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Tag: SCOTUS

Pro-Lifers Celebrate SCOTUS Decision on Texas Abortion Law, Abortionist plot

By Stephanie Martin -September 2, 2021

texas abortion law
A pro-life activist stands in front of the Supreme Court at the 2020 March for Life

In an unsigned 5-4 ruling late Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted not to block a Texas abortion law that effectively bans most abortions in the state. The ruling doesn’t address the constitutionality of the law, which represents the tightest restrictions on abortion since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The Texas law, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed in May, bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually at about six weeks, before most women even know they’re pregnant. The ban’s unusual enforcement provision, which grants power to civilian whistleblowers, intentionally makes court challenges difficult.

Texas Abortion Law: Pro-Lifers Declare Victory 

After the ruling was announced, many pro-life advocates and Christian leaders expressed joy and relief, calling it a major win. “What an amazing victory!” tweeted Abby Johnson, the subject of the anti-abortion movie “Unplanned.” “Babies win! Life wins!” The pro-life organization Live Action calls the ruling “a monumental, encouraging step forward for human rights!”

Outreach Magazine editor-in-chief Ed Stetzer tweets: “Today is a safer day to be an unborn child in Texas” and “It’s time to overturn Roe v Wade. It’s bad law, bad for the unborn, & bad for women. Justice matters.”

Southern Baptist Convention President Ed Litton calls the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene “such an encouraging development” but warns “the fight for life is by no means finished.” And Southern Baptist theologian Al Mohler describes the ruling as “a milestone in the battle for life” and a “massive” development that has left abortion advocates in “shock.”

With the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority, Wednesday’s ruling is raising hopes—and concerns—that Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy.

How the Justices Ruled on the Texas Abortion Law

All three justices appointed by former President Trump (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) voted in the majority, joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Joining the three liberal dissenters (Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor) was Chief Justice John Roberts, who says lower courts need more time to determine if “a state can avoid responsibility for its laws” by delegating enforcement to citizens.

The most harshly worded dissent came from Sotomayor, who (along with Breyer) omitted the customary modifier “respectfully” between the words “I dissent.” Calling the Texas abortion law a “breathtaking act of defiance,” Sotomayor accuses the majority of opting to “bury their heads in the sand.” By failing to block the abortion ban, she writes, SCOTUS “rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on…women seeking abortions in Texas.”

In her dissent, Justice Kagan emphasizes a woman’s “federal constitutional right to obtain an abortion during that first stage” of pregnancy. But as Mohler points out, that “artificial right” was “invented” through the Roe ruling, and “every single precedent stands until it doesn’t.”

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who labels abortion a means of eugenics, has said Roe was decided incorrectly. But Chief Justice Roberts remains a wildcard. As law professor Steve Vladeck notes, Roberts’ dissent is “a pretty powerful sign that he, at least, is not ready to overrule Roe. But the million-dollar question that [Wednesday’s] 5-4 vote raises is whether, when the time comes, any of the other conservatives will join him.”

Biden Criticizes the Texas Abortion Law, Promises Federal Fight

President Biden, who supports abortion rights despite being a Catholic, pledges to lead a “whole of government” effort against the Texas ban, calling it a “bizarre scheme” with the potential to unleash “unconstitutional chaos.” Regarding its enforcement provisions, Biden says, “Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women.”

In a statement about the Texas abortion law, Biden says, “My administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right.” Communities of color and people with low incomes will be particularly affected, the president says, because they don’t often lack resources to travel out of state to obtain an abortion.

Challenging those assertions, Mohler argues that willfully terminating an unborn life isn’t a necessary healthcare service. And raising concerns about race and income is essentially “political signaling,” he adds.

Abortion Access Now Drastically Limited in Texas

As a direct result of the new ban, most abortion providers in Texas have stopped scheduling the procedure for patients who are more than six weeks pregnant. Whole Woman’s Health, which unsuccessfully sued to prevent the law from taking effect, says its four Texas clinics will now provide abortions “only if no embryonic or fetal cardiac activity is detected in the sonogram.”

