Sorry, Seattle, you’re not special » « A man “died” and saw the afterlife…and it was Fox News

Discriminating against bigots is bigotry!

Sam Alito really hates gay and trans people, and logic. He has some twisted arguments.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the devout Catholic conservative who has long warned of animus against religion in America, says in a new book that he believes the court’s landmark decision extending marriage rights to same-sex couples was perhaps the decisive point in our nation’s turn against religious liberty.

I don’t think “religious liberty” means what I think it means. For instance, I think we should allow Catholics to be Supreme Court justices, despite not being Catholic myself, and having the opinion that Catholicism has long defended odious practices. You see, I actually think that denying rights to citizens because I disagree with them is a bad thing, although I confess, Sam Alito is making me rethink that commitment to principle.

But do go on, Sam. Explain how other people’s secular principles does harm to your beliefs about religion.

In dissent from that ruling, he said in the 2018 address, I expressed my worry that equating the expression of certain views with bigotry — or, if you like, with dignitary harm — would drive believers out of public life.

But certain views are bigotry — not all views, obviously, but when someone expresses a harmful bias, we should be able to recognize that it is bigotry. Holding bigoted opinions should be called out and condemned. Driving people who hold racist, or sexist, or homophobic views that do harm to a large cohort of citizens should lead to their ostracization.

Doesn’t the fact that a hoary old regressive bigot like Sam Alito can be the final arbiter of the law in this country tell you that we haven’t done enough to drive those kinds of believers out of high office, let alone public life?

Sorry, Seattle, you’re not special » « A man “died” and saw the afterlife…and it was Fox News

Comments

  2. Reginald Selkirk says

    Reminds me of my brother, who thinks ‘religious liberty’ is only for Christians. My brother is stupid.

  3. stuffin says

    Using your position as a Supreme Court Justice to push religious bigotry onto those who do not agree with your religious beliefs is being a hypocrite.

  4. Snarki, child of Loki says

    MY religious freedom has been SERIOUSLY impacted by government policies, because making it to Valhalla means that I need to plant some sharp axes in annoying christianist noggins.

    Now hold still Alito, I’ve got some religious freedom to practice on you.

  5. Dunc says

    I expressed my worry that equating the expression of certain views with bigotry — or, if you like, with dignitary harm — would drive believers out of public life.

    And do we see any evidence of this actually happening? Have believers been driven out of public life? For example, does the fact that 6 out of the 9 members of the Supreme Court are Catholic lend any credence to this notion? Is there any reason whatsoever to think that “believers” (however you define that term) are participating less in public life than they did previously?

  6. raven says

    He wants to be a bigot and hater and not have anyone point that out.

    In a democracy with freedom of speech, it doesn’t work that way.

    Alito is a mindless hater and bigot who should never have any sort of power over other people much less be on the Supreme Court.

  7. seversky says

    Alito and Thomas are corrupted by their own religious and political bigotry and are the primary reason why the Supreme Court is held in such low regard – 61% disapproval. They are clearly adjudicating on the basis of their own religious and political biases.

    For example, it should be a cardinal principle of justice that no one is above the law. That makes their ruling, that a President is immune from criminal prosecution for anything done while acting in his or her official capacity, as egregious as the Dred Scott and Korematsu decisions and a permanent stain on the Court’s reputation. .

  8. submoron says

    So Hindutva fanatics in India are right to kill beef eaters because Hindu is the majority religion?

  9. submoron says

    So Hindutva fanatics in India are right to kill beef eaters because Hindu is the majority religion?

  12. says

    Submoron: Vivek Ramaslimy has all but explicitly said “yes” to that question. He’s totally okay with ethnic/religious nationalism.

  13. moarscienceplz says

    “I think we should allow Catholics to be Supreme Court justices”
    Given recent evidence, maybe it would be worthwhile to rethink that stance.
    (Sarcasm, but just barely)

  14. NitricAcid says

    Submoron: But once they get to the Tower of London, they’re no longer in India.

  15. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Weird flex reminding everyone of his failure as a jurist and imagining dire consequences.

    Christopher Leslie (Law prof) – Dissenting from history: The false narratives of the Obergefell dissents

    Methodically unpacking the content of the Obergefell dissents reveals a systematic and consistent distortion of American history both early and recent. […] Part One of this Article discusses the dissenters’ claim that throughout history across all civilizations, marriage has had only one unchanging definition: a union between one man and one woman. In addition to disregarding polygamous cultures, the dissenters’ claimed single historical definition of marriage is also abbreviated. Marriage was not simply a union between a man and a woman; for more than a century, marriage in America was officially defined as a union between a man and a woman of the same race in which the woman was legally subordinate to the man. The dissenters omitted or downplayed the racial restrictions and gender ramifications of marriage—which courts played a major role in eliminating—in order to make Obergefell‘s elimination of gender restrictions on marriage seem unprecedented.

