AU 2020 Student Essay Contest winner Priya Aggarwal of Bristol, Conn., writes about the harm caused when religion is used to discriminate in health care and other areas of life.

The vast majority of America’s religious leaders are doing the right thing and following public health orders. Those who are defiant tend to represent extreme fundamentalist factions; they’re the same people who have long argued that they have a right to put their interpretation of 'God’s law' above secular law.