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, which also has stopped scheduling abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy, tweets: “The conversations happening in health centers in Texas today are devastating.” According to some estimates, 85% of abortions previously performed in the state now won’t occur.

As news broke of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the hashtag #TexasTaliban started trending, as did comparisons to the oppressive society depicted in the TV show “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Beto O’Rourke, a former Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted: “The Texas abortion law is an attempt to legalize harassment. It is as cowardly as it is unconstitutional.”

Whistleblowing Component Under Fire

Texas lawmakers intentionally crafted the abortion ban to make court challenges difficult. Typically, challenges involve suing the government official charged with enforcement. But Texas places enforcement powers with citizens, including those with no vested interest in a particular individual’s effort to seek an abortion. As a result, anyone who helps finance the procedure or drives someone to a clinic may be liable. Informants who sue successfully can be awarded at least $10,000.

A whistleblower website now accepts “anonymous tips” related to the Texas ban. Some abortion advocates are encouraging people to submit false information there to “help crash this website.”

Although a dozen other states had passed early-pregnancy abortion bans, courts had blocked them all. In a statement praising the Texas ban, the Pro-Life Action League encourages “the other 49 states to catch up with Texas and continue this historic expansion of human rights.”

On social media, Ed Stetzer offers this reminder: “The US has some of the most extreme abortion laws in the world, aligned w/ only 6 other nations,” including North Korea and China. He links to a Washington Post fact-check report, confirming that America is one of only seven countries that permit elective abortions after the 20-week pregnancy mark.

Pro-Lifers Celebrate SCOTUS Decision on Texas Abortion Law

Related

https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-sues-texas-for-law-protecting-unborn-babies-with-heart-activity-clearly-unconstitutional

Texas Heartbeat law survives first challenge at SCOTUS by 5-4 vote – AZ Planned Parenthood Chair Calls For Riots

While Wednesday’s decision stressed that it wasn’t a ruling on the merits of the law, many pro-lifers have taken the majority’s willingness to let the law stand even temporarily as an encouraging sign.

Featured ImageWashington DC.,USA, January 22, 1989. Hundreds of thousands of people participate in the Annual Right to Life March as it passes in front of the United States Supreme Court.Mark Reinstein / Shutterstock.com

Calvin Freiburger Thu Sep 2, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. Supreme Court formally denied the abortion lobby’s request to block the Texas Heartbeat Act Wednesday evening, voting 5-4 to let the historic law take effect while arguments on the constitutional merits of abortion restrictions work their way through the judicial system.

Signed in May by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the Act requires abortionists to screen for a preborn baby’s heartbeat and prohibits abortion if a heartbeat can be heard (generally as early as six weeks), with exceptions only for medical emergencies.

The law relies on a unique enforcement mechanism. Instead of having the state prosecute violators, it “exclusively” empowers private citizens to bring civil suits against abortionists, punishable by a minimum of $10,000 in statutory relief per abortion plus whatever additional injunctive relief is deemed “sufficient to prevent the defendant from violating this chapter or engaging in acts that aid or abet violations of this chapter.”

Texas Right to Life (TRTL) has set up a website where concerned Texans can anonymously report abortionists who commit abortions after finding a heartbeat or without testing for one.

Abortion organizations including Planned Parenthood Center for Choice and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance filed emergency motions with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a stay on enforcing the law. But last Friday night, the court canceled a hearing on the matter that had been planned for Monday, then denied the motions on Sunday afternoon.

The 5th Circuit’s denial cleared the way for the law to take effect Wednesday, September 1, which it did when the Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday evening in response to an emergency petition from the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).

Now, the Court has formally weighed in, ruling 5-4 that while CRR and its allies “have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” they also presented “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden.”

“For example, federal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves,” wrote the majority, which consisted of Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. “And it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention…The State has represented that neither it nor its executive employees possess the authority to enforce the Texas law either directly or indirectly.”

“Nor is it clear whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law,” the Court continued. “Finally, the sole private-citizen respondent before us has filed an affidavit stating that he has no present intention to enforce the law. In light of such issues, we cannot say the applicants have met their burden to prevail in an injunction or stay application. 

