Alito’s politically charged address draws heat

[GMDino]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/13/alito-speech-religious-freedom-436412

Quote:The Supreme Court justice warned that not only is freedom of belief under threat, but freedom of expression is as well.
By JOSH GERSTEIN
11/13/2020 12:29 AM EST



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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered an unusually inflammatory public speech Thursday night, starkly warning about the threats he contends religious believers face from advocates for gay and abortion rights, as well as public officials responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to a virtual conference of conservative lawyers, the George W. Bush appointee made no direct comment on the recent election, the political crisis relating to President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat or litigation on the issue pending at the Supreme Court.

However, Alito didn’t hold back on other controversial subjects, even suggesting that the pressure Christians face surrounding their religious beliefs is akin to the strictures the U.S. placed on Germany and Japan after World War II.



“Is our country going to follow that course?” Alito asked. “For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry and can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed. ... The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.”

Alito argued that some recent Supreme Court decisions, including the landmark ruling upholding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, fueled intolerance to those who believe marriage should be limited to unions between one man and one woman.
“Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now, it’s considered bigotry,” he said.

Alito also seemed to minimize the significance of a refusal of a Colorado baker to produce a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The justice noted that the couple involved “was given a free cake by another bakery” and that the high-profile standoff prompted “celebrity chefs” to come to their defense.

Justices often include pointed, even barbed, language in their opinions. Indeed, Alito regularly does so, and many of his remarks Thursday night echoed similar comments he’s made in caustic dissents. Still, it is uncommon for a justice to weigh in on hot-button topics like abortion or gay rights in speaking appearances open to the press or public.

During his half-hour-long speech, Alito warned that not only is freedom of belief increasingly under threat, but freedom of expression is as well.

"One of the great challenges for the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech. Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles, we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right,” he said.

While the conservative justice insisted he was not opining on the legal questions related to coronavirus lockdown orders and similar restrictions, he painted those moves as oppressive.

“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Alito said, insisting that such an observation was transparently true. “The Covid crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test and in doing so it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already in evidence before the pandemic struck.”

Alito also used his address to trash a brief Democratic senators filed last year in a gun rights case, warning the court that lawmakers might move to restructure the court if it continued to produce what the senators asserted were politically motivated rulings.

“It was an affront to the Constitution and the rule of law,” Alito said, paraphrasing remarks he made in court. “It is ... wrong for anyone, including members of Congress, to try to influence our decisions by anything other than legal argumentation. That sort of thing has often happened in countries governed by power, not law.”

Alito did not make reference to Trump’s numerous public affronts to federal judges. In 2018, those relentless attacks prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to issue an unusual statement coming to the defense of the independence of the judiciary.

Many lawyers took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse Alito of hypocrisy for delivering a highly politically charged speech that was devoted in part to complaining about lawmakers casting the court as political.

“This speech is like I woke up from a vampire dream,” University of Baltimore law professor and former federal prosecutor Kim Wehle wrote. “Unscrupulously biased, political, and even angry. I can’t imagine why Alito did this publicly. Totally inappropriate and damaging to the Supreme Court.”

Alito also engaged in another regular lament from legal conservatives, complaining that law schools are hostile to those with right-of-center political views and others whose beliefs go against the majority viewpoint.



“Unfortunately, tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools and in the broader academic community,” the justice said. “When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.”


Alito, who attended Princeton as an undergraduate and Yale for law school, used a century-old precedent related to a smallpox outbreak in Cambridge to take a not-particularly-veiled shot at a prominent Ivy League school he did not attend: Harvard.


“I am all in favor of preventing dangerous things from issuing out of Cambridge and infecting the rest of the country and the world. It would be good if what originates in Cambridge stays in Cambridge,” the justice joked.

[Belsnickel]

I do always find it interesting when justices complain about people trying to politicize the court when it is coming from the side they are not on, but then they turn a blind eye to it (usually) when it is their side or they, themselves, making things partisan.

[fredtoast]

What a load of shit.

Alito never had a problem with Christians insulting homosexuals by calling their beliefs "evil", but now when someone callas out a Christian for opposing equal protection under the law for homosexuals it is an "attack".

Our constitution protects "freedom to worship" not "freedom to demand laws follow religious beliefs".

[*bfine32*]

Trump's still got over a month to replace him...

Justices should not be motivated by Political beliefs

[Au165]

(11-13-2020, 04:59 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Trump's still got over a month to replace him...

Justices should not be motivated by Political beliefs

There is actually the ability to impeach a Supreme Court Justice, but it isn't likely to happen. It is interesting to think about though as only one has ever been brought up on articles of impeachment but was acquitted in the Senate. It would seem that someone who has simply punted on trying to remain politically neutral in a role that must, for the sake of the institution, attempt to be would be a candidate for such proceedings. 

[BmorePat87]

Quote:Alito also seemed to minimize the significance of a refusal of a Colorado baker to produce a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The justice noted that the couple involved “was given a free cake by another bakery” and that the high-profile standoff prompted “celebrity chefs” to come to their defense.

I don't know what's wrong with that black couple not being served at the lunch counter. Another diner gave them a free meal and some celebrity chefs offered to cook for them.

[*bfine32*]

(11-13-2020, 05:05 PM)Au165 Wrote: There is actually the ability to impeach a Supreme Court Justice, but it isn't likely to happen. It is interesting to think about though as only one has ever been brought up on articles of impeachment but was acquitted in the Senate. It would seem that someone who has simply punted on trying to remain politically neutral in a role that must, for the sake of the institution, attempt to be would be a candidate for such proceedings. 