    Part Two explains how the Obergefell dissenters misrepresented the history of the substantive due process doctrine […]

    Part Three discusses how the Obergefell dissenters presented an overly optimistic portrait of the lives of same-sex couples who cannot legally marry. The dissenters asserted—without any evidence or citations—that unmarried same-sex couples can live together, raise children, travel, execute enforceable legal documents, and hold themselves out as married, all without repercussions or interference from the state. Part Three explains how these claims are facile and often untrue.

    Part Four examines the national debate over same-sex marriage that culminated in the Obergefell opinion. The dissenters argued that the debate was respectful and not anti-gay. […] opponents of marriage equality routinely slurred gay Americans as immoral, as demeaning marriage, and as child molesters. The debate could hardly have been less respectful.

    […] the Obergefell dissenters sought to make constitutional protection of gay Americans seem unprecedented, to make gay Americans seem undeserving of equal rights, and to make opponents of gay rights seem noble. To create these illusions, the Obergefell dissenters had to distort the historical record.
    […]
    Alito went so far as to assert that the Obergefell “decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage.” For Justices so concerned about the judiciary creating new rights, Alito’s assertion of a citizens’ “constitutional right” to define marriage is as perplexing as it is nonexistent. […] the dissenters’ constitutional arguments are completely at odds with the history of marriage jurisprudence, particularly Loving v. Virginia. […] the Loving decision compelled states with miscegenation laws to abandon their traditional definition of marriage that excluded interracial couples from marriage. […] Alito asserted that “[i]t is far beyond the outer reaches of this Court’s authority to say that a State may not adhere to the understanding of marriage that has long prevailed.” […] the Justices appear oblivious to the fact that they were recycling the arguments used to defend miscegenation laws for over a century.
    […]
    Loving never held that the right to heterosexual marriage is fundamental; the Loving Court held that the right to marry is fundamental. The state must have a compelling reason to infringe that right. […] Obergefell did not create a new right, as such. Instead, the respondent states failed to justify denying an existing right—the fundamental right to marry—to same-sex couples.
    […]
    In the Obergefell case itself, the states defended their marriage bans by asserting that only heterosexual couples need the stability of marriage in the case of accidental procreation. [*snipped quote*] You read that correctly: a primary defense of same-sex marriage bans was that same-sex marriages would denigrate marriage so much that heterosexual parents will abandon their biological children. […] such arguments […] are referenced in the actual Sixth Circuit opinion that the Supreme Court was considering in Obergefell.

  16. zetopan says

    Dunc@5: “And do we see any evidence of this actually happening? Have believers been driven out of public life? For example, does the fact that 6 out of the 9 members of the Supreme Court are Catholic lend any credence to this notion?”

    For religious fanatic fundamentalists like Alito and Thomas, anything less than 100% is a serious affront to their death cult religion. No dissent should ever be allowed. Next thing you know, some may start doubting and even end up not believing in magic fables.

    “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell

  18. says

    Spam Alito is the de facto leader of the evil, despised ‘Scrotum Six’. The most barbaric, tiny, warped 16th Century xtian minds to ever have the power to terrorize an entire nation with impunity.

  19. StevoR says

    @ ^ shermanj : I call them Trump’s reason SCOTUS.

    How very different and so much better the Supreme Court of the USA would look if Obama, HRC and Kamala had appointed more justices to it instead of Trump. Sigh.

    One very significant reason (among so many others) why everyone should always VOTE BLUE no matter who there.

    Plus why the system should be changed to make it so the SCOTUS isn’t chosen by the POTUS and thus partisan but by an independent method eg maybe a consensus of the most senior and experienced Justices of the lower courts or suchlike?

  20. StevoR says

    @ ^Typo fix : Trump’s Treason SCOTUS is what I call them.. What a difference a single letter can make, sigh.

  21. says

    …the dissenters’ constitutional arguments are completely at odds with the history of marriage jurisprudence, particularly Loving v. Virginia.

    Trust me, they’ll probably vote to overturn Loving as soon as they get the chance. And Uncle Thomas will probably be totally okay with it.

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