IN GOD WE TRUST: THE AMERICAN PRIORITIZATION Taylor Blinebury OF THE CHURCH THROUGH THE STATE

In God We Trust: The American Prioritization of the Church Through the State

Taylor Blinebury

Edited by Sarah Band

Does the U.S. Constitution truly separate church from state, or does this doctrine merely act as a medium to prioritize religious interests over secular rights? Despite the foundational intention to keep church and state separate in the United States, contemporary America finds itself in a state in which the Constitution is regularly manipulated to benefit religious organizations at the cost of Equal Protection rights for other groups. Primarily analyzing the recent Supreme Court case Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) and Covid-19 cases, the article discusses the prevalent influence of religion on constitutional interpretation and judicial decision-making. Further, the article explores the potential consequences for the rights of American women and LGBTQ+ citizens if such exploitation of the First Amendment continues. As the nation nears the precipice of irrevocable change for the constitutional rights to privacy, individual autonomy, and discriminatory protection, one must consider whether the bible will ultimately prevail over the Constitution.

I. INTRODUCTION

Forewarned by George Washington, our nation finds itself detrimentally divided by partisanship, yet this very divisive nature was embedded in our Constitution and has since been allegedly upheld through the separation of church and state in the United States. Despite the romanticized notion that religion and politics are distinctive bodies immune to influence from the other, the United States government is intrinsically religious and intentionally exploits the Bill of Rights to advance the interests of religious organizations. This article demonstrates that through the holding, or decision, of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), the United States government abused the constitutional statutes of the separation of church and state to legally escape the Fourteenth Amendment and prioritize religious interests in American politics. In Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), the Supreme Court held, or determined, that the city of Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause by refusing to contract with a Catholic foster organization that denied same-sex couples from the organization’s services. Through a constitutional lens, the holding exploits the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to compromise the Equal Protection rights of the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, by authorizing public sexual discrimination, Fulton jeopardizes the Equal Protection precedents for LGBTQ+ citizens and exposes the dubious parameters of the government’s intertwinement with religion.

II. FULTON V. THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA

A. Background

In 2018, following the publicization of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s statement that Catholic Social Services (CSS), a state-licensed Catholic foster service, does not consider samesex married couples as prospective foster parents, the City of Philadelphia employed an investigation into the organization’s practices as the organization is publicly contracted with the City. The City found that in refusing to acknowledge same-sex couples, CSS violated a “nondiscrimination provision in the agency's contract with the City,”361 and committed a violation of non-discrimination within Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance. Because of these violations, the City stated they would no longer partake in foster care contracts with the agency nor would they refer children to CSS so long as the agency refused to certify same-sex parents362. In response, Catholic Social Services and three associated foster parents brought legal action against the City and City departments on the grounds that the freeze of services violated the agency’s First Amendment rights to Free Exercise and Free Speech363 . Citing Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, the District Court found the non-discrimination provisions in the contract and the Fair Practices Ordinance to be neutral and generally applicable. Smith involved two claimants, Smith and Black, who were fired by a private drug rehabilitation company after ingesting peyote as part of a religious ceremony for their church. Following their dismissal, the claimants were denied unemployment

361 Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1868 (2021). 362 Id. at 1868. 363Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1868 (2021).

benefits as their use of drugs was deemed an act of “misconduct” under State employment law. After several levels of court decisions, the Supreme Court ultimately held that the Free Exercise clause granted the State the right to criminally prohibit sacramental peyote use and “deny unemployment benefits to persons dismissed from their jobs because of such religiously inspired use.”364

Smith set a precedent that one’s right to Free Exercise does not allow relief from neutral and generally applicable laws on the grounds that the law restricts or contradicts one’s religious beliefs or practices365. In the case of Fulton, the District Court could not legally justify CSS’s violations of neutral and generally applicable non-discrimination provisions because of their religious belief against same-sex marriage. As a result, the Court determined it was unlikely the plaintiffs could argue for a violation of Free Exercise, a decision that was affirmed, or ratified, by the Third Circuit Court. The plaintiffs challenged the use of Smith to protect the City’s actions and requested that the decision be reconsidered.

