"The U.S. Supreme Court has quietly ended the long constitutional swing of cases contrary to the protection of religious liberty from 1980 to 2010 and is now leading a strong pendulum swing in the opposite direction. It has been the principal cause of a strong swing in favor of religious liberty in that country, which all modern democratic societies should celebrate."

Religious freedom has reawakened in the United States in the last decade at the hand of its Supreme Court, the same constitutional institution that, years before, had put its most precious and fundamental freedom on the ropes. The First Amendment (dating back to 1791), which briefly regulates religious freedom, guarantees that congress may not enact any law establishing an official religion (the Non-Establishment Clause) or prohibiting the free internship exercise of a particular religion (the Free Exercise Clause). This Amendment also protects freedom of speech, of the press, of meeting, and the right to apply for redress of grievances from the government. From these two Clauses, Supreme Court jurisprudence had developed what can be considered the six foundational principles of the great American experiment in religious freedom, namely: freedom of conscience, free exercise, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no government establishment of an official religion.

However, between 1980 and 2010, the Supreme Court gradually reduced the First Amendment to a mere guarantee of state neutrality towards religion, in line with the French principle of 'laïcité'. The right to religious freedom went from being the first freedom of the American constitutional order, to becoming a disputed second right class. Former religious monuments were destroyed as symbols of religious bigotry and favoritism. State civil rights commissions began sanctioning merchants who objected, in good conscience, to providing services at same-sex weddings; pharmacists who, for religious reasons, would not dispense prescriptions for abortifacients; and religious schools that did not teach an inclusive sexual ethic. Some critics and legislators called for stripping religious communities of their tax exemptions, rights to perform marriage rites, licenses from teaching and certain social service contracts.

The causes of this turn against religion and religious freedom are varied: concern about militant Islamism after 9/11; the finding of sex scandals and cover-ups within some churches; new media revelations about the lavish lifestyles of some religious leaders of large tax-exempt institutions, as well as some political maneuvering by some religious groups. An even deeper reason was the firm civil service examination of some religious communities, including the Catholic Church, to same-sex marriage as Constitutional Law, as well as to the right to contraception and abortion. Some academics and the media were highly critical of religion, branding it the enemy of freedom, and denounced religious freedom as a dangerous and obsolete constitutional luxury. There was talk of eliminating the right to religious freedom and leaving it as an expression of a broader right to ethical independence.

All that has changed dramatically in recent years. In more than two dozen cases since 2011, the Supreme Court has used both First Amendment and federal law to strengthen the rights of religious organizations to make their own internal decisions about employment and employee benefits. The Supreme Court has held that some forms of government financial aid to religion and religious Education are not only permissible under the No Establishment of Official Religion Clause, but are also required under the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses. The Court has used the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to prohibit various regulations and public policies that discriminated against religion, which penalized those who purported to act in agreement with their moral conscience.

The current Supreme Court has also increasingly embraced the traditional doctrine that the First Amendment provides an interlocking and integrated shield of religious liberties and rights for all citizens. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government proscriptions of religion, i.e., government policies or actions that place an unbearable burden on the conscience of citizens, unduly limit free internship religion, discriminate against religion, or invade the autonomy of churches and other religious groups. In turn, the Non-Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits governmental prescriptions of a religious character, i.e., governmental actions that mandate certain forms of exercise, discriminate in favor of religion, or conflate the state with churches or other religious bodies. The Court's recent cases not only revive the vision of the founders. They also offer new insights that provide a more inclusive approach toward protecting religious liberty.

For example, the Supreme Court now holds that state financial aid to religious Education is not only permissible under the Non-Establishment Clause, but is sometimes required by the Free Exercise Clause to ensure the attention equality of religion. "Constitutions run like clocks," the great statesman and founding father John Adams reminded us. To function properly, "their pendulums must swing in harmony." The Supreme Court quietly ended the long constitutional swing of cases contrary to religious liberty protections from 1980 to 2010 and is now leading a strong pendulum swing in the opposite direction. Since 2010, nearly every one of the Supreme Court's two dozen rulings has advanced the cause of religious liberty, and those cases have had a strong jurisprudential and social echo. The Supreme Court has not always operated with precise and neat clockwork logic, nor has it gone for a unified jurisprudence as some scholars intended. But it has been the main cause of a strong turn in favor of religious freedom, which all modern democratic societies should celebrate.