The justices closed by stressing that they were not hinting at any long-term resolution to “any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, joined the Democrat-appointed Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in dissent, writing that the “statutory scheme” of the Texas Heartbeat Act “is not only unusual, but unprecedented,” and that he “would grant preliminary relief to preserve the status quo ante—before the law went into effect—so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws” by delegating enforcement to private citizens.

Breyer, meanwhile, reiterated his view that a “woman has a federal constitutional right to obtain an abortion during” the “first stage of pregnancy.” Sotomayor attacked her colleagues for supposedly “bury[ing] their heads in the sand” when “[p]resented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.” And Kagan blasted the law as “patently unconstitutional’ for empowering “private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State’s behalf.”

While the Court’s final judgment on the Texas law remains to be seen, the justices are already expected to offer a more comprehensive treatment of abortion in their upcoming hearing of a Mississippi law banning abortions from being committed past 15 weeks for any reason other than physical medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormalities.

Various pro-life public officials, scholars, and activists have filed amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to not merely uphold the law but take the opportunity to directly overturn both 1973’s Roe v. Wade and 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which opened the door to some abortion regulations while reaffirming the “right” to abortion itself). 

Many pro-lifers see the case as the greatest test yet of the current justices, a majority of whom were appointed by Republican presidents yet have still disappointed pro-lifers and conservatives on various occasions.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas is explicitly on the record as anti-Roe, and only he and Justice Samuel Alito have established consistently conservative records over a significant period of time. Many have placed a great deal of hope with former President Donald Trump’s appointees, though conservatives have also been alarmed by Justice Neil Gorsuch voting to redefine “sex” in federal civil rights law last year, and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voting not to hear several cases of concern to religious, conservative, and/or pro-life Americans.

While Wednesday’s decision took pains to clarify that it wasn’t a ruling on the merits of the Texas Heartbeat Act, many pro-lifers have taken the majority’s willingness to let the law stand even temporarily as an encouraging sign.

In the meantime, the new law has already begun to save lives. NBC News reported Tuesday evening that “all 11 of the Planned Parenthood health centers in Texas” have “stopped scheduling visits after Sept. 1 for abortions past six weeks of pregnancy,” and that Whole Woman’s Health claims that its “four clinics in Texas will also comply with the law and prohibit abortion at seven weeks or less depending on the ultrasound results and if cardiac activity is detected.”

Texas Heartbeat law survives first challenge at SCOTUS by 5-4 vote

AZ Planned Parenthood Chair: Calls For Riots After SCOTUS Ignores Abortion Emergency Request “BE READY TO BREAK SOME S**T”

By Jordan Conradson September 1, 2021

The Chairwoman of Arizona’s Planned Parenthood Action chapter, Chris Love called for riots after SCOTUS ignored emergency requests to block the Texas Heartbeat Law.

BREAKING: Texas “Heartbeat” Law Takes Effect; Abortions After 6 Weeks ARE NOW ILLEGAL After SCOTUS Ignores Emergency Request to Block Law

The “heartbeat” law will effectively outlaw abortions in the state after 6 weeks and it also gives any citizen – including those outside Texas – the right to take legal action against anyone who ‘aids and abets’ the termination of a pregnancy after the cut-off point.

Love was absolutely triggered that SCOTUS had the gall to prevent unborn babies from being slaughtered.

Love: I mean, what exactly did you all expect? You’re devastated, but you consistently ignored every single sign. I’ll write something coherent in the morning, but just know that fighting back doesn’t mean pussy hats or petitions. Be ready to break some shit.

If you went to bed early last night, you’re waking up to news that SCOTUS did not to intervene in Texas, so SB8, a bill that bans abortion at 6 weeks, is now law. If you’re like me, your timelines is awash with folks being all varieties of upset as Roe is essentially done.

EZAZ.org called on patriots to counter these radical demands and those who made them in a peaceful way.

Planned Parenthood Action & Arizona Radical Left Elected Officials Call for Rioting

photo_2021-09-01_10-24-44.jpg
Chandler School Board member’s sister, Chris Love, Chair of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, tweeted out a call for rioting over SCOTUS not intervening on the Texas heartbeat bill. Love tweeted, “Be ready to break some sh*t.”