366

B. Supreme Court Holding

In the unanimous decision to reverse the prior decisions of the District Court and the Third Circuit Court, the Supreme Court primarily cited the violation of the Catholic Social Service’s First Amendment rights.367 In reversing a decision, the higher court determines the lower court’s decision to be wrong. The First Amendment declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”368 Within this decree lies the foundational clauses that function in tandem to maintain the separation of religion and the United States government. The Establishment Clause implies that the government “may not favor one religion over another, or religion over irreligion.”369 Through assessment of the three-pronged Lemon Test,370 the city of Philadelphia was not found in violation of the Establishment Clause. However, by identifying the Catholic organization as the victim of discrimination and disregarding the exclusion of same-sex couples, it could be argued that the Supreme Court favored “religion over irreligion”371 and consequently merged church with state. The holding of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) read that by refusing to contract with CSS until they stopped discriminating against same-sex couples, Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause. The Free Exercise Clause provides the right to practice religion “so long as the practice does not run afoul of public morals or a compelling governmental interest.”372 According to the Supreme Court, Philadelphia’s action of freezing their

364 Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 874 (1990). 365 Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). 366 Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1869 (2021). 367Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1870 (2021). 368 U.S. CONST. amend. I, § 1. 369First Amendment - Establishment Clause - Government Display of Religious Symbols - American Legion V. American Humanist Ass’n, 133 HARV. L. REV. 262, 266 (2019). 370 Id. at 262. 371Id. at 266. 372First Amendment and Religion, UNITED STATES COURTS, https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendmentand-religion.

contract with the foster care service “burdened CSS’s religious exercise.”373 The City froze the contract because CSS was violating the contractual nondiscrimination requirement and the Fair Practices Ordinance. CSS then argued that to comply with the City’s law and certify same-sex couples as foster parents, their Catholic belief against same-sex marriage would be compromised. The unanimous decision in support374 of this claim justifies the validity of the violation of the Free Exercise Clause and the triggering of strict scrutiny. However, the verdict seems to forsake that by protecting the Catholic organization, the Supreme Court legally violates the Fourteenth Amendment and condones the public practice of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

III. CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTIFICATION OF AN EQUAL RIGHTS VIOLATION

Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) demonstrates the defense of religion with the First Amendment at the cost of the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the public. Despite Pennsylvania’s lack of “laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,”375 constitutional Equal Protection is federally mandated. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the State cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”376 When evaluating discrimination under Equal Protection, the judicial system must assess the balance between individual rights and governmental interests.377 Considering these components and the criteria of the law, the discriminatory act is determined to trigger one of three levels of judicial review: strict, intermediate, or rational basis scrutiny. The consequential Fourteenth Amendment violation of Fulton v. Philadelphia, under the ambivalence of the Constitution, can be understood to trigger either intermediate or strict scrutiny.

A. Intermediate Scrutiny

In the case of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), the holding effectively denies same-sex couples the right to foster care through Catholic Social Services. While CSS is a private organization, it is contracted through, and further receives clients, through the public institutions of the city of Philadelphia. In tandem with the eventual establishment of Title IX, the Fourteenth Amendment protects the law that entities that “receive Federal financial assistance” are forbidden from “discriminating against individuals on the basis of sex.”378 As of 2017, 35% of Pennsylvania’s general revenue came from Federal financial assistance and was used towards public services and goods,379such as the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, the Department of Human Services, and the City of Philadelphia- all of which are directly

373 Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1872 (2021). 374Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1884 (2021). 375Amy Castro Baker, Street-Level Bureaucrats and Intersectional Policy Logic: a Case Study of LGBTQ Policy and Implementation Barriers, 1 JOURN. O. POL. PRAC. A. RES. 96, 97 (2020). 376U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. 377 Brandon L. Bartels, The Constraining Capacity of Legal Doctrine on the U.S. Supreme Court, 103 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 474, 476 (2009). 37820 U.S.C.A. § 1681. 379Janelle Cammenga, Which States Rely Most on Federal Aid?, TAX FOUNDATION (Feb. 12, 2020), https://taxfoundation.org/state-federal-aid-reliance-2020/.

