MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AGO, when the framers decided to amend the Constitution to protect religious liberty, they wanted to constrain the federal government. So in the amendment that became our first, they told Congress to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Today, the framers might be surprised to learn that the federal government no longer is suspect when it comes to religious liberty. Indeed, the government now has a lead role in advancing that fundamental freedom. Consider the settlement reached last week in a case involving Balch Springs in southeastern Dallas County.