When in July the Supreme Court sided with the Little Sisters of the Poor against an Obama-era contraception mandate, the Trump administration claimed it as another win for its religious liberty agenda.
"Behind every court victory and every successful administrative reform are dedicated people working to protect our lives and freedoms as promised by the Constitution and protected by our laws," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote in the Washington Examiner. "That dedicated work is why we can say Trump is the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty president in American history."
Trump supporters heaped similar praise on the administration throughout the president's term — and not without good reason. Trump and his aides often cited religious liberty as one of their top priorities, and the executive branch frequently released guidance and executive orders protecting the freedom of conscience for religious people and created several departments dedicated specifically to religious freedom regulation. The most public displays were fights such as the Little Sisters case and the Justice Department's interventions into church-related coronavirus litigation, but the administration pursued many smaller skirmishes too.
The Biden administration on religious liberty is expected to produce opposite results. Biden, although personally religious, throughout his campaign made statements calling out the Trump administration for the ways in which it supported religious liberty. In the most dramatic example, Biden vowed after the Supreme Court's decision to remove the exemptions to the contraception mandate that Trump had put in place for groups such as the Little Sisters.
