Like 2020, this year has seen continued threats to religious liberty. Yet First Amendment protections were bolstered by a Supreme Court majority that seems committed to protecting the rights of the faithful—particularly those whose views are increasingly disfavored in post-Christian America. As always, bad news is tempered by the good and by a belief in God’s providence. Here are top stories from the liberty beat in 2021.

In February, a Supreme Court majority struck down California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s near-total ban on indoor worship, following a late 2020 ruling where the court blocked New York City’s numerical caps on worship. A conservative majority concluded that California could not treat churches differently than other businesses that capped capacity at 25 percent. “Even in times of crisis—perhaps especially in times of crisis—we have a duty to hold governments to the Constitution,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch…

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Christians have differing opinions about the wisdom and ethics of taking COVID-19 vaccines, but even many in favor of vaccines question the wisdom of mandating them… Following evidence that the military has not granted a single religious exemption to its vaccine mandate, a federal judge ordered the military to detail by early January how it has dealt with over 16,000 exemption requests by service members. The scope of religious exemptions remains a challenge: Some employers and government officials have asked intrusive questions to test the sincerity of employees’ religious beliefs…

Faith-based adoption and foster care ministries remained a hot spot in the conflict between religious liberty and gay rights. Many such ministries, holding to Biblical beliefs, place children only with Christian couples made up of one woman and one man. Yet cities, counties, states, and the federal government have enacted laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity when placing children. In a surprisingly unanimous ruling in June by the Supreme Court in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the court sided with Catholic Social Services, a major foster care agency in the city…

Federal appeals courts held University of Iowa officials liable for “deregistering” InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Business Leaders for Christ, and they rejected an attempt to force Fuller Seminary to serve students living in same-sex marriages…

Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cakeshop baker in Colorado who has fought to operate his business in accord with his beliefs for over a decade, won a Supreme Court victory in 2018 protecting him from baking a same-sex wedding cake. But he remains under attack in litigation over his declining to design a cake celebrating a gender transition. Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman in June lost a bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court review her case, in which she lost the right not to create custom floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding. The 77-year-old grandmother agreed in November to sell her business in order to avoid paying millions of dollars in damages and attorneys’ fees.

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(Excerpt from World News Group. Photo Credit: Getty Images)