Religious Liberty in a Hostile Age

When I started studying religious liberty and church-state relations in the late 1980s, there was little doubt that religious freedom was an important right that must be robustly protected. After the Supreme Court constrained the use of strict scrutiny for religious liberty claims in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Democrats and Republicans came together to enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The act passed without a dissenting vote in the House, 97-3 in the Senate, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Read Full Article »