Rep. Daniel Hernandez (D-2) amplified the tweet with a LIKE, followed by Rep. Diego Rodriguez (D-27) retweeting the tweet thread.

Hernandez is running for Congressional District seat two, and Rodriguez is running for Arizona Attorney General.

diego hernandez.png

The call for rioting comes at a suspicious time as Biden’s DOJ is pursuing a punitive investigation against the Phoenix Police for stopping riots, and violent crime continues to surge.

Contact these radical left officials and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona and tell them Hands Off Arizona! NO RIOTS!

Email Planned Parenthood Action

(602) 277-7526

Email Rep. Hernandez

602-926-4840

Email Rep. Rodriguez

602-926-3285

Email Minority Leader

602-926-3132

The radical left is calling for violence because they cannot kill babies with beating hearts.

These people are disgusting.

AZ Planned Parenthood Chair: Calls For Riots After SCOTUS Ignores Abortion Emergency Request “BE READY TO BREAK SOME SH*T”

Supreme Court says California rule requiring nonprofits to reveal donor names is unconstitutional

Supreme Court ruling is a victory for conservative nonprofits – Smacks Down Kamala Harris and CA AG for Violating First Amendment

KATHERINE HAMILTON 1 Jul 2021

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Thursday sided with the Americans For Prosperity Foundation (AFP) against Acting California Attorney General Matthew Rodriguez in favor of keeping non-profit donor records private, smacking down a measure pushed by Vice President Kamala Harris that conservatives feared could be used to target them.

“The government may regulate in the First Amendment area only with narrow specificity, and compelled disclosure regimes are no exception,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in a 6-3 decision. “When it comes to a person’s beliefs and associations, broad and sweeping state inquiries into these protected areas discourage citizens from exercising rights protected by the Constitution.”

The Court held that California’s disclosure requirement is invalid because it burdens donors’ First Amendment rights and is not narrowly tailored to an important government interest.

While Vice President Kamala Harris was still Attorney General of California, she sent a letter to AFP in 2013 asking the non-profit to send Schedule B forms to disclose its largest donors. A Schedule B is a highly confidential form that lists the names and addresses of a charity’s major donors—including those who live outside of California, according to the Cato Institute.

AFP declined to send the forms, saying doing so would dissuade people from donating and would violate the First Amendment.

Xavier Becerra took over as Attorney General for Harris, but was soon succeeded by Matthew Rodriguez when he became United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. In the case, Rodriguez alleged that the Attorney General’s Office began asking for Schedule B forms in 2010— in the same way the Internal Revenue Service does  — to fight charitable fraud and self-dealing.

They further claimed they were not asking for Schedule B forms as a way to target people or publicly out individuals for supporting causes, according to court documents.

AFP, which is a conservative organization, cited an incident in which California released 1,800 Schedule B forms to the public, despite the state’s confidentiality law.

AFP further argued the Attorney General’s Office had only used Schedule B forms five times for investigations. Instead, AFP said the AG should behave the way 47 other states do and subpoena non-profits for records during an investigation, according to court briefings.

A trial-court ruled in favor of AFP before the decision was reversed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, saying in part:

California has not considered alternatives to indiscriminate up-front disclosure. That is true in every case. And the State’s interest in amassing sensitive information for its own convenience is weak. That is true in every case. When it comes to the freedom of association, the protections of the First Amendment are triggered not only by actual restrictions on an individual’s ability to join with others to further shared goals. The risk of a chilling effect on association is enough, because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive. [emphasis added]

In his opinion, Roberts emphasized the First Amendment’s role in protecting freedom of association and how the concept applies to AFP.

“Protected association furthers a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends and is especially important in preserving political and cultural diversity and in shielding dissident expression from suppression by the majority,” Roberts wrote. [emphasis added]

He noted that compelled disclosure of affiliation could act as a restraint on freedom of association as effectively other forms of government action.

