Because of all those 'or's it outlines quite a wide swath of protected activities. Because of the 14th amendment, it directly applies to not only the federal government, but also state governments.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That's it. But it's caused centuries of back and forth arguments and mountains of case law and supreme court opinions.
The US has a sort of Stockholm syndrome relationship with our Constitution... it's really hard to interpret or change and basically it's read however a given generation of politicized judges wants it to be. A decade or two later that will change, somewhat, and then be reversed again. Public will has little impact on it, and the supremes have no accountability. It's a mess.
We worship it as sacred but it creates a lot of problems in modern society the the ancients didn't foresee. It's an entirely undemocratic piece of paper holding the country and its future hostage, IMO.
It's worth emphasizing this point; The Supreme Court evaluating laws for "constitutionality" is itself a motivated interpretation of the constitution!
Any Supreme Court that claims to be "strict" or "Literalist" is inherently not!