contracted to Catholic Social Services. Historically, violations of equal protection through discrimination based on sex have been classified to trigger intermediate scrutiny. Therefore if the phrase “sex” in Title IX is understood to include sexual orientation, in addition to gender identity, intermediate scrutiny could be triggered by the denial of public services to same-sex couples. As a result, by discriminating based on sexual orientation by proxy of their contract with CSS, the city of Philadelphia triggers intermediate scrutiny and violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

B. Strict Scrutiny

Alternatively, there is a compelling reason to argue that sexual orientation is not included with gender identity in the phrase “sex”380, which could effectively cause the decision of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) to trigger strict scrutiny. Sexual preference could be understood as a private interest of the individual, which under Roe v. Wade 93 S. Ct. 705 (1973) if violated by the government, “requires the standard of strict scrutiny to review concerning legislation.”381 Initially seeking injunctive relief, plaintiff Roe challenged the constitutionality of Texas criminal abortion law that illegalized abortions for any reason other than to save the mother’s life.382 However, this case revolutionized women’s rights and body autonomy under the Constitution by determining the Texas law was unconstitutional, establishing the legal right to an abortion, and clarifying the constitutional right to privacy.383 Concerning Fulton, the sexual orientation of prospective foster parents would be considered a private interest that, if used as a reason for discrimination, would effectively trigger the highest judicial review of Equal Protection. Similar to Roe, Griswold v. Connecticut 85 S.Ct. 1678 (1965) aided in constitutionally defining and legitimizing privacy and autonomy protections. In establishing a birth control clinic, defendants Griswold and Buxton were charged with violating Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives.384 The Supreme Court held that the “birth control law unconstitutionally intrudes upon the right of marital privacy.”385As established in Griswold and further upheld by Roe, these constitutionally protected interests of autonomy specifically include “intimate matters of sex and family planning”386. In the context of Fulton, the couples being discriminated against are constitutionally entitled to privacy in their sexual privacy and are directly involved in family planning, therefore implying that the City’s discrimination triggers strict scrutiny. Contrary to the notion that the United States legislates and governs to separate church and state, Fulton exposes the State’s tendency to advance religious interests by exploiting the First Amendment to take precedent over other “unalienable rights”387 and corrupting the Constitution.

IV. FULTON’S DISMISSAL OF SUPREME COURT PRECEDENTS

380 20 U.S.C.A. § 1681. 381 Kory Schaff, Equal Protection and Same-Sex Marriage, 35 JOURN. O. SOC. PHIL. 133, 135 (2004). 382Roe v. Wade, 93 S. Ct. 705, 707 (1973). 383 Id. at 708. 384 Griswold v. Connecticut 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1680 (1965). 385 Id. at 1686. 386 Kory Schaff, Equal Protection and Same-Sex Marriage, 35 JOURN. O. SOC. PHIL. 133, 135 (2004). 387 The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).

The decision of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) is not likely to be reversed. Thus, it is imperative to discuss the implications of the holding for Equal Protection and the integrity of the Constitution as a foundational governing doctrine. Within the last forty years, LGBTQ+ Americans have tirelessly fought to be included under Equal Protection rights. Specifically, precedents established through cases such as Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, (1996) and Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, (2015) have provided protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A. Landmark LGBTQ+ Rights Cases

In Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, (1996), the Supreme Court held that a Colorado constitutional amendment to “bar any governmental entity in the state from protecting gays, lesbians, or bisexuals from discrimination based on sexual orientation”388 violated the Equal Protection Clause. Following an increase of municipality-enforced ordinances that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in Colorado, adversarial voters adopted “Amendment 2” to the State Constitution, which effectively prevented any “legislative, executive, or judicial action designed to protect homosexual persons from discrimination.”389 Romer rose to the Supreme Court when victims of the amendment and municipalities challenged the constitutional viability of the amendment, claiming that it inherently violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights. Ultimately, the Supreme Court affirmed this notion and recognized that such an amendment triggered strict scrutiny390 . The Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, (1996) decision is understood to be monumental for the LGBTQ+ community as it provided federal protection to these individuals on the basis of sexual orientation and recognized that discrimination against sexual orientation can be subject to strict scrutiny. Fulton, however, has proven that these rights can now be legally denied when in conflict with religion. Nearly thirty years later, the holding of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) nearly identically repeats the history of Romer by denying a public service to LGBTQ+ Americans. By permitting the city of Philadelphia to specifically discriminate against citizens who are part of same-sex marriages, Fulton directly contradicts Romer, excludes LGBTQ+ citizens from the Equal Protection rights endowed to them in 1996, and ignores a past precedent of strict scrutiny. The Equal Protection Clause was extended even further for LGBTQ+ Americans in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, (2015), which held that “the Fourteenth Amendment required every state to perform and to recognize marriages between individuals of the same sex.”391 Simultaneously, throughout Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Maryland, plaintiffs challenged legislative bans on same-sex marriage and bureaucratic practices of denying recognition of same-sex marriages. In nearly every case, while the judgments were made in the plaintiff’s favor, each state appealed. As a result, Obergefell came to the Supreme Court as a consolidation of the pro-same-sex marriage cases and as a representation of the movement for the federal and legal recognition of same-sex marriages.392 In a five to four decision, the Supreme

388Jane S. Schacter, Romer V. Evans and Democracy’s Domain, 50 VAND. L. REV. 361, 363 (1997), Mar. 1997. 389 Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 1621 (1996). 390Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 1622 (1996). 391Kenji Yoshino, A New Birth of Freedom?: Obergefell v. Hodges, 129 HARV. L. REV 147, 147(2015). 392 Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 2584 (2015).

Court held that all American citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, are constitutionally entitled to the right to marry through the Due Process and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.393 Occurring only six years after the Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, (2015) decision, this landmark case did not influence the outcome of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) as the strict scrutiny triggered by CSS’s deliberate denial of rights to both married and unmarried same-sex couples was flippantly dismissed under the guise of protecting the Free Exercise Clause. In placing religion as superior to Equal Protection and the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, the Supreme Court not only ignores Obergefell but outright rejects the American precedent that same-sex marriages are legally viable, equal, and recognizable. In this case, the government abandoned the separation of church and state by subscribing to the Catholic Church’s belief that “marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman,”394 The impact of the American intertwinement of religion in Fulton is demonstrated through the regression of acknowledgment and rights for LGBTQ+ citizens.

B. Individual Autonomy, Privacy, and Women’s Rights Cases

Unfortunately, this stark rejection of a landmark case and blatant prioritization of religion over the rights of minority groups may be the impetus for the deterioration of critical Supreme Court decisions, and with it, the integrity of the Constitution. As of late, the foundational decision of Roe v. Wade 93 S. Ct. 705 (1973) for American women’s rights and autonomy may be in jeopardy with the enactment of the Texas Heartbeat Act. This state law prohibits women from having abortions past six weeks of their pregnancy and financially incentivizes Texas citizens to prosecute anyone who aids women in breaking this law.395 By entrusting enforcement of the law to the rights of private Texas citizens, this act has successfully evaded adversarial court challenges and has remained steadfast in its legal viability. Pro-life advocacy of politicians and supporters is largely a manifestation of the intertwinement of religious beliefs and political action, as studies have found that “religious convictions seem vital to the direct action protests against abortion providers.”396 The Texas Heartbeat Act intrinsically rejects the right to an abortion, the right to personal autonomy, and the right to privacy from government interference established in Roe. Similar to Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), should a challenge to the law occur in the Supreme Court, the Court could ignore the Equal Protection rights established Roe just as it ignored the rights established through Romer v. Evans, 116 S.Ct. 1620, (1996) and Obergefell v. Hodges. In continuing to exercise religious supremacy and forsaking the Constitution, the Supreme Court may federally affirm the Texas Heartbeat Act, adhering to the sixth commandment of the Bible that “Thou shalt not kill”397 rather than the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

V. CONSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIZATION OF CHURCH ABOVE STATE

393 Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 2591 (2015). 394 Fulton v. Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1868 (2021). 395 Janice Hopkins Tanne, Texas Promises $10 000 for People Who Enforce the State’s New Limit on Abortions,

BMJ., Jul. 2021, at 1, 1 (2021). 396 Eric Swank, Gender, Religion, and Pro-Life Activism, 13 POL. A. RELIG. 361, 366 (2020). 397 Exodus 20:2-17.

