ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a new approach to the Bill of Rights in general and the First Amendment in particular. It argues that the Bill of Rights serves to protect the freedoms listed in it through the incorporation of equal protection norms. The Bill of Rights lays out various areas of freedoms that the ratifying generation believed important in maintaining the health and integrity of American constitutional democracy. Notions of equality and neutrality, as now being applied in First Amendment jurisprudence, have had a major impact on American constitutionalism throughout the last half century. An analysis of First Amendment case law reveals how equal protection notions can govern and protect individual rights. The Supreme Court's equality approach to the Establishment Clause has also been evident in cases involving free speech claims. Just as neutrality and equality have become governing principles for Establishment Clause cases, they have also been applied to the Free Exercise Clause.
