Red Mosquito

Green Habit wrote:SCOTUS punts with the "no standing" play call on the latest ACA challenge. Alito and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 0_6jfm.pdf

Green Habit wrote:And here's Fulton v. Philadelphia. The opinion of the Court held that Philly violated the Free Exercise Clause, but said it fell outside of the scope of Employment Division v. Smith, keeping it as precedent. But Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch only concur in the judgment and want to overturn Smith. Alito's dissent is 77(!) pages long, as opposed to 15 for the Court's opinion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 3_g3bi.pdf

4/5 wrote:

Green Habit wrote:And here's Fulton v. Philadelphia. The opinion of the Court held that Philly violated the Free Exercise Clause, but said it fell outside of the scope of Employment Division v. Smith, keeping it as precedent. But Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch only concur in the judgment and want to overturn Smith. Alito's dissent is 77(!) pages long, as opposed to 15 for the Court's opinion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 3_g3bi.pdf

More evidence for the company Gorsuch keeps on religious issues I suppose.

Green Habit wrote:

4/5 wrote:

Green Habit wrote:And here's Fulton v. Philadelphia. The opinion of the Court held that Philly violated the Free Exercise Clause, but said it fell outside of the scope of Employment Division v. Smith, keeping it as precedent. But Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch only concur in the judgment and want to overturn Smith. Alito's dissent is 77(!) pages long, as opposed to 15 for the Court's opinion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 3_g3bi.pdf

More evidence for the company Gorsuch keeps on religious issues I suppose.

Yup. Kind of surprised Barrett didn't join them, though--she wrote a brief concurrence basically saying "it's complicated" with regard to overturning Smith.

4/5 wrote:

Green Habit wrote:

4/5 wrote:

Green Habit wrote:And here's Fulton v. Philadelphia. The opinion of the Court held that Philly violated the Free Exercise Clause, but said it fell outside of the scope of Employment Division v. Smith, keeping it as precedent. But Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch only concur in the judgment and want to overturn Smith. Alito's dissent is 77(!) pages long, as opposed to 15 for the Court's opinion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 3_g3bi.pdf

More evidence for the company Gorsuch keeps on religious issues I suppose.

Yup. Kind of surprised Barrett didn't join them, though--she wrote a brief concurrence basically saying "it's complicated" with regard to overturning Smith.

Does her "it's complicated" seem like she'd be more inclined to carve out exceptions for Christian faiths than others, like the native ceremonies in Smith? (I admit that's a totally bad faith question to ask, but it's tough to imagine she wouldn't totally oppose Smith if it had been a Catholic ceremony.)

Amy Coney Barrett wrote:Yet what should replace Smith? The prevailing assumption seems to be that strict scrutiny would apply whenever a neutral and generally applicable law burdens religious exercise. But I am skeptical about swapping Smith’s categorical antidiscrimination approach for an equally categorical strict scrutiny regime, particularly when this Court’s resolution of conflicts between generally applicable laws and other First Amendment rights—like speech and assembly—has been much more nuanced. There would be a number of issues to work through if Smith were overruled. To name a few: Should entities like Catholic Social Services—which is an arm of the Catholic Church-be treated differently than individuals? Should there be a distinction between indirect and direct burdens on religious exercise? What forms of scrutiny should apply? And if the answer is strict scrutiny, would pre-Smith cases rejecting free exercise challenges to garden-variety laws come out the same way?

4/5 wrote:Okay, interesting. Makes sense. IIRC you agree with Smith and don't think it should be overruled because that opens the door to all sorts of religious exemptions, right? I know (think?) that you'd prefer to not read freedom of religion as two separate clauses, is that in part because something like applying strict scrutiny to religiously neutral laws based on free exercise at the same time creates establishment clause issues if the two are considered separately?

Green Habit wrote:

4/5 wrote:Okay, interesting. Makes sense. IIRC you agree with Smith and don't think it should be overruled because that opens the door to all sorts of religious exemptions, right? I know (think?) that you'd prefer to not read freedom of religion as two separate clauses, is that in part because something like applying strict scrutiny to religiously neutral laws based on free exercise at the same time creates establishment clause issues if the two are considered separately?

Something like that. My simple reading of it is "government shall neither favor nor disfavor religion". In this case, if one were to make the argument that refusal to certify unmarried & same-sex foster parents is protected by some broad freedom of expression/association, regardless of the reason, I'm not sure if I'd agree, but it would at least be consistent. But I'll have a big problem if Catholic Social Services is able to get out of this obligation solely because of religious belief, but others who cite non-religious reasons are not able to.

4/5 wrote:What kind of non-religious reasons would be acceptable for not allowing unmarried/same-sex couples to be foster parents?

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

B wrote:

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

I don't disagree with any of that, but imagine Kavanaugh making the same argument against Walmart for suppressing the pay of their associates.

simple schoolboy wrote:

B wrote:

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

I don't disagree with any of that, but imagine Kavanaugh making the same argument against Walmart for suppressing the pay of their associates.

It would be more similar if Walmart fired their employees for working a second job or earning income off of their likeness.

B wrote:

simple schoolboy wrote:

B wrote:

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

I don't disagree with any of that, but imagine Kavanaugh making the same argument against Walmart for suppressing the pay of their associates.

It would be more similar if Walmart fired their employees for working a second job or earning income off of their likeness.

Yeah, I get that it's not the same thing. But it'd be nice to see the Court as passionate about protecting truly weakest members of society from the rich.

4/5 wrote:

B wrote:

simple schoolboy wrote:

B wrote:

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

I don't disagree with any of that, but imagine Kavanaugh making the same argument against Walmart for suppressing the pay of their associates.

It would be more similar if Walmart fired their employees for working a second job or earning income off of their likeness.

Yeah, I get that it's not the same thing. But it'd be nice to see the Court as passionate about protecting truly weakest members of society from the rich.

Protecting them from having a job that requires little in the way of training and gives them an opportunity to earn income and build experience?

B wrote:Maybe against discrimination.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/10-277

4/5 wrote:

B wrote:

simple schoolboy wrote:

B wrote:

Green Habit wrote:OK, Kavanaugh's now my favorite justice for at least a few days. It's always satisfied to see the NCAA get benchslapped with a unanimous opinion against them, and it's even better to see paragraphs like this enter the record:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 2_gfbh.pdf

Brett Kavanaugh wrote:The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.

I don't disagree with any of that, but imagine Kavanaugh making the same argument against Walmart for suppressing the pay of their associates.

It would be more similar if Walmart fired their employees for working a second job or earning income off of their likeness.

Yeah, I get that it's not the same thing. But it'd be nice to see the Court as passionate about protecting truly weakest members of society from the rich.

Protecting them from having a job that requires little in the way of training and gives them an opportunity to earn income and build experience?

4/5 wrote:Free speech victory in the Snapchat cheerleader case! Thomas, of course, dissents.