Victory for Religious Freedom

[Ken]

Conservatives "have long respected Supreme Court decisions?" Really? Do you respect Obergefell v. Hodges?

That's another bad case made by an activist judiciary that should be overturned, just like Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court should not be legislating from the bench.

Since liberals couldn't get a law forcing states to allow abortion through Congress, they resorted to using an activist judiciary instead. This Supreme Court has returned the power to the people in the form of the states and state legislatures. Fear not - abortions remain legal and available in California, New York state, and other places.

The last time the Supreme Court had a liberal majority was 1970. Roe v. Wade was a 7-2 decision decided by a majority of Republican judges. It wasn't a "liberal" decision. Five of the seven justices voting with the majority were appointed by Republicans. The seven justices voting in the majority were:

Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon)
William O Douglas (appointed by Roosevelt)
William Brennan (appointed by Eisenhower)
Potter Stewart (appointed by Eisenhower)
Thurgood Marshall (appointed by Johnson)
Harry Blackmun (appointed by Nixon)
Lewis F. Powell (appointed by Nixon)

And one of the two dissenting justices, one (Byron White) was appointed by Kennedy. The other was Rehnquist who was a Nixon appointee.

[Josh]

Liberal and conservative are not synonyms for Democratic and Republican, particularly in a historical context going back half a century.

[RZehr]

Conservatives "have long respected Supreme Court decisions?" Really? Do you respect Obergefell v. Hodges?

That's another bad case made by an activist judiciary that should be overturned, just like Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court should not be legislating from the bench.

Since liberals couldn't get a law forcing states to allow abortion through Congress, they resorted to using an activist judiciary instead. This Supreme Court has returned the power to the people in the form of the states and state legislatures. Fear not - abortions remain legal and available in California, New York state, and other places.

The last time the Supreme Court had a liberal majority was 1970. Roe v. Wade was a 7-2 decision decided by a majority of Republican judges. It wasn't a "liberal" decision. Five of the seven justices voting with the majority were appointed by Republicans. The seven justices voting in the majority were:

Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon)
William O Douglas (appointed by Roosevelt)
William Brennan (appointed by Eisenhower)
Potter Stewart (appointed by Eisenhower)
Thurgood Marshall (appointed by Johnson)
Harry Blackmun (appointed by Nixon)
Lewis F. Powell (appointed by Nixon)

And one of the two dissenting justices, one (Byron White) was appointed by Kennedy. The other was Rehnquist who was a Nixon appointee.

For some reason, many Republican appointed SC judges have turned out to be liberal. Much more than Democratic appointed SC judges turn out to be conservative. Now the recent Federalist Society judges are actually behaving a bit more as expected. Before them, it was a bit of a crap shoot.

[Ken]

That's another bad case made by an activist judiciary that should be overturned, just like Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court should not be legislating from the bench.

Since liberals couldn't get a law forcing states to allow abortion through Congress, they resorted to using an activist judiciary instead. This Supreme Court has returned the power to the people in the form of the states and state legislatures. Fear not - abortions remain legal and available in California, New York state, and other places.

The last time the Supreme Court had a liberal majority was 1970. Roe v. Wade was a 7-2 decision decided by a majority of Republican judges. It wasn't a "liberal" decision. Five of the seven justices voting with the majority were appointed by Republicans. The seven justices voting in the majority were:

Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon)
William O Douglas (appointed by Roosevelt)
William Brennan (appointed by Eisenhower)
Potter Stewart (appointed by Eisenhower)
Thurgood Marshall (appointed by Johnson)
Harry Blackmun (appointed by Nixon)
Lewis F. Powell (appointed by Nixon)

And one of the two dissenting justices, one (Byron White) was appointed by Kennedy. The other was Rehnquist who was a Nixon appointee.

For some reason, many Republican appointed SC judges have turned out to be liberal. Much more than Democratic appointed SC judges turn out to be conservative. Now the recent Federalist Society judges are actually behaving a bit more as expected. Before them, it was a bit of a crap shoot.

It also depends on what you define as liberal.

For example, was Brown v. Board of Education a liberal decision or a conservative decision based on the Constitution?

[HondurasKeiser]

They also disagree with your assertion about teacher-led prayer in a public school which has been unconstitutional since 1962.

Students, of course, have always been free to pray wherever and whenever they want, inside or outside of schools.

In any event, it's not about what "most Americans" think. "Most Americans" are frequently wrong about things.

If you don't like "most Americans", can we agree then on "a majority of Supreme Court justices"?

