What amendment protects religious freedom?

The First Amendment is the constitutional provision that protects religious freedom in the United States. Ratified on December 15, 1791 as the first article of the Bill of Rights, it contains two religion clauses that work together to prevent government from establishing an official religion or interfering with personal religious practice. The amendment opens with the words Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The Establishment Clause forbids the federal government, and since Everson v. Board of Education (1947) the state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment, from creating an official church, funding religious instruction in public schools, or favoring one denomination over another. Engel v. Vitale (1962) struck down state-sponsored prayer in public schools. School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963) struck down required Bible readings. McCreary County v. ACLU (2005) struck down a Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courthouse, while Van Orden v. Perry (2005) upheld a similar monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, illustrating the fact-specific nature of Establishment Clause analysis. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) loosened the analysis by emphasizing historical practices and understandings rather than the older Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) three-part test.

The Free Exercise Clause protects an individual's right to worship, observe holy days, wear religious clothing, raise children in a faith, share religious beliefs publicly, and choose to practice no religion at all. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) applied the clause to states. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) protected Amish parents' right to withdraw their children from school after eighth grade on free exercise grounds. Employment Division v. Smith (1990) held that neutral, generally applicable laws may apply to religious conduct, prompting Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which restores strict scrutiny for federal laws that substantially burden religious exercise. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993) struck down ordinances targeting Santeria animal sacrifice as not neutral or generally applicable.

The protections work together. The Establishment Clause prevents government from coercing religious belief, while the Free Exercise Clause prevents government from punishing it. Together they create a sphere of religious liberty unmatched in the world's democracies. Naturalization candidates should remember the First Amendment as the source of religious freedom and recognize that the Constitution permits worship, change of faith, and absence of belief without legal penalty.