Liberty of Conscience for All

This affirmation follows from the humanist commitments to free inquiry and to grounding public life in reason and human welfare, and it descends from Enlightenment arguments for toleration and the separation of church and state. It distinguishes secular humanism from positions that would give a particular religion authority in law and government. Humanists regard state neutrality not as hostility to religion but as the condition for equal freedom, and the principle is presented here as one that its adherents hold. American constitutional practice around this principle shifted markedly in 2022.

Since Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), US courts had generally applied the so-called Lemon test, asking whether a government action had a secular purpose, neither advanced nor inhibited religion, and avoided excessive entanglement with it. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), a 6 to 3 Supreme Court majority abandoned that framework, holding it "abstract" and "ahistorical," and directed lower courts instead to interpret the Establishment Clause by reference to historical practices and understandings from the founding era; humanist and secularist organisations generally regard the change as weakening the constitutional wall of separation, while the decision's supporters argue it corrects decades of an overly restrictive and doctrinally incoherent standard.