A Nail Biter

The Supreme Court will be hearing a case that will have major impact on not only on our community but also for every person in the United States… it boils down to will everyone in the country have to follow the same set of laws.

Religious liberty vs. LGBTQ rights: Supreme Court will soon rule in case affecting both
USA Today via Yahoo News
By Asma T. Uddin and Andrew R. Lewis
May 20, 2021


The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule in a case with significant implications for the culture war waged over religious liberty. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia raises the question of where we draw the line between LGBTQ rights and religious dissent.

If the court delivers a victory for the religious party, it will exacerbate the growing perception that the justices are weaponizing religious freedom to protect Christian privilege against vulnerable groups. That Christian groups would benefit is no doubt true. But religious minorities also would benefit. Indeed, the legal theory the court would likely use to deliver that victory has its origins in protecting – not attacking – marginalized religious groups.

At issue in Fulton is Philadelphia’s partnership with private organizations – in this case, Catholic Social Services – to find homes for children in foster care.

Citing its religious beliefs, CSS refused Philadelphia’s demand that it certify and endorse same-sex couples as foster parents. In response, Philadelphia stopped sending foster care placement requests to CSS, prompting Catholic Services to sue.

In its lawsuit, CSS argues that Philadelphia’s actions violate the religious freedom protections under the First Amendment. Specifically, CSS has asked the court to revisit the standard created in the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, and either overrule it or strictly limit it.

Okay this simple case will have extremely wide consequence, it will create two separate legal systems in the country and divide the country in half down religious lines. This is the result of a law that I actually like that stems from a case of taking peyote.

In Smith, the court ruled against two members of the Native American Church, Alfred Smith and Galen Black, who ingested peyote during their religious rituals. Peyote was an illegal substance under Oregon law. For this, Smith and Black were fired from their positions as counselors at a drug rehabilitation center and were barred from receiving unemployment benefits because of their workplace “misconduct.”

In an opinion written by the conservative stalwart Justice Antonin Scalia, the court said that the First Amendment’s religious freedom protections did not immunize Smith and Black from the consequences of criminal law. So long as a law applied to everyone (or is, in the court’s words, “neutral" and "generally applicable”), it is permitted.

I believe that Congress did the right thing in passing the law, without it church officials could be arrested for giving alcohol to minors but the right wing evangelical Christians have been pushing the law, they want to expand the law from preventing religious people taking their sacraments and holy rights to their everyday living in public.

The right wing evangelical Christians have pushed the law to include businesses…

In recent years, though, that bipartisan coalition has fallen apart. In 2014, the crafts giant Hobby Lobby brought a challenge under the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, which required the conservative Christian owners of the crafts store to pay for the morning-after and week-after birth control pills in violation of the owners’ religious beliefs against facilitating abortion.

And now they are pushing it to include denying adoption services to same-sex couples and unmarried couples who want to adopt.

As justice Scalia said about a law being religiously neutral, it stems back to a 1982 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Lee.

Not all burdens on religion are unconstitutional. The state may justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing that it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest.

In the case an Amish person, sued for a refund of the social security taxes paid by him saying that paying Social Security violated his religion. The courts ruled that since the Social Security tax law was not directed at any particular religion and there is an overriding governmental interest the tax was Constitutional.

And that leads us back to the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia case… if the court finds in favor of the Catholic Social Services agency wanting to be able to refuse adoptions for same-sex and unmarried couples. That will overturn almost most 40 years of a court precedent of laws having an overriding governmental interest and being religiously neutral.

What does that mean to the United States if you can refuse any law based on your “deeply held spiritual beliefs?” Well firsts off… will it has to be in a book of codified religious doctrine, like a Bible, a Torah, or Qur'an or could it be just your own personal beliefs? Second there is no test to prove “deeply held spiritual beliefs.”

Third, will it just apply to same-sex couples or to everyone, if it just applies to same-sex couples wouldn’t that in itself be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for the equal protection of the laws?

Religious doctrine has been used to justify slavery and segregation, and even stoning. Will a ruling by the allowing the Catholic Social Services agency to discriminate nullify all anti-discrimination laws? Will it a person to discriminate against a Black person or an unmarried couple, or a person of a different faith?

The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was already used for what I believe was not intended by the conservatives. Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson parishioner were leaving water in the desert for undocumented migrants which is against federal, they were arrested, tried and convicted. But the case was overturned (Thank goodness)...

A judge overturned the convictions of four volunteers who left food and water for migrants in the desert

CNN

By Harmeet Kaur

February 6, 2020

After four aid volunteers entered an Arizona wildlife refuge in 2017 and left jugs of water and cans of beans for undocumented migrants to find, the volunteers were found guilty of breaking federal law.

Now, a federal judge has overturned their convictions.

On Monday, US District Judge Rosemary Márquez ruled that the volunteers, who were part of the No More Deaths ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, were acting on their sincere religious beliefs when they left food and water for migrants in the desert of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

"Defendants met their burden of establishing that their activities were exercises of their sincere religious beliefs, and the Government failed to demonstrate that application of the regulations against Defendants is the least restrictive means of accomplishing a compelling interest," the ruling reads.

"Accordingly, the Court finds that application of the regulations against Defendants violates RFRA (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act), and the Court will reverse Defendants' convictions."

This Supreme Court ruling could open up a whole can of worms with unintended consequences.