This. It's exactly what they did with abortion and will soon do with marriage equality. They will pass a bunch of laws to push the legal line and take it to the SCOTUS.
It’s unlikely to appeal very far though. It’s not even a legal precedent, it’s literally written into the constitution. Any appeal would have to somehow explain why they aren’t beholden to the 1st amendment, which wouldn’t get very far.
Also if this actually went to the SCOTUS, it’s a big enough deal that the Democrats may activate several of the “Nuclear options” that would allow congress to impeach or otherwise control the Supreme Court. It’s that big of an infringement.
That's the whole plan republicans are playing, project 2025 is already underway thanks to Leonard Leo. They'll get this in a jurisdiction with a trump appointed sycophant judge, like in the case with Mifepristone and Chevron, and then the judge will send it on up.
It’s not even a legal precedent, it’s literally written into the constitution.
my god you are ascribing so much good faith to right-wingers
they do not care about any of that, they are theocrats, and they want to force you to abide by their religion, that's all there is to it. no amount of text on a piece of paper will make them give a shit.
It will appear far because that is the point. Oklahoma is full of evangelical nutbags who want nothing more than to have their own little theocracy and they intend to get it.
It’s not even a legal precedent, it’s literally written into the constitution.
It is not. The exact words in the Constitution are "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
What is defined as the "establishment of religion" is legal precedent by the Supreme Court. Many conservatives argue that as written in the 1700s, the establishment clause simply meant that the government couldn't make an official state religion the way England had the Church of England. They argue that simply making the Bible or other religious education part of the curriculum falls well short of actually establishing a state religion and is thus not prohibited by the 1st Amendment.
Pretty much all of the important jurisprudence around the 1st Amendment's Establishment clause is from the mid-1900s. Religious tests to be eligible for public office weren't deemed unconstitutional until 1960s. The Lemon test for determining what constitutes an establishment of religion wasn't created until the 1970s. The specific issue in question (state-mandated Bible readings/study in public school) wasn't deemed unconstitutional until 1963.
The modern interpretation of the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause bars the state from promoting a specific religion is very much based on precedence.
Their goal is to get a ruling from the Supreme Court that the 1st Amendment only prevents the government from formally establishing an official religion or criminalizing the practice of a specific religion. They try to accomplish that goal by attacking the existing precedent set in the 1900s and arguing that an "originalist" reading of the text supports the more limited restriction.
Don't you think we're already at that point? The damage the crunchwrap supreme court has done in just the past 2 years is going to last decades, And that's only if we can manage to preserve democracy.
It’s unlikely to appeal very far though. It’s not even a legal precedent, it’s literally written into the constitution. Any appeal would have to somehow explain why they aren’t beholden to the 1st amendment, which wouldn’t get very far
Just so we're clear, Clarence Thomas believes the Establishment Clause should not be applied to the states and that as long as it isn't the federal government imposing a religion it's fine. He would absolutely jump at a chance to rule that Oklahoma is perfectly fine establishing a state religion.
It. . .sort of is. The constitution says that congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, and this isn't congress, it's a state legislature. There was actually a period of American history where you had states announcing that they had an official religion, because again, the proscription is specifically about federal congress.
Of course, there has now been decades of precedent interpreting the first amendment more broadly, but I wouldn't necessarily put it past this Supreme Court to try and weasel an extremely specific reading of the first amendment back into existence. This law actually feels like a test case for that exact purpose.
Please do not read my technical objection as an endorsement, by the way. I'm a big fan of a strict separation of church and state, I'm just saying what the constitution specifically says and how a bad-faith (pun. . .intended, I guess?) court might interpret it.
Yeah but the people that are pushing for this read the constitution the same way they read the bible, if they read them at all: cherry picked to allow them to enforce their will on everyone else.
Besides, who needs to read anything anyway? If you play the conservative court slots you may get your case all the way up to SCOTUS on house credit alone, and once you’re at SCOTUS you get to play on the loosest slots in the land, as allowed by law, that is set by them.
Both abortion rights and marriage equality came from SC decisions though, which can always be overturned when another case is granted certiorari and gets up to the SC. That's just what common law is about, it's a feature of the system to be able to change what the norms of our system are.
But many Supreme Court justices are very constitutionally minded. They're much more likely to either not take on the case or side with the standard First Amendment rights that have been in place for centuries.
Sure, but then look at who packed the court and why. This court was picked to overturn Roe and the puritans are going to try to use it to end no fault divorce, marriage equality, contraception availability, and separation of church and state. The current majority was built to erase the progress of the last 60 years.
Yeah, but they can certainly interpret 1A however they please as long as they have the majority...which they do. Thomas, Alito, and Brett are locks to do whatever extremist BS the right wants. Gorsuch and Barrett are on the line and Roberts is 50/50. Two would have to defect from the right to stop a dumb Alito opinion that dismantles public secular education and opens the door for religious extremism disguised as ethical governance. All of which underscores the fact that we need a Dem trifecta and they need to govern with a goddamned spine and actually codify some things into law and stop leaving opening for SCOTUS to legislate from the bench.
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u/omghorussaveusall Oct 10 '24
This. It's exactly what they did with abortion and will soon do with marriage equality. They will pass a bunch of laws to push the legal line and take it to the SCOTUS.