Generally speaking, that’s true.
13 Likes
Yes, to put it bluntly. For these people, anything other than a position of privilege is oppression. What good are their religious beliefs if they can only used to guide how they live their own lives, after all?
12 Likes
The penguin in the study definitely points due south with her.
Also, it is incredible to me that Clarence Thomas wants to live in a world where he literally has to sit in the back of the bus. Which is where he’d be, even now, if SCOTUS didn’t rule segregation/Jim Crow unconstitutional.
7 Likes
I should have phrased that better. For those who espouse religious liberty should always prevail over other civil liberties, enforced by the government, conservative christianity is the only religion to be considered.
8 Likes
I got that. I agree! 
6 Likes
There are plenty of Black Mormons-whose religion considered them less worthy until1985. Just like Coney Barrett Wants to be a judge while belonging to a group that says women only belong at home. They think those rules don’t/wouldn’t apply to them.
6 Likes
You don’t understand.
“religious freedom” means nothing more or less than the ability of right wing christian nationalists to tangle their evangelical white church up with the state.
Any other religion or faith, and especially atheism are not part of this philosophy and are pretty much the intended victims.
Thomas and Alito say “religious liberty” what they mean is white christian hegemony.
Violating religious freedom is absolutely fine to them, and actually desirable most of the time, as long as it’s christian nationalists violating the religious liberty of atheists and muslims.
22 Likes
Because you want the Republicans to have another SC pick in a lame duck session…?
Thomas is the same man who argued in an official SCOTUS dissent that people boycotting businesses for opposing same-sex marriage was a violation of the first amendment rights of those businesses. His idea of freedom has always been that the right people are free to do what they want, and anyone disagreeing not only has no right to do so, but that they should be actively prevented from speaking because that infringes upon the rights of wealthy conservatives to do whatever they damn well please
10 Likes
There is no religious freedom to attack the rights of others. Denial of government services one is entitled to is an attack. If one’s religion makes such actions seem unpalatable, nobody has to care. Either suck it up or quit the job.
6 Likes
His idea of freedom is that conservatives can do what they want and its his job to cough up excuses for why it is so and why liberals cannot do the same thing.
5 Likes
But where it gets interesting is that the courts have not held that to be the case. Every time the atheist and tongue-in-cheek satanist groups challenge nativity scenes and commandments on courthouse lawns, they win. A lot of precedent is set here and when a case that actually matters reaches SCOTUS, it will be interesting to see what they do.
6 Likes
The worst thing you can do is expect any kind of intellectual honesty or consistency from the Conservative wing of SCOTUS when it comes to Freedom of Religion. The only thing they have consistently done is rule in favor of Conservative Christians for any given specious reasons. Virtually all their rulings are so filled with carve outs, exceptions and limitations that its clear even they don’t want their ideas given precedent value.
10 Likes
That’s a very good point. And they’ve always managed to find reasons to rule against Islam, the few times it has come up.
6 Likes
All the conservatives on the SCOTUS have said pretty much overtly that they have no regard for stare decisis.
In other words, whatever other courts have ruled, the conservatives don’t care because they are activist judges who feel like the desired results of their rulings are by far more important than law, justice, or self consistency.
8 Likes
I agree, but there’s actually some really interesting and fascinating history there. Incorporation wasn’t a thing until after the 14th amendment, so originally it only applied to the federal government. There were official state religions in some places here until as late as 1833 (IIRC), and some states had laws restricting some rights, like holding office, to non-Catholic Christians.
@LDoBe: All the conservatives on the SCOTUS have said pretty much overtly that they have no regard for stare decisis
To be fair, almost no one does, anywhere. Or, they do, in that they refuse to hear the vast majority of cases that appeal for their review, but not in cases where they are specifically tasked with making a judgment. Words are always vague enough for someone to find some principle they can argue hasn’t been decided yet in past cases, or was decided wrongly based on some even older precedent. The conservatives just have to reach farther these days to more implausible arguments.
1 Like
From the article:
Kim Davis, the county clerk… [ultimately lost her job] for refusing to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples…
The woman wasn’t fired because of her religion; she was fired for not doing her job.
She saw fit to deny her fellow Americans a right that she herself had used multiple times.
Don’t like gay marriage?
Fine.
Nobody is forcing you to marry one, so MYODB.
It is strange that god of theirs needs people to do its work for it… it is almost like it doesn’t actually exist…
13 Likes
Would there be very many Republicans that would want to stake the party’s existence on putting that genie back in the bottle? Even if you had an Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh opinion to overturn it, I have a very hard time believing that there would be many state governments that would want to go through with removing the right for their citizens. It would be disastrous for them politically. The decision as is allows them to rail against it without actually having to worry about the political cost of bigotry.
1 Like
Your religion isn’t a “real” religion. It’s not about religious freedom its about theocracy.
5 Likes
See also: how “states’ rights” is a code word for states having the power to oppress and discriminate against the people Republicans don’t like.
5 Likes
