The Supreme Court’s ongoing war on civic equality under the false flag of the First Amendment

I will have more on today’s latest ode to Roger Taney, but the Court’s latest weapomization of the free exercise clause. Today, the Court’s Republicans determined that every parent can create a bespoke public school curriculum (at least where the existence of LGBTQ people are concerned) and not have their children exposed to even the most subtle suggestion that LGBTQ are human beings with human rights. Sotomayor:

Needless to say, the chilling effect correctly cited in the last paragraph is not a regrettable side effect but the entire point of the decision. Giving a veto over curriculum to fanatics whose fanaticism happens to line up with Sam Alito’s is the whole point of the holding.

As reflected at oral argument, the majority also lies about the content of the material (see section IA of Sotomayor’s dissent.) And as a reading of the free exercise clause, it is both inconsistent with longstanding precedent and facially absurd and unworkable:

It’s also good that Sotomayor reminded everyone about the Court’s established tendency of simply making up its own set of facts when deciding cases involving the religion clauses of the First Amendment,

Remarkably, the Court continues to insist that it is not overruling Employment Division v. Smith, although under Smith these curricular requirements (which do not target any religious group for discrimination) do not trigger strict scrutiny. The majority cites Wisconsin v. Yoder (allowing Amish parents to withdraw their parents from public school after Grade 8) as the exception. But as Sotomayor points out, Yoder involved not only the free exercise clause but precedents extending back to the Harding administration holding that parents had a due process right to generally direct the education of their children by choosing alternatives to public education. This case involves no due process rights, which the majority simply ignores.

The result of this latest carve-out from Smith will be disastrous, especially for children already facing discrimination:

(Feel free to look up the Thomas concurrence, if you have a strong stomach — it’s every bit as insane as Footnote 16 describes.)

The nation’s press has been as slow to recognize the extraordinary radicalism of the 6-member Republican supermajority of the Supreme Court as it has to recognize the reality of Trump 2.0. I assume Jeff Bezos’s mini-Murdoch is lining up some bullshit about the “3-3-3 Court” as we speak. But the reality couldn’t be more stark.