The Supreme Court decision of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) declared that strict scrutiny triggered by a violation of religious rights takes greater priority than that triggered by the violation of Equal Protection. Despite the notion that each amendment in the Bill of Rights is equal to another, the ignorance of the consequences demonstrated in Fulton implied that when assessing cases, the Supreme Court recognizes the First Amendment as superior to Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the decision suggests that religious rights are more important than Equal Protection rights, which jeopardizes the entire basis of the separation of church and state upon which the United States was founded.

A. The Ambiguity of the Establishment Clause

With every case in which religious organizations and beliefs are excused from Equal Protection laws, the line between church and state blurs and the integrity of the Constitution deteriorates. The recent trend of religious accommodations and exemptions, or immunity, from the Constitution, as witnessed in Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), has challenged the restrictions imposed on the government by the Establishment Clause.398 Adapted by the Supreme Court to assess Establishment Clause violations, the Lemon Test requires that government interference in religious affairs must have a secular intention and refrain from “excessive entanglement between church and state.”399 The phrase “excessive” is not defined by specific parameters and is therefore subject to loose interpretation, which the Supreme Court has capitalized on in its’ First Amendment cases. In the case of Fulton, the Supreme Court’s secular intention and entanglement are questionable as their intervention strictly protected the religious exercise of Catholic Social Services at the cost of the public’s secular rights.

B. The Exploitation of the Free Exercise Clause to Exempt Religious Entities

Similarly, in granting an exemption to religious organizations under strict scrutiny in Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), the Court allowed religion to be treated differently than secular organizations, which has effectively “trigger[ed] heightened scrutiny regardless whether or how that exemption has been applied.”400 In a seemingly unrelated current event, similar demonstrations of religious favoritism have been recently revealed by the unprecedented legal challenges of the global pandemic. The rise of legal cases concerning Covid19 has exposed such prioritization through exemption from federal and state health mandates in cases such as S. Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, 140 S. Ct. 1613, (2020) and Tandon v. Newsom, 141 S. Ct. 1294, (2021). In 2020, South Bay United Pentecostal Church was denied an injunctive relief from the California Covid-19 mandate that banned indoor services in high-risk counties. The Church brought action against the state on the grounds that the state restriction violated the Free Exercise Clause by inhibiting the congregation’s practice of spiritual worship

398 First Amendment - Establishment Clause - Government Display of Religious Symbols - American Legion V. American Humanist Ass’n, 133 HARV. L. REV. 262, 265 (2019). 399First Amendment and Religion, UNITED STATES COURTS, https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendmentand-religion. 400Valerie Brannon, Fulton v. Philadelphia: Religious Exemptions from Generally Applicable Laws, CONG. RES. SERV. Jun. 2021, at 1, 4.

and gathering. As a result, the Supreme Court held that the Clause was violated and effectively granted the church injunctive relief from the state capacity limit.401 Similarly in Tandon v. Newsom, 141 S. Ct. 1294, (2021), an at-home Bible study group with more than three households was found to be in violation of a state-capacity restriction. Citing that by allowing greater capacities in secular organizations, the Supreme Court held that the state was “...triggering strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause,”402 and granted the group injunctive relief from the state capacity limit. In abiding by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court effectively permitted the exclusion of these groups from Equal Protection as the ruling jeopardized the state’s health and safety interests of the members of the church service and Bible group. By establishing immunity from the Constitution for religious purposes, the government is increasing the likelihood for religious organizations to succeed in employing constitutional evasion and explicitly favors religious interests over secular protections. The U.S. government has manipulated the First Amendment to act as an impenetrable force that authorizes the Supreme Court with unchecked limits on protecting religion.

