The Invisible Protestant Template Shaping American Law
We claim to have separation of church and state, but what we actually have is the separation of other people’s churches from the state.
Last week I was at Chautauqua Institution to give a lecture as part of their inter-faith series. It was my first time at Chautauqua, and its a magical place for a religion nerd like me. I’d describe it as a retreat center for progressive folks interested in religion and the arts. I was there for only 36 hours and saw the Icelandic singer Laufey perform with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, a dress rehearsal of Puccini’s La bohéme, and the Houston Ballet. Swoon.
But the day of my lecture, standing at a podium in the open-air structure known as the Hall of Philosophy, I couldn’t help but think how ironic that I had been invited to speak about law. A little known fact about me? I almost became a lawyer, but chose to study religion instead because I didn’t think law was the best framework for advocating for the issues I care the most about.
After college, I moved to Washington D.C. to work as a legal assistant and later at a reproductive rights NGO. After a couple of years surrounded by brilliant lawyers and grassroots organizers fighting for women’s bodily autonomy, I knew it was time for graduate school, but I wasn’t sure for what. So I did what any anxious overachiever would do: I applied to 18 programs. Public health, because I cared about policy. Law, because I wanted to advocate. Religion, because I was fascinated by how faith shapes moral conviction.
Once I had a pile of acceptance letters in front of me, I came up with a plan: do a joint program at the University of Chicago—an MA in religion and a JD in law. Best of both worlds, right?
But when the law school called in my second year to confirm enrollment, I found myself pausing. “You know what?” I said, “No. I’m not coming. I’m having too much fun studying religion.” And honestly? By that point I was convinced that law is not the best tool for supporting religious and sexual diversity.
Well, fast forward 25 years. I have that MA plus a PhD in religion, I’m a full professor of religion, and here’s the irony: I keep ending up in courtrooms as an expert witness, and I’m being asked to speak about those experiences. The law I thought I’d escaped? It kept pulling me back in.
Because here’s what I’ve learned: we like to think our legal system operates on secular principles, divorced from religious influence. But the reality is far more complicated.
American law doesn’t just have religious influences—it operates with what scholars call a Protestant Christian template. And this template is so deeply embedded that it’s become invisible, looking like neutrality when it’s actually a particular religious perspective.
What Does Protestant Bias Look Like?
This template assumes that authentic religion is:
Primarily about internal belief rather than embodied practice
Voluntary and individual rather than inherited or communal
Separable from law, politics, and public life rather than integrated into all aspects of life
Focused on personal salvation rather than social transformation
These assumptions aren’t written down anywhere. They’re not explicit constitutional doctrine. But they’re baked into how American institutions understand and evaluate religious claims.
Let me show you how this works with a concrete example.
The Amish Exception That Proves the Rule
In 1972, the Supreme Court decided Wisconsin v. Yoder, involving Amish parents who wanted to remove their children from public school after eighth grade. Wisconsin said no—compulsory education law required attendance until age 16. The Amish said this violated their religious freedom.
The Court sided with the Amish, but listen to why. Chief Justice Burger emphasized that Amish religious beliefs were “deeply held,” “sincere,” and supported by “centuries of consistent practice.” He wrote about their “fundamental belief that salvation requires life in a church community separate and apart from the world.”
Notice what the Court found persuasive: internal belief, individual sincerity, consistency over time. These became the legal gold standard for legitimate religious claims. If your religion fits this template—if it’s about personal conviction that’s been stable for generations—you’re more likely to be protected.
But what if your religion doesn’t fit this mold? What if it’s embodied, evolving, or communal in ways that don’t translate neatly into individual sincerity? Well, then you are out of luck.
When Religion Doesn’t Look Protestant
This bias shows up clearly in how laws and the courts handle religious practices that don’t fit Protestant assumptions.
Take religious dress. Christian students can generally wear crosses without issue. But Muslim girls wearing hijab, Sikh boys wearing turbans, or Jewish boys wearing yarmulkes often face challenges. Their religious expression is seen as more disruptive, more problematic…less American.
