Year in Review: Making room for the religious

Much time, effort, and money were poured into litigating the important cases involving First Amendment freedoms in 2023, yet courtroom dramas are only the tip of an underlying human drama. Americans wrestle with deep, often polarizing differences. As important as it is to preserve legal protections for religious liberty, free speech, and parental rights, those protections can only be upheld by people who believe that these rights remain critical to our democracy.

That takes another kind of drama, one marked by God becoming man, by changed hearts and transformed lives. One Founding Father, James Madison, wrote that our Constitution requires “sufficient virtue among men for self-government,” otherwise, “nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.” As we look back at the top Liberties stories from 2023, may the Lord grant us virtue to sustain a principled liberty in the year ahead.

Accommodating employers’ religious beliefs

In a much-anticipated ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Lorie Smith not to be compelled by a Colorado anti-discrimination law to design websites for same-sex marriages. Smith’s win—in a state where baker Jack Phillips continues to fight for his right not to design a cake for a gender transition celebration—is continuing to reverberate through other cases involving wedding-related businesses.

But it’s not all about wedding businesses. In June, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal appeals court ruled that a for-profit employer is exempt from federal rules that require businesses to hire LGBTQ employees unwilling to follow employers’ religious beliefs about sexual conduct. The judges concluded that forcing companies to employ someone who behaves in a manner that violates the company’s convictions “would substantially burden” the employer’s right to practice its beliefs.

But the courts are less settled on the right of religious nonprofit groups to employ only those who can affirm their statement of faith and standards of conduct. In March, a federal appeals court panel agreed that a New York pro-life pregnancy center had the right to hire only like-minded employees, reasoning that forcing it to employ individuals who approve of abortion would undermine its mission. But on the West Coast, a court in late November upheld a Washington state anti-discrimination law’s application to World Vision. The judge rejected the Christian relief agency’s claim that it could refuse to hire a female applicant in a same-sex relationship.

Similar disputes have ensnared other ministries. In November, a federal appeals court heard arguments over whether to reinstate Seattle Pacific University’s challenge to a state investigation over its hiring practices that adhere to the Biblical position on sexuality and marriage. Chicago’s historic Moody Bible Institute also awaits an appeals court ruling on whether it has a right to fire a teacher who disagreed with the school’s position on ordaining women.

While the Supreme Court may yet have to revisit the parameters of religious autonomy, it signaled it was not yet ready earlier in the year. The court declined an appeal of an unfavorable ruling against Colorado’s Faith Christian Academy over its firing of a teacher who disagreed with the school’s position on racial reconciliation.

Faith on campus

In September, a federal appeals court handed a resounding win to courageous California high school students who argued that their Fellowship of Christian Athletes “huddle,” while open to all, could insist that its leaders affirm the FCA’s Biblical beliefs. In a ruling sure to affect other cases, the court said that constitutional guarantees of free speech and free exercise of religion trump anti-discrimination policies.

Legal rulings won’t stop anti-Christian bigotry on campuses, and neither will court pronouncements prevent rising anti-Semitism among college students. Protests sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel and the ensuing war spurred a trio of lawsuits against universities alleging that their administrations failed to prevent anti-Semitic activities. Thus far Jewish students and organizations have sued the University of California, Berkeley, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

After a congressional committee grilled university presidents from Harvard, Penn, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over their handling of protests, Penn President Liz Magill resigned

Parental pushback

Courts heard cases this year that could revitalize a longstanding constitutional guarantee of parental rights as parents of school-age children object to school districts that push transgender ideology. In Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled that a school district’s policy of referring to a 12-year-old female student by a male name and pronouns over her parents’ objections violated the parents’ constitutional right to make healthcare decisions for their child. But Maine mom Amber Lavigne is still litigating her case against a school district that began socially transitioning her 13-year-old daughter—at one point even providing her with a chest binder—without the mother’s permission.

Parents have also pushed back on the kind of books and curriculum that their children are exposed to at schools. In Montgomery County, Md., Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim parents lost the first round in a battle to allow them to opt their elementary-age children out of school lessons and materials that celebrate same-sex romantic relationships or gender based on feelings instead of biology.

Parents have not yet had much success in protecting children from books that promote divisive critical race theory concepts and gender ideology or contain sexually explicit material. Any parental input into what books are available to students in school is met with claims of “book banning” by educators and library administrators. A pending lawsuit challenges a Texas law that prevents booksellers from selling any “sexually explicit” books to school libraries, and lawsuits challenging other laws that attempt to regulate which books are available to children are pending in Arkansas and Florida.

Faith in the workplace

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of an evangelical Christian postal worker to have Sundays off for his Sabbath observance. While a lower court will take a second look at Gerald Groff’s case, the court’s ruling now means employers will be required to demonstrate that accommodating an employee’s religious objections will substantially increase their cost of doing business.

A landmark ruling from the Virginia Supreme Court boosted religious liberty in the state to a level that surpasses First Amendment protections. A unanimous court ruled that a school district violated high school French teacher Peter Vlaming’s right to freely exercise his religion under the Virginia Constitution when the district fired him for not using a student’s preferred pronouns.

Controversial workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion and race-based initiatives have also been challenged. A federal appeals court is currently considering the constitutionality of a Florida law that allows employees to opt out of controversial training that they object to on religious or other grounds after a lower court blocked a portion of the law in 2022. In California, a San Diego–based human resource employee sued a food services company over its refusal to allow her to opt out of a program that provided special training and mentorship to women and people of color while excluding white males.

Continuing disputes

In 2024, the Supreme Court will deal with claims of governmental collusion with social media outlets, as it has agreed to review an appeals court ruling blocking the efforts of the Biden administration to influence Big Tech censors. There will be continuing dueling over free but objectionable speech—including attempts to protect children from exposure to sexualized drag queen shows and the deliberately provocative After School Satan Club.

States will face continued First Amendment challenges, such as the one in Oregon, where Jessica Bates is appealing a ruling that she was unfit to foster or adopt because of her Christian beliefs that prevent her from agreeing with gender transition for children. Depositors will continue to challenge banks and other financial services companies that have “debanked” them over their religious beliefs. In short, constitutional rights aside, it remains to be seen to what extent Americans will accommodate those with increasingly unpopular religious beliefs.

As the year came to a close, religious liberty and free speech advocates were disappointed when the Supreme Court declined two important cases. In Tingley v. Ferguson, a licensed counselor challenged a Washington law barring him from talking with those suffering unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion. In Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, a pro-life sidewalk counselor challenged an ordinance hampering her ability to talk with women entering an abortion center.