Colorado’s hate crime against baker Jack Philips won’t go quietly into a footnote of history, as an isolated miscarriage of justice we can forget.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 4 ruling against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case has fueled a religious liberties movement gaining momentum each day.

“We’ve all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips,” said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions Monday, announcing a new Religious Liberties Task Force of the Department of Justice.

“We have not only the freedom to worship — but the right to exercise our faith. The Constitution’s protections don’t end at the parish parking lot nor can our freedoms be confined to our basements.”

The announcement came at the end of a first-ever religious liberties summit at the U.S. State Department, which attracted governmental and diverse religious leaders from around the globe. They spoke about state-sanctioned hostility toward religion, including intimidation, property confiscation, rape, torture, imprisonment and beheadings.

The “task force” will help ensure federal enforcement of religious liberties in the United States, as expressly protected by the First Amendment.

“Religious Americans are no longer an afterthought,” Sessions said.

Our sister publication, The Washington Examiner, obtained a Justice Department memo that outlines plans for new federal initiatives. They include: engaging in outreach to the public, outreach to religious liberty communities and religious liberty organizations, and developing new strategies involving litigation, policy, and legislation, all with the goal of ensuring enforcement of First Amendment protections of religion.

People on American soil are fortunate, relative to much of the rest of the world. While individuals and communities in other countries risk and lose their lives for practicing faith, Americans debate government forcing cake designers and photographers to participate in same-sex weddings.

Though trivial on the surface, non-violent affronts to basic liberties pose major threats. We seldom lose freedom in one big event. More typically, liberty fades quietly as few take notice. By defending liberty against seemingly small state-sponsored assaults, we may avoid the long-term, insidious erosion of First Amendment freedoms that could turn violent.

Philips did not face imminent imprisonment or violence, but the state devastated him financially. Under the ultimate threat of imprisonment, authorities ordered him to design cakes for same-sex marriages. They demanded “comprehensive staff training,” which sounds like political reeducation. The state demanded quarterly compliance reports.

“The commission’s actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause,” the court explained, stating the obvious.

And this: The commission committed “official expressions of hostility to religion.”

Throughout the scathing ruling, joined by court liberals and conservatives, the court reprimanded the “Civil Rights Commission” for aggressively violating an individual’s civil rights. The commission was supposed uphold the law, and instead chose to break it.

In announcing the “task force,” Sessions mentioned a few other notorious cases of government violating the First Amendment.

“We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives,” Sessions explained. “We’ve seen U.S. senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma — even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office.”

Brave men and women gave their lives to establish the United States as a country in which government could not interfere with the exercise of religion. Authorities may neither establish religion, nor tread on it. Founders established a government that would defend the right to worship Jesus, Buddha, Allah, or any diety of an individual’s choice.

For our founders, and those who subsequently died for this country, religious liberty was never an “afterthought.” It is good to know the Justice Department plans to get on board.