How the Supreme Court Is Redefining Religious Liberty and the Wall Between Church and State

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The United States Supreme Court’s shifting approach to religious exemptions from state laws has reshaped legal conflicts at the intersection of faith, public education, and LGBTQ rights, according to legal analysis surrounding the landmark 2020 ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo. Handed down when the court’s Republican supermajority was barely a month old and marking Amy Coney Barrett’s first major vote as a justice, the decision abandoned judicial restraint regarding public health rules to favor religious conservatives in cultural disputes.

The Shift From Deference to Strict Scrutiny

Before Roman Catholic Diocese, the Supreme Court generally granted states broad leeway to navigate complex legislative balances, requiring religious institutions to comply with neutral laws that applied equally to secular venues. According to the foundational framework, courts intervened only if a state singled out houses of worship for inferior treatment. However, the ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese ended that regime by holding that churches could only be subjected to the least restrictive rules applied to any secular business, even if those businesses bore little resemblance to a house of worship. This set a pattern that later echoed in cases touching on voting rights, abortion, and race, as the court’s majority increasingly advanced policy goals aligned with conservative constituencies.

Precedents and the Clash Over Civil Rights

The modern landscape of the Free Exercise Clause evolved through a muddled series of 20th-century decisions. In Sherbert v. Verner (1963), the court used expansive language suggesting that laws burdening faith must satisfy strict scrutiny by serving a compelling state interest. Yet, subsequent rulings such as United States v. Lee (1982) and Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985) reined in those exemptions to prevent commercial enterprises from gaining unfair advantages over competitors by claiming religious objections to taxes or minimum wage laws. Later, Employment Division v. Smith (1990) held that no one was exempt from neutral, generally applicable laws, prompting Congress to enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to restore the compelling interest test.

That statutory reset collided directly with federal regulations in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), where the court ruled that closely held for-profit corporations could refuse to provide birth control coverage in employee health plans on religious grounds. Writing in dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that one person’s religious rights should not diminish the rights of third parties. Despite that warning, the court’s Republican majority expanded similar protections, ruling multiple times in favor of religious conservatives seeking exemptions from state and municipal laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. Further victories followed in cases such as Carson v. Makin, where the Supreme Court ruled that employers must accommodate religious employees unless doing so causes substantial costs, and 303 Creative v. Elenis, where the court struck down a Colorado law to protect a Christian graphic designer who declined to create websites for same-sex ceremonies, according to coverage from the Collegiate Reformation Center.

Dismantling the Wall Between Church and State

Beyond free exercise claims, the Roberts Court has reshaped Establishment Clause jurisprudence by authorizing public funding for religious education and addressing religious objections in public schools. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the court struck down a Maine program’s restriction that barred private school tuition vouchers from being used at religious schools, ruling that excluding religious options constitutes unlawful discrimination against religion. This overturned decades of precedent stemming from cases like Everson v. Board of Education (1947), which maintained a high wall preventing taxpayer funds from supporting religious institutions.

In the realm of public education, the court has continued to empower religious parents and limit school policies regarding LGBTQ topics. In Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025), the Republican majority ruled that religious parents must be permitted to opt their children out of lessons utilizing books with gay or transgender characters. Additionally, in Mirabelli v. Bonta (2026), the court’s majority indicated that the Constitution requires public school teachers to out transgender students to their parents when requested otherwise, while cases like Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) replaced older endorsements tests with a much narrower standard prohibiting only formal religious coercion by the government.