progressive left’s relentless assault on religious liberty in three milestone cases. In all these cases, a majority of the justices decided that religious freedom is such a fundamental constitutional right that it cannot be so easily encroached to serve secular objectives. As the Supreme Court has now made clear, the principle of separation of state and religious institutions does not mean compelling an individual to violate his or her religious beliefs in order to fulfill a secular government policy objective that can be achieved in a manner that is more accommodating of those beliefs. It does not mean forcing religious institutions to compromise their own religious teaching standards. And it does not mean that parents who wish to exercise their religious beliefs by enrolling their children in religious private schools are automatically ineligible for state aid that is made available to parents enrolling their children in secular private schools.
The First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion and its protection of freedom of religion are complementary, not antithetical to each other. Our Founding Fathers determined that the sacred is best respected by maximizing individual freedom of conscience, which is the essence of the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of religion and the prohibition against establishment of religion by the state. The separation of religious institutions and state ensures that all religious believers and non-believers receive equal treatment under the law, and that the government will never establish an official state religion. But it was not intended to punish or place unreasonable burdens on people of faith.
