Yep, that’s the way it works.
I’ve mentioned this before, but ever since the Supreme Court decisions in Scheckter Poultry and Wickard v. Filburn, they have abrogated their duties as guardians of the Constitution and the notion of limited government. Since then, the Courts have served the socialist state by creating from wholecloth new “rights” that were never recognized in the Constitution. The creation of an ever expanding series of “rights,” has created a complex legal situation where these rights inherently compete against each other. The Courts become the aribters of these competing “rights,” including several that actually are specifically recognized in the Bill of Rights.
In arbitrating which rights control in a situation, these “rights” are not rights at all, but licenses, granted (and revoked) by the state acting through its judicial branch.
And you will notice that it is the Free Exercise of Religion that takes a backseat to all other “rights.” In fact, for a Free Exercise claim to get any traction, it has to be cloaked as a Free Speech issue.
I’m afraid that most of the socialists who arbitrate these “licenses” look at the Free Exercise of Religion as:
You are free to worship any religion you wish in the properly zoned structure for religious worship, during the regulated church hours of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, where you can hear the officially approved message from the politically correct edited Bible delivered by the licensed pastor.
That’s what creeping socialism does. Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand and George Orwell would not be pleased with the society we have created, but they would all certainly recognize it.
Not even Huxley imagined the level of moral degradation the West would reach. And we’re still going down.