The reactions I am hearing from the progressives and liberals after the Dobbs, West Virginia, Bruen, Bremerton, and Berger decisions is that the Supreme Court needs to be abolished / ignored. So much for the lofty talk of the "importance of respecting judicial decisions", the "importance of elections", and so forth. Liberals have made it clear that, despite complete control of some of America's most populous states like California and New York and control of the Congress, Senate, and House that they still won't follow or respect Supreme Court decisions.

Conservatives, on the other hand, have long respected Supreme Court decisions. It's time for progressives and liberals to start to do the same.

Apparently the Supreme Court doesn't respect its own decisions either. That is what Dobbs was all about.

So you’d have kept Plessy then…because stare decisis?

[Ken]

If you don't like "most Americans", can we agree then on "a majority of Supreme Court justices"?

The reactions I am hearing from the progressives and liberals after the Dobbs, West Virginia, Bruen, Bremerton, and Berger decisions is that the Supreme Court needs to be abolished / ignored. So much for the lofty talk of the "importance of respecting judicial decisions", the "importance of elections", and so forth. Liberals have made it clear that, despite complete control of some of America's most populous states like California and New York and control of the Congress, Senate, and House that they still won't follow or respect Supreme Court decisions.

Conservatives, on the other hand, have long respected Supreme Court decisions. It's time for progressives and liberals to start to do the same.

Apparently the Supreme Court doesn't respect its own decisions either. That is what Dobbs was all about.

So you’d have kept Plessy then…because stare decisis?

I'm just pushing back on the notion that conservatives respect "precedent" and liberals do not. Or vice versa. All sides use the courts to the extent that they can to promote their own political objectives, both right and left. The courts are just another tool of politics. The notion that justices are "above" politics is patent nonsense and always has been.

[Outsider]

It isn't religious freedom if Catholics can't send their children to public schools that are paid for by their own tax dollars for fear that their religious beliefs and culture will be deliberately undermined and extinguished by religious teachings from the "majority population" as you put it.

And a good enough reason to let the parent's put their children in the schools they choose themselves with the tax monies spent on education.

[Ken]

It isn't religious freedom if Catholics can't send their children to public schools that are paid for by their own tax dollars for fear that their religious beliefs and culture will be deliberately undermined and extinguished by religious teachings from the "majority population" as you put it.

And a good enough reason to let the parent's put their children in the schools they choose themselves with the tax monies spent on education.

That isn't the way public services work. We do not individually get to pick and choose which government services we wish to fund with our tax dollars. We do that collectively and democratically when we pass school levies or when state legislatures set budgets.

• I don't ever use farm subsidies, why should I have to pay taxes that go to subsidize farmers in Iowa?
• I don't live in a flood zone, why should I pay tax dollars to subsidize flood insurance for those who choose to live in flood zones or along the coast?
• I don't own an oil company, why should I pay tax dollars to subsidize the oil industry?
• I don't sail on the Mississippi, why should I pay tax dollars for the Corps of Engineers to maintain a massive system of dikes, levees, and locks to keep the Mississippi navigable?
• I don't have a blind child or a deaf child, why should I pay state taxes to support the WA schools for the blind and the deaf?

There are endless government programs and services that we all pay for collectively, but do not individually use or benefit from except tangentially. That is what living in a modern society means.

[temporal1]

And a good enough reason to let the parent's put their children in the schools they choose themselves with the tax monies spent on education.

Thomas Sowell well describes how public school teachers unions are flatly against school choice, he specifically talks about charter schools, which are taxpayer funded. (And, reported to do a lot of good as far as actually educating students.)

TS is in his 90’s, he speaks with first-person experience AND abundant higher ed. He’s an academic.
He’s been addressing these problems for DECADES. He’s lived it. Not a novice. He strives for facts and results.

As for democracies, these are majority rule systems, or mob rule.
The U.S. is laughably not a democracy, esp not in recent decades in which minority rule has risen to idol worship.
The smaller the minority, the more politically powerful, the greater access to the Public Treasury.

Of course, in such a system, groups clamor+vie to achieve minority status - that’s where the power+rewards are!

This turn began decades ago. We live with the results. Broken homes, high crime, lackluster education results ..
of these, fatherless homes are probably the most significant factor. Fathers provide needed structure that prepares children to navigate their schools, the world, prevention of crime. Fathers may not be popular, but they filled necessary roles for a healthy society.

Democracy, majority rule, did not interfere with that dynamic, destruction of traditional families.
Instead of identifying and responding to the failure, the choice to double-down on it. More+more fatherless homes, not fewer.

Then, surprise, surprise, increasing problems with education and crime. High suicide rates (for decades.)

Schools+government cannot raise everyone’s children.
There is a difference between “raising children,” versus children simply aging, which they cannot fail to do.

Children age.
With or without good values, education, etc., they reach adult years. Short of death, even gov