VI. CONCLUSION

While successful in protecting religious liberties, the Bill of Rights mandate to “...make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”403 has evolved into a mechanism to manipulate state and federal constitutional laws. Following People of State of Ill. ex rel. McCollum v. Bd. of Ed. of Sch. Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., Ill., 68 S. Ct. 461 (1948), Justice Jackson commented that the separation between church and state “...has become even more warped and twisted than [he] ever expected.”404 Sixty years later, the separation between church and state continues to degrade the integrity of the Constitution and evolve into the exclusion of the church from the state. Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868(2021) highlights the unequal distribution of alleged “unalienable rights,”405which consequently calls into question the relevancy of the Constitution if our rights are merely subjective to the Court’s personal preferences. Rooted in freedom from authoritarian control, the Constitution was ratified to establish a “wall of separation between church and state,”406 and to “prevent either minority or majority factions from seizing the reins of power.”407 Unfortunately, it is evident that despite the foundational doctrine’s intentions, religion has remained a faction that has an enduring relationship with United States law and politics. The acknowledgment and honoring of Equal Protection is imperative to the adherence of the Constitution, and further, the maintenance of the equality and justice that the United States was conceived in. The Supreme Court of the United States is entrusted with the power of impartially interpreting the law and maintaining the pertinence of the Constitution to ensure that Americans’ rights are not being infringed upon or denied. However, through cases such as Fulton and the

401 S. Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, 140 S. Ct. 1613, 1613 (2020). 402 Tandon v. Newsom, 141 S. Ct. 1294,1294 (2021). 403 U.S. CONST. amend. I, § 1. 404John Witte Jr, That Serpentine Wall of Separation, 101 MICH. L. REV. 1869, 1875 (2003), May 2003. 405 The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776). 406John Witte Jr, That Serpentine Wall of Separation, 101 MICH. L. REV. 1869, 1871 (2003), May 2003. 407 Alan Singer, Why Did the Founding Fathers Write the Constitution of the United States?, 2 OAH MAG. O. HIST. 25, 26 (1987).

recent Covid-19 regulation exemptions, the Supreme Court’s holdings have demonstrated bias, rather than neutrality, in deliberately stripping individuals of their Fourteenth Amendment rights for the sake of advancing religious interests. Inherent to impartial judgment, the Supreme Court is expected to maintain consistency in interpretation and utilize past precedents to inform their decisions. Therefore, in failing to acknowledge the triggering of strict scrutiny in Fulton, the Court fails to satisfy its role and compromises the nation’s trust in the judicial system on which the United States depends. Should such blatant religious bias in judicial decisions and government interferences continue, the purpose and viability of the Constitution will be meaningless under the supervision of corruption. To preserve the integrity of the Constitution and maintain a fair nation, Equal Protection precedents must be recognized and expected in both secular and religious activities. Contemporary court holdings, like that of Fulton, exemplifies that with the influence of religion on judicial and legislative decisions, the constitutional protection of rights becomes moot. Without integrity or relevancy, the Constitution can no longer serve as a beacon of protection, leaving those who do not align with the Court’s religious preferences susceptible to revocation of their rights. While this bleak concept initially sounds dystopian, Fulton and the Texas Heartbeat Act are essentially manifestations of our impending reality in which constitutional rights and citizens are explicitly not equal. Decision by decision, the Supreme Court is deconstructing the constitutional pillars critical to maintaining separation from the church and invalidating the rights of female and LBGTQ+ Americans. The obvious unconstitutionality of the holding of Fulton v. the City of Philadelphia 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) is jarring, yet not surprising as the U.S. functions under the proverb “In God We Trust.” However, Fulton not only endangers the freedoms of LGBTQ+ Americans, but further imperils the separation of church and state that is integral to the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”408 In order to preserve the genuine equality our justice system has finally achieved, the United States government must take active steps to untangle itself from the restraints of religious influence. No longer can the government utilize the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses as an escape clause to the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor can it continue to posit the church as the victim of the State while the very same religious organizations are acquiring exemptions from the Fourteenth Amendment. With evidence that the First Amendment’s protections of religion have evolved into a loophole for constitutional exemption from Equal Protection requirements, it is imperative that the Supreme Court uphold the distinction of church and state without privileging the Bible over the Constitution.

408The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).