Or consider “conscience clause” laws that let pharmacists refuse to fill birth control prescriptions based on religious convictions. These are framed as protecting individual religious freedom. But imagine if a Muslim pharmacist refused to sell alcohol-based medicines. Suddenly, religious accommodation becomes much more controversial.
Here’s the pattern: when a policy reflects conservative Christian values, it’s often presented as secular morality or common sense. When it reflects Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or progressive Christian practices, it’s more likely to be framed as extremism or foreign influence.
The “Judeo-Christian” Smokescreen
This bias becomes most visible when courts regulate sexuality. In 1986’s Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s sodomy statute that was still on the books at that time, with Justice White justifying the decision by claiming that “condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards.”
Notice the sleight of hand. The Court doesn’t say this is about Christianity specifically. They invoke “Judeo-Christian tradition”—a phrase that sounds inclusive but actually obscures whose religious views are really driving the decision. And they present one particular religious perspective as if it represents universal moral wisdom.
But whose millennia? Whose moral teaching? Christianity, or in this case conservative Christianity, is determining what counts as legally legitimate “religion” and “morality.”
The Double Standard in Practice
This creates a profound double standard. When courts consistently privilege Protestant assumptions about religion, they marginalize traditions that don’t fit the template. Some people’s deeply held convictions matter more than others.
Think about how this affects the regulation sexuality: Laws about sex education, contraception access, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ protections, marriage equality—all are shaped by religious worldviews. And the religious values that get legal legitimacy are typically those aligned with conservative Protestant sexual ethics.
Here’s what's really happening: we claim to have separation of church and state, but what we actually have is the separation of other people’s churches from the state. The Protestant template is so deeply embedded that it’s become invisible—it looks like neutrality when it’s actually a particular religious perspective.
Why This Matters for Everyone
This isn’t just an academic concern—it has real consequences.
It affects those of us who claim no religious identity at all. Growing numbers of Americans are “nones”—I'm one of them—and we don’t want sexuality regulated by religious values we don’t share. Yet we’re told these aren’t religious positions but neutral moral frameworks.
But let’s put the non-religious aside for a moment. What about Americans who are deeply devoted to a faith tradition, but it just doesn’t happen to be the same one as most of our founding fathers, or the one of the loud and powerful majority right now? The problem for them is their religious commitments are sometimes not even recognized by society, institutions, or the courts. This is especially true if the religion in question does not share all of the Protestant Christian template—for example it might emphasize embodied practice over internal belief, it might be primarily communal instead of individual, and it might see law, politics, and public behavior as a place where religious ideas should weigh in.
The paradox is striking: we protect religion most robustly when it looks least religious. The more your faith integrates belief and practice, the sacred and political, the personal and communal, the less likely you are to receive full constitutional protection.
“we protect religion most robustly when it looks least religious”
When courts assume that legitimate religion is private belief separate from embodied practice, Muslim women become vulnerable to hijab removal by police. When legal frameworks privilege individual sincerity over communal practice, Indigenous communities struggle to maintain traditions. When public policy treats conservative Christian sexual ethics as secular morality, LGBTQ+ people face legal discrimination disguised as neutral governance.
What Genuine Pluralism Would Look Like
But there is some good news. This framework isn’t inevitable. It’s the product of particular historical choices, which means it can be changed through different choices.
Genuine religious pluralism would require several shifts: expanding legal understanding of religion beyond Protestant assumptions, acknowledging that all law reflects moral assumptions (many with religious roots), and creating space for dialogue across religious differences rather than simply tolerating diversity from a distance.
Most importantly, it would require recognizing that protecting religious freedom sometimes means protecting practices we don’t understand or agree with. The test of American pluralism isn’t whether we protect popular religious practices, but whether we protect unpopular ones.
“the test of American pluralism isn’t whether we protect popular religious practices, but whether we protect unpopular ones”
The Conversation Continues
The work of building genuine pluralism isn’t just for lawyers and judges—it requires all of us questioning what we’ve been taught to see as normal, neutral, and universal.
What do you think? Have you noticed this Protestant template in your own encounters with law, policy, or public institutions? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
Yes. Yes, to all of this. Thank you