Previous Post Since the last time I posted about the Supreme Court, I've been taking a deep dive into what it's been doing, and what it's been saying about what it's been doing. As a result, I no longer trust anything it says about what it's been doing. As I write this, the Court has overturned Roe, and has decided NY State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen et al in favor of Bruen. (Bruen is Superintendent of NY State Police.) So the Supreme Court has ruled that state governments can regulate women's bodies but cannot regulate the concealed carry of guns in public. Here's an article on the hypocrisy of these two rulings, taken together: https://www.gq.com/story/supreme-court-abortion-guns I conclude that the Supreme Court is a blatant instrument of the will to power, full stop. Whose power does this Court wish to preserve and expand? Apparently its own, first of all - since it clutches to its bosom its prerogative to perform judicial review on state and federal legislation, and state and federal executive administration, and rule with authority thereon, restrained neither by stare decisis nor by any consistently applied theory of law. Nor does any branch of federal or state government have any recourse against the rulings of this Court. Power corrupts, and absolute power has corrupted this Court absolutely. What other centers of power does this Court wish to preserve and expand? Sometimes state governments, but only when state governments do as this Court would like. Also the plutocracy, conservative Christianity, the white majority (Thomas notwithstanding), and the patriarchy. Also other power centers that I think of as second tier, such as the police or Border Patrol, which are privileged by the Court because they serve the plutocracy and/or the white majority (Thomas notwithstanding). Yes, I've gone full cynic. It took me a lot of time, a lot of reading, and a lot of listening to podcasts, but I have arrived at last at a jaundiced view of the Supreme Court as we know it today. Thoughts?

In the Kennedy case the court seems to ignore the facts of the case and upholds the right of a school employee to pray with students on the 50 yard game after the game, ignoring any coercion this may cause.

This overrules the Lemon run case, where government actions cannot support or impede religion. So, in an official capacity a public employee cannot push a religion while acting in official capacity. The court also ignored another precedent from the early 90's that codified Lemon, in Lee. I am a little less clear if that is overruled too.

The deference towards religion and contempt of the facts by the conservative majority is striking.

This and the Maine ruling in addition to deference to churches when states put neutral COVID restrictions down should be very troubling to everyone.

In some ways this ruling may be the least of these, but it still would have been deemed unconsitutional by all courts using the afore mentioned standards.

But this court is not bound by any precedent.

The Lemon rule guided cases determining if the Establishment cause was violated. In its place "references to historical practices and understandings".

This historical understanding approach is one of the biggest jokes I have ever heard. It is not even originalism or textualism anymore. It is cherry picking from history and finding reasons to toss out the parts that do not agree with ideology.

Not to mention how are lower court judges supposed to make this analysis in the first place? Judges are not historians. SCOTUS pulls most of its history with its staff but is still often wrong on things or are too selective.

It is a joke of a standard that has popped up over and over again in recent rulings that seems to make light of things they disagree with based in history and ignorance of it and the circumstances around history. Even going by an originalist perspective the Fouders were very skeptical of church and state overlapping and tried to separate it whenever possible. This court seeks to toss away everything from then to now to appease Christians, but will likely look for ways to exclude other religions and those that are athiestic, agnostic or other types of belief or lack of belief.