The loss of the faith and character of the citizenry has been necessarily accompanied by the loss of beliefs in the higher moral law of God, which put limitations on individuals, institutions, and society. People who drift away from the Christian Faith lose the basis of their morals. They discover, as did the hippies of the 1960's, that they do not believe in their morals anymore. In a representative government, this loss of faith and moral standards will be reflected in the people and their institutions. People may see individuals, laws, or political or judicial decisions as watersheds, but they only reveal the vulnerability that existed since the loss of Christian faith.
Men play god in various ways.
In either case, or in any other manifestation of rebellion against divine law, man is supreme. All such forms of man's supremacy are examples of humanism. Humanism is man playing god. Even the concept of the rule of law loses validity when the law is itself corrupted by morally lawless citizens and their morally lawless representatives and justices. In democratic humanism, it is not God's law that is supreme.