I really don't see a problem with them explaining their reasoning on a decided case; as long as it's directed toward interpretation of the Constitution.

I know folks have differences on interpreting the Constitution when it comes to many freedoms including religious. But when Alito starts anecdotal it's time to zip it/

[Yojimbo]

“Alito argued that some recent Supreme Court decisions, including the landmark ruling upholding a constitutional right to interracial marriage, fueled intolerance to those who believe marriage should be limited to unions between one white man and one white woman.
“Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now, it’s considered bigotry,” he said.”

I just don’t understand people that can’t see how LGBTQ issues and arguments against, are the same ones used against abolition, desegregation and interracial marriage. All of which we can look back on now as absolutely correct rulings by the Supreme Court. The argument of “the majority thinks” should never be used to oppress.

As for religious belief rights. Those end as soon as your beliefs affect somebody else’s life.

[*bfine32*]

(11-13-2020, 05:08 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I don't know what's wrong with that black couple not being served at the lunch counter. Another diner gave them a free meal and some celebrity chefs offered to cook for them.

I agree Alito's comments on the cake were in bad taste, but this analogy misses the mark so far as it relates to religious freedoms.

[Au165]

(11-13-2020, 05:22 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree Alito's comments on the cake were in bad taste, but this analogy misses the mark so far as it relates to religious freedoms.

Not really, if I had a religion that people of another race were deemed inferior and I could not treat them as equal does that give me now a right to refuse them service based on their ethnicity? That has always been the crux of “religious freedom” is that why should your religion provide cover for discrimination in any form?

We have already accepted in the courts that being Rastafarian does not grant people immunity from the war on drugs even though the smoking of pot is part of their religion, where is their religious freedom? There is a two tiered system when it comes to “religious freedom” that applies to Christianity and then everyone else.

[GMDino]

(11-13-2020, 07:14 PM)Au165 Wrote: Not really, if I had a religion that people of another race were deemed inferior and I could not treat them as equal does that give me now a right to refuse them service based on their ethnicity? That has always been the crux of “religious freedom” is that why should your religion provide cover for discrimination in any form?

We have already accepted in the courts  that being Rastafarian does not grant people immunity from the war on drugs even though the smoking of pot is part of their religion, where is their religious freedom? There is a two tiered system when it comes to “religious freedom” that applies to Christianity and then everyone else.

The analogy also takes into account how people used the bible to defend their racism.

[*bfine32*]

(11-13-2020, 07:14 PM)Au165 Wrote: Not really, if I had a religion that people of another race were deemed inferior and I could not treat them as equal does that give me now a right to refuse them service based on their ethnicity? That has always been the crux of “religious freedom” is that why should your religion provide cover for discrimination in any form?

We have already accepted in the courts  that being Rastafarian does not grant people immunity from the war on drugs even though the smoking of pot is part of their religion, where is their religious freedom? There is a two tiered system when it comes to “religious freedom” that applies to Christianity and then everyone else.

You'd have to share that religion and in tenants with me instead of making one up.

As to the one that considers homosexuality a sin: It makes up over 70% of US citizens.

Share with me the percentage of established religion in the US that considers being African American a sin.

Or even the percentage Rastafarians in the US.

[Au165]

(11-13-2020, 08:31 PM)bfine32 Wrote: You'd have to share that religion and in tenants with me instead of making one up.

As to the one that considers homosexuality a sin: It makes up over 70% of US citizens.

Share with me the percentage of established religion in the US that considers being African American a sin.

Or even the percentage Rastafarians in the US.

The amount of people who follow a religion does not make it more or less true or protected under our constitution. If I invented it right now under our laws it should be protected and therefor allowed as religious freedom. The constitution doesn’t say, “freedom of religion for religions that a certain percentage of people follow”. Let’s use a more main stream but still considered fringe religion to Christians, Mormons. While not practiced for some time Mormons, at least a subset, practiced polygamy. That, even though it was part of their religion, was outlawed by the United States. Where were the Mormon’s religious freedoms?

As I said, their are two tiers of religious freedoms in this country. The fact you asked for percentages of everyone else kind of confirms you think that main stream Christianity because of its size does deserve some sort of preferential treatment or that is is somehow more legitimate.

[BmorePat87]

(11-13-2020, 10:12 PM)Au165 Wrote: This statement is literally an endorsement of a tiered system where the majority’s religious freedoms are more important or “should be taken into consideration” over a minority. You are literally confirming everything I have said you believed and your getting upset about because you want to play semantics.

When someone rephrased it as treating others as second class citizens, since that’s what this approach does, it doesn’t feel as palatable I guess.

I think Tommy Tuberville's copy of the Constitution has the 1st Amendment as stating "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of the most commonly practiced religion"

Then again, the vast majority of Americans and non-Evangelical Christians support gay marriage, but I guess it's a moot point. 

[*bfine32*]

(11-13-2020, 11:26 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I think Tommy Tuberville's copy of the Constitution has the 1st Amendment as stating "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of the most commonly practiced religion"

Then again, the vast majority of Americans and non-Evangelical Christians support gay marriage, but I guess it's a moot point. 

Why are folks in this forum obsessed with arguing against points not made?

I guarantee when there's one person left in this forum he will argue against himself.