In their what? Although I might give a more substantive answer, and say that your interpretation in effect says, “Citizens of the United States have rights. The states may violate them with impunity.”
“This proves not to be the case.” The Fourteenth was passed precisely because the states, or some of them, specifically the former Confederacy now being reconstructed, were intentionally and willfully denying rights to American citizens. One major focus of that denial was black people, to be sure, but far from the only one. And the amendment was intentionally written with broad language to ensure that no ingenious way of denying those rights would pass muster. Note the differences in the broad language of tje 14th and the very specific language of the 24th.
Oh, and by the way, telling a public employee they cannot compel minor children temporarily in their care to practice their, the public employee’s, religion, is not “censorship” or “violating their freedom of religion.”
The amendment was put into effect in 1867. The first instance of incorporation of a right by it was in 1897, in an opinion written by that flaming liberal Chief Justice Edard D. White. I assume thirty years is “nearly a century” in ITR speak?
Someday take a course in basic civics. Courts “make law” all the time – case law. It’s their job. And courts are not in the business of “law enforcement.” There’s a difference between a judge and a cop beyond what outfit they’re wearing on the job. If you want to live in a country where arrest by a cop is an immediate guarantee of guilty status, and a plaintiff wins every lawsuit he files, and any public official can cram his religious beliefs down your or my throat at his leisure, go right ahead. But don’t try to turn my country into your totalitarian theocracy.
Because servicemen, congressmen, and others (even convicts) have the right to freely exercise their faith, and chaplains are provided to enable them to better do so. Telling a serviceman in Iraq, “Sure you have the right to believe that a priest can pronounce God’s forgiveness of your sins when you confess them to him, and you can visit one back in the States – if you live,” is effectively denying him the free exercise of his faith. Sending a priest as chaplain enables him to exercise it. And nobody else is obliged to make use of said chaplain if his services go against their faith. Besides chaplains, what other government employees are “hired with religious duties”? Provide a detailed list, please.
Bottom line, nowhere in the First Amendment or anywhere else does it permit any person whatsoever to use the resources of government to compel or coerce anyone else to practice their faith. In fact, it explicitly says Congress cannot do that, and the courts, backed by every competent legal scholar, have been in agreement that the states and their minor subdivisions have been equally prohibited from doing so for 142 years.