The View From May 20, 2021

Supreme Court justices want to erect a 'Christian nation' over America's 'ashes': Constitutional lawyerhttps://t.co/X76PRcgGvt

— Raw Story (@RawStory) May 5, 2022

I have to start out by saying I found this via the Raw Story article above, but at the time I read the article, it linked to the wrong column, which was the one I quote immediately below:

 The end of Roe may not be explicit. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is, but the smart money would be against the court saying, “We overturn Roe v. Wade,” and instead leaving the case in name only, so it can still be exploited as a rallying and donating cry for conservatives. The opinion will probably come down in June 2022, just before the mid-terms. Why take away that political motivator? 

Plus, not expressly overturning Roe would also allow the court to maintain the pretense that it gives a fig about precedent. It doesn’t. Take, for example, the justice that now sits at the center of the court, Brett Kavanaugh. Since Barrett was confirmed, Kavanaugh has voted in the majority more than any other justice, 97 percent of the time. As Ian Millhiser put it over at Vox, “the Court’s new median justice really doesn’t care about precedent.” It’s not just Kavanaugh; all six conservative justices have been mowing down decades-old precedent by the score, but carefully pretending otherwise. This has implications that go well beyond reproductive justice. 

The leaked Dobbs opinion, of course, expressly and explicitly tosses out Roe and Casey. The highlighted part of that first paragraph is precisly why Republicans universal are addressing the leak of the draft opinion, rather than its substance. They've caught the car, but the car is still moving, and they are going to wind up under its wheels.

Not only has the political motivator been taken away ("We won!  We won!") it's been handed to the other side ("You maniacs! You blew it all up!  Goddamn you!  Goddamn you all to hell!")

A little Rod Serling in the mouth of Charlton Heston is always a good thing, no?

And the first sentence of the first paragraph is simply prescient.  One year later, we see the express truth of it.  And yes, "mowing down decades-old precedent by the score" does have "impliations that go well beyond reproductive justice."  Which is what we're all talking about now, isn't it?

Some of you might be thinking about Chief Justice Roberts, the occasional savior according to some narratives. You’re hoping that he’ll stop this. He’ll use his prerogative as Chief to write the majority opinion and mitigate the damage or do the right thing. Didn’t he try to stop this a little while ago about another case with abortion, something about June and medical services?

I suppose Roberts can throw Alito's draft in the shredder and declare he will try again.  But then again, that's probably why the draft was leaked in the first place.  Not because some conniving liberal law clerk wanted to undermine the Court's decision; but because some hard-right Justice (my money's on Thomas, but Kavanaugh will do as well; or Barrett) wanted to force Roberts to have the courage of his convictions and keep a one-vote majority on this case, not just eviscerating Roe the way Brnovich and Shelby County left the VRA an empty shell, but wiping it from the face of the earth and the pages of history, and sowing that legal ground with salt so nothing would ever grow there again.  And my support for that argument?  Let's dig deeper into the time capsule, shall we?

Second, yes, Roberts did the right thing in a June 2020 case involving a Louisiana restriction on abortion, June Medical Services. Roberts voted with the four liberals so the abortion law was struck down by a 5-4 vote. Roberts didn’t vote that way because of ideology, but because the court had decided a case on a nearly identical law (from Texas) in 2016. Roberts’s opinion in June Medical boiled down to Roberts saying, “Come on! We literally just decided this exact same case a few years ago. Give me any other targeted restriction on abortion providers and I’ll give you the decision you want, but I can’t overrule a decision from four years ago! Give me some cover.” That 2016 case was a 6-3 decision. Since it was decided, Trump dumped Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett onto the Supreme Court. All are hostile to Roe. The court has been packed by McConnell, Trump, and the Federalist Society.

'nuff said.  But we're not done looking backwards yet:

Women are about to lose their bodily autonomy. Politicians will control their bodies because of five men and one woman on the high court. Contraception will be next.  

Because: sure, why not?  And because that target follows the reasoning as surely as night follows day.

I have to throw in, because the Raw Story article I found the above from, doesn't link to the article it quotes extensively, that not everything the Court does is a looming disaster certain to bring about an end to American democracy.

If you still doubt the crusade to turn this into a Christian nation, yesterday the Court decided that a group which is dedicated to indoctrinating “the next generation … with the knowledge of how America was founded as a Christian nation,” has a constitutional right to fly the Christian flag over Boston City Hall. On Jan. 6, 2021, Christian Nationalists proudly flew this flag at their rallies and marches, and insurrectionists even paraded the flag on the floor of the U.S. Senate after they breached the Capitol. It marked their territory on January 6th and will do the same flying over the seat of government in one of our oldest cities. 

This term’s likely decisions, along with a host of other decisions this Court has handed down over the last decade and which I detail in American Crusade, will likely do incalculable damage to the separation of church and state. And that is a direct threat to our democracy. Without that foundation, our pluralistic democracy will crumble, because without that separation, religious freedom becomes religious privilege. That’s where this court is taking us: to a Christian nation where conservative white Christians are a special, favored class and all others are second class citizens.  

That case was a unanimous decision resting on the principle that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, a/k/a equal protection of law.  Boston screwed the pooch by allowing anybody to put up a flag, and then balked at the Christian flag.  The Court held, quite reasonably, that because Boston allowed flags to be raised solely upon application, it had no role in determining the content of the speech involved; so, it was not endorsing any speech there, be it a Christian flag or, now, a Satanist one, that is raised. It's private, not government, speech.  Practically a no-brainer, really. The Court didn't order Boston to fly a Christian flag because Christianity=Great!  The Court said Boston couldn't suddenly decide some applicants were more equal than others.  Which allows the Satanists a day.  Hardly promoting religion, is it?