As people in Reconstruction days well knew, the states cannot be trusted not to violate the fundamental civil rights of their citizens. It was sadly demonstrated in the 1860s, and it was sadly demonstrated in the 1960s. Consequently, the Fourteenth Amendment extends the protection of the Bill of Rights to citizens of the States, and authorizes the federal government to take action to intervene if states have acted unconstitutionally.
Abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment predate Everson v. Board of Education (1947), but that case defines the moment when the doctrine of "separation of church and state", which has no basis in law aside from proscriptions affecting federal government (including federal judges, by the way), was used to support an unconstitutional opinion, and has served as the basis for a spectacular train of abuses by federal judges since, from prayer bans to intervention at all levels of government.
This includes recent outrageous decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court which effectively seek to nullify the Tenth Amendment and the constitutionally mandated reservation of powers not specifically granted by the Constitution to the federal government to the states, or to the people.
It is impossible to reconcile interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment as extending federal powers to each and every aspect of state and local government with the intrinsic principles of the U.S. Constitution. These opinions disregard the body of the Constitution itself, and as such, are illegal and nonbinding. It is fallacy to claim authority from a document one seeks to render moot in its totality.
Just because a criminal gets away with a crime does not mean what he did was legal. So it is with federal judges and their abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The time of reckoning is coming, and only then will the true rule of law be restored.