CT Blue

When I first read this column from the New York Times I thought: Hey, this is great:

What a week so far for conservatives. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down a Maine law that prohibited religious private schools from receiving taxpayer dollars. And on Thursday, it invalidated a New York State gun safety law limiting the public carry of firearms. The outcome in these cases was not surprising. The court has ruled in favor of religious litigants in an overwhelming number of cases, and the gun case’s outcome was clear from the oral argument before the justices in November.

What is surprising is how little the 6-to-3 decision in the Maine case, Carson v. Makin, will matter practically. And the reason offers a glimpse of hope for those who worry about a future dominated by the court’s conservative supermajority — including the many Americans troubled by the court’s decision in the gun case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Let’s start with the Carson case. Anticipating this week’s decision, Maine lawmakers enacted a crucial amendment to the state’s anti-discrimination law last year in order to counteract the expected ruling. The revised law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it applies to every private school that chooses to accept public funds, without regard to religious affiliation.

The writer, a law professor named Aaron Tang, goes on to argue that the recent gun decision can also be worked around by crafty blue state legislatures.

Sounds good, but then I remembered this:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Catholic Social Services in a battle that pitted religious freedom against anti-discrimination laws in Philadelphia and across the country. The court declared that the private Catholic agency was entitled to renewal of its contract with the city for screening foster parents, even though the agency violated city law by refusing to consider married LGBTQ couples.

At issue was a decision by the city of Philadelphia to end its contract with Catholic Social Services for screening potential foster care parents. CSS challenged the termination in court, citing its religious belief that same-sex marriage is wrong, and maintaining that ending the contract violated its First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

I should note here that even the liberal judges joined in part of this decision, but that’s incidental. So, when the Maine law is challenged, as I’m sure it will be, it will be overturned.

The Supreme Court will find a way to get around any attempts to get around its goal of letting religious groups do whatever they want at taxpayer expense, provided, of course, that those religious groups are of a Christian persuasion. It will be interesting to see how they ultimately explain why their precedent doesn’t apply to Muslims, Rastafarians, or worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but rest assured they’ll find a way.

As to Tang’s argument that the recent gun decision leaves open a few approaches such as legislatively enacting “an expansive list of so-called sensitive spaces” in which the court recognized firearms have been historically limited, rest assured that the court will restrict such sensitive spaces at its earliest convenience, with the only space that is clearly sensitive being the Supreme Court Building.

This is not the first court that has twisted the words of the constitution to suit its political agenda, but I think it’s safe to say that those words have never been so severely twisted.