Roberts further said he does not doubt California has an important interest in preventing wrongdoing by charitable organizations. He concluded however, that there is a “dramatic mismatch” between the interests of the Attorney General’s Office and the disclosure process they use to investigate those crimes.

In reality, then, California’s interest is less in investigating fraud and more in ease of administration. This interest, however, cannot justify the disclosure requirement. The Attorney General may well prefer to have every charity’s information close at hand, just in case. But the prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency. Mere administrative convenience does not remotely reflect the seriousness of the actual burden that the demand for Schedule Bs imposes on donors’ association rights. [emphasis added]

Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Barrett joined Roberts in full, and Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch joined in part. Alito and Justice Thomas filed concurring opinions. Justice Sotomayer wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Breyer and Justice Kagan.

The case is Americans For Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, No. 19-251 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/01/supreme-court-smacks-down-kamala-harris-and-california-ag-for-violating-first-amendment/

Supreme Court rules that school can’t punish cheerleader for profanity-laden social media post

By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter | Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Supreme Court
U.S. Supreme Court | Reuters/Yuri Gripas/File

A Pennsylvania school overstepped its constitutional bounds when it punished a cheerleader for a profanity-laden social media post, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a decision released Wednesday, the high court ruled 8-1 that a former student named Brandi Levy was wrongfully kicked off her squad by a coach for posting a profanity-laced Snapchat message voicing her frustration with not making the varsity squad.

Justice Stephen Breyer authored the majority opinion, upholding a lower court ruling in favor of the student and concluding that “the school’s disciplinary action violated the First Amendment.”

While noting that there are times when schools can regulate student behavior that is off-campus, Breyer nevertheless concluded that “the school itself has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus.”

“Putting aside the vulgar language, the listener would hear criticism, of the team, the team’s coaches, and the school—in a word or two, criticism of the rules of a community of which B. L. forms a part,” wrote Breyer.

“This criticism did not involve features that would place it outside the First Amendment’s ordinary protection. B. L.’s posts, while crude, did not amount to fighting words.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that, historically, schools have been given broad powers to discipline students, even when they are off-campus.

“A school can regulate speech when it occurs off campus, so long as it has a proximate tendency to harm the school, its faculty or students, or its programs,” wrote Thomas.

“If there is a good constitutional reason to depart from this historical rule, the majority and the parties fail to identify it.”

Levy, identified in the case as “B.L.,” made the Mahanoy Area High School junior varsity cheerleading team as a rising freshman and wanted to make varsity in 2017 as a rising sophomore.

When she failed to do so, she vented her frustrations on Snapchat, going out to an audience of around 250 people, including classmates or fellow cheerleaders.

“[F***] school [f***] softball [f***] cheer [f***] everything,” read her Snapchat message, which was up for 24 hours and had a photo of her and a friend raising their middle fingers.

The message was brought to the attention of her school’s coaches by other students, eventually leading to Levy being kicked off the cheerleading team.

Levy and her parents sued the Mahanoy Area School District accusing school officials of violating their daughter’s First Amendment freedoms by restricting her off-campus speech.

Many groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, viewed the case as a matter of great importance when it came to the free speech rights of students.

Will Creeley, legal director at FIRE, told The Christian Post in an earlier interview that the Supreme Court should “reject such a dangerous expansion of government power” and side with Levy and her parents.

“If you are a student with the dissenting viewpoint at your public school and you say or do something on the weekend that a public school administrator sees via social media and worries might cause a ‘disruption,’ however unreasonably, you risk punishment,” said Creeley.

“Even though this case is about a cheerleader’s profane Snapchat, the implications for student speech rights are far bigger and could reach a great deal of political, religious speech as well as just everyday students.”

Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook

https://www.christianpost.com/news/supreme-court-rules-school-cant-punish-cheerleader-for-social-media-post.html

1st Amendment Victory: SCOTUS Strikes Down Philadelphia Law Forcing Same-Sex Adoption at Catholic Org

SCOTUS
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

HANNAH BLEAU 17 Jun 2021

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Thursday unanimously overturned a lower court ruling regarding the City of Philadelphia barring foster children from being placed with the Catholic Social Services due to its unwillingness to endorse same-sex couples.

