The US supreme court broadened religious freedom in 2022

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – The year 2022 was, in some ways, the fulfillment of two distinct visions for the United States Supreme Court. Never has the court been so diverse and not in 90 years has it been so conservative.

Among the five big issues the court tackled in 2022, religious freedom was a critical decision that changed the landscape of America.

It is also the matter for 2023 and beyond.

In 2022, the court, Aljazeera reported, broadened the legal interpretation of religious freedom and bucked the longstanding norm of separating church and state.

At issue is the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that the government can neither prohibit the free exercise of religion nor promote the “establishment” of any religion.

Critics of the court’s decisions on religion in 2022 question whether that “establishment” clause will continue to serve as a wall between government and religion. Bloomberg’s Noah Feldman went so far as to call the principle “dead”.

In Kennedy v Bremerton School District, the conservative majority sided with a football coach at a public high school who had been suspended for praying on the football field after games. The court ruled his speech a private expression of devotion.

The same 6-3 majority in Carson v Makin decided that if the state of Maine offered vouchers to families to send their children to private schools, it could not refuse to provide the same funding for religious schools.

And in a Boston case, the court was unanimous in deciding that the city should allow a Christian flag to fly over city hall because it allows other groups to raise their own flags.

Going into 2023, the Supreme Court will once again broach the question of religious freedom in the case of a Colorado website designer seeking an exemption from the state’s anti-discrimination laws. She has argued that it would violate her right to religious freedom to be forced to design wedding websites for same-sex marriages.