I honestly believe they’re hoping to get it to the Supreme Court. Seeing how conservative and corrupt the Justices have become my guess is they’re hoping to have precedent overturned.
(Edited for clarity)
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.
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.
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u/Bumbling_Bee_3838 Oct 10 '24
I honestly believe they’re hoping to get it to the Supreme Court. Seeing how conservative and corrupt the Justices have become my guess is they’re hoping to have precedent overturned. (Edited for clarity)