In a 9-0 judgment, SCOTUS held that the City of Philadelphia’s refusal to contract with Catholic Social Services (CSS) for the provision of foster care services unless the agency agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. It came about after Philadelphia stopped foster children from being placed with the Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on the basis of its beliefs and practices on traditional marriage.

“Philadelphia took this extraordinary action not in response to any legal violation, nor in response to any complaint it received, but because of CSS’s religious beliefs and practices regarding marriage, which City officials read about in the local paper,” the petitioner’s brief reads, noting the Third Circuit ruled in favor of Philadelphia, considering the city’s actions “neutral.”

“The City will renew its foster care contract with CSS only if the agency agrees to certify same-sex couples. The question presented is whether the actions of Philadelphia violate the First Amendment,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, in which he ultimately determined the city’s action did so.

The city’s actions, he wrote, “burdened CSS’s religious exercise by putting it to the choice of curtailing its mission or approving relationships inconsistent with its beliefs,” noting the city’s dissent of that opinion.

“In its view, certification reflects only that foster parents satisfy the statutory criteria, not that the agency endorses their relationships. But CSS believes that certification is tantamount to endorsement. And religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection,” he wrote.

Central to Philadelphia’s defense was that the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision Employment Division v. Smith held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment applies when the government discriminates against religion, not to laws that generally apply to everyone regardless of religion. The city points out that under its anti-discrimination law, the Fair Practices Ordinance, everyone has to treat same-sex marriages the same as traditional marriages, and says that makes it a neutral law of general application.

The Court ultimately rejected the city’s argument that CSS’s practice violated a section of “its standard foster care contract, determining that the provision is not generally applicable as required by Smith.”

Roberts, in his opinion, determined that the city offered “no compelling reason why it has a particular interest in denying an exception to CSS while making them available to others.”

“As Philadelphia acknowledges, CSS has long been a point of light in the City’s foster care system. CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,” Roberts wrote.

“The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless it agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive strict scrutiny, and violates the First Amendment,” he added.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, concurred in the Court’s judgment only, determining that Philadelphia issued “an ultimatum to an arm of the Catholic Church: Either engage in conduct that the Church views as contrary to the traditional Christian understanding of marriage or abandon a mission that dates back to the earliest days of the Church — providing for the care of orphaned and abandoned children.”

“There can be no doubt that Philadelphia’s ultimatum restricts CSS’s ability to do what it believes the Catholic faith requires,” he wrote.

But they also took their views a step further, determining that the case serves as the latest example of Smith acting as a plague on the Constitution, triggering mounting issues in religious liberty cases. As such, he wrote, the Court should overrule Smith “without further delay.”

“This decision might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops. The City has been adamant about pressuring CSS to give in, and if the City wants to get around today’s decision, it can simply eliminate the never-used exemption power. If it does that, then, voilà, today’s decision will vanish — and the parties will be back where they started,” he asserted, noting the Court should “reconsider Smith without further delay,” as its interpretation of the Free Exercise clause is “hard to defend” and cannot be “squared with the ordinary meaning of the text of the Free Exercise Clause or with the prevalent understanding of the scope of the free-exercise right at the time of the First Amendment’s adoption.”

Gorsuch also wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, joined by Thomas and Alito.

“As Justice Alito’s opinion demonstrates, Smith failed to respect this Court’s precedents, was mistaken as a matter of the Constitution’s original public meaning, and has proven unworkable in practice,” he said, noting many of their colleagues seek to “sidestep” the greater questions regarding Smith, unanimously ruling in favor of CSS but refusing to address Smith and its implications today.“Smith committed a constitutional error. Only we can fix it. Dodging the question today guarantees it will recur tomorrow. These cases will keep coming until the Court musters the fortitude to supply an answer,” he wrote. “Respectfully, it should have done so today.”

The case is Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, No. 19-123 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/06/17/scotus-unanimous-philadelphias-refusal-place-foster-children-catholic-social-services-violates-first-amendment/

AUDIO SCOTUS LGBT Decision Will ‘Create a Tsunami of New Litigation’ Against Religious Groups

ROBERT KRAYCHIK 15 Jun 2020

The Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) reinterpretation of a federal prohibition against employment discrimination based on sex — which now includes sexual orientation and “gender identity” — will “create a tsunami of new litigation” against religious organizations, explained Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, offering her remarks on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour.

The Supreme Court’s legal redefinition of “sex” to include sexual orientation and “gender identity” opens the door for further left-wing lawfare against religious organizations, Severino noted.

Severino said, “The Supreme Court left a lot of really important issues open, like, how do you balance this with religious freedom? How do you balance it with freedom of speech? If you’ve got a law, for example, saying that using someone’s preferred pronoun is mandatory — or you can be fined [for non-compliance], how do we balance that with some of these other important and even constitutional questions? Those are things that, for the most part, are unfortunately going to be just decided by a whole range of lower courts. and it will be a long time before the Supreme Court even takes up the opportunity to weigh in on that.”

Severino predicted, “These questions are going to create a tsunami of new litigation and create a huge amount of uncertainty going forward.”

LISTEN:

The Supreme Court’s decision to extend prohibitions against employment discrimination to include sexual orientation and “gender identity” will place religious and traditional organizations at a legal disadvantage when they are inevitably sued by left-wing outfits.

“You’re going to see these decisions going overwhelmingly in favor of the litigants [and] the plaintiffs who are challenging any religious organization, or any school, or anyone who wants to maintain a traditional, biologically based, scientific-based understanding of sex,” Severino forecasted.

“The logic that the court embraced” sets in motion a legal momentum for lower courts to render future decisions in favor of plaintiffs suing religious and traditional organizations for their personnel decisions, Severino anticipated.

Mansour asked if religious organizations would surrender to left-wing activist groups filing lawsuits based on the Supreme Court’s decision given their insufficient resources to legally defend themselves.

Severino replied, “That’s part of the strategy of the activists because they know that many of these organizations can’t afford to pay for defense. They can’t afford to risk a negative judgment where they could face crippling fines. If you’re talking about individuals, you’ve seen what’s happened with cases like the Masterpiece Cake Shop case, where someone’s entire business and livelihood could be destroyed and where they can face even personal threats and real concern over their own safety if they are willing to carry on litigation.”

Severino added, “I think the intimidation factor of a lawsuit is huge, and when you’ve got the court almost inviting that, it’s going to present a real challenge for a lot of people. Practically speaking, for the most part, this isn’t even going to be an issue because I think there’s the vast majority of businesses don’t have any reason or desire to discriminate on either of these bases, but there are circumstances where it is either relevant to the job qualifications or where it’s going to be an issue of conscience, and those are the ones where you’re going to have people who are going to be forced to make those tough choices between violating their own conscience and possibly losing their livelihood.”

The Supreme Court’s decision amounted to a rewriting of civil rights legislation, Severino stated.

“This had to do with the court interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Severino explained. “We’re kind of familiar with this language. It says that no employers can discriminate on the basis of sex, of religion, of natural origin, and other kinds of classic caveats that you have, but what their question was, ‘It says you can’t discriminate ion the basis of sex. Does that also mean you can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity?’”

Severino continued, “It’s kind of a strange question to be asking because in so many states, now, and in many situations in federal law, we already do have laws preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation, but they never phrase it as ‘discrimination based on sex.’ It’s always explicitly written, ‘discrimination based on sexual orientation.’”

“What the Supreme Court did is, in an opinion, they basically just rewrote what that text said because there is a long-standing history where for decades, no politicians [and] no judge said that language meant sexual orientation, as well,” Severino added.

The Supreme Court’s decision usurps the role of legislators, Severino determined.

“That’s really a revisionist reading of the statute dressed up as textualism, and that’s one of the things that is so dangerous because we have laws that courts can effectively rewrite,” Severino concluded. “No legislator who passed [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act] would have thought it meant that.”

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https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/06/15/carrie-severino-scotus-lgbt-decision-tsunami-litigation-religious-groups/

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