I agree that the 14th Amendment was intended to protect individual rights, but would add that religious freedom (and, more broadly, intellectual freedom) is not only an individual right, but arguably one of the most important individual rights we have. The Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson and Madison, were acutely aware of the long, sorry history of the commingling of church and state during that time that historians now call the Dark and Middle Ages. Indeed, many people came from Old Europe to the New World to escape religious tyranny.
If the State has the right to impose religion on you, then it effectively owns or controls your mind and your life -- the very opposite of the State's recognition of your "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is no accident that the man who wrote these words in the Declaration of Independence was also the man who explained that the establishment clause of the First Amendment established the principle of separation of church and state.
Keep in mind that despite what Myron Thonpson has to say there is no right not to be offended in the Constitution nor have I ever met anyone who believs it is a natural right.
The Fifth Circuit banning football players in Texas from voluntary prayer is an abrifgement of their rights as human beings to free speech and their exercise of religion.. The Eleventh Circuit ordering the cessation of voluntary prayer at dinner time at VMI is a violation of their individual rights to free speech and their exercise of religion. The Ninth Circuit oredering public school children to cease and desist the recitation of the POA with the words "under God" included is a violation of their rights to free speech and the exercise of their religion. And finally, Myron Thompson and the Appeals Court ordering Alabaman's how to decorate their courtroom with what historical documents is a power never granted to the federal government, it is a power delegated to the states.
Putting a statue of the Virgin Mary in the courthouse would establish a religion. Installing a crucifix on the steeple would establish a religion. Hanging a Jewish Star on the courthourse would establish a relgion.
Banning the Ten Commandments which even Myron Thompson admits is the basis for American jurisprudence is also the establishment of religion. The New Age religion of secular humanism whose creed is moral relativism.
I don't know anybody who advocates a theocracy. I certainly don't but I'm sick of judicial activists, the ever widening wall and an American judicial sytem that favbors the secualists at the expense of those who believe in God.
You're going to see a push back.