Yes, which is to say that it is our representatives duty to PROTECT our constitutional rights. If an American citizen is denied these liberties by our local government, we have just cause to pursue litigation.
No, there is a HUGE difference between being prohibited from interefering with free exercise and being given the power to ENFORCE it. Regardless of personal opinion the First Amendment gives NO POWER to Congress to enforce it. When we start trying to change the Constitution, America’s Rule of Law, to conform with our personal wishes or morality, we create instead the Rule of Man, what the Left does and we tear down the ONLY legal bulwark between us and tyranny.
If enough of us think the Constitution should be changed, then the Constitution itself has given is the means to change it - not by activism - but by the amendment process.
In the meantime, if you look at the greatest threat to our freedom to choose according to our values, whether free exercise, marriage, or abortion, the threat is not the states, it is the federal government. You do NOT want to give the feds the power to decide the issue of free exercise just like you do not want them to decide about things like marriage or abortion, all of which is NONE of the feds business.
No, free exercise, like bearing arms, marriage, and abortion, is a states’ issue. The Constitution favors LOCAL (state and individual) GOVERNANCE and is against central command and control. The people of each state must decide these issues for themselves. And without any exception that I know of, every state has all of these issue in their State Constitutions that harmonize with the rights and freedoms reflected in the U.S. Constitution.
Again, the problem is not the states. The problem and great threat is the federal government who unconstitutionally is always trying to negate state constitutional law like negating prohibition of abortions or negating free exercise because of some stupid racial excuse, etc. The feds have no constitutional say in these issues, and we need to keep it that way.
Again, keep the litigation in the state courts because your state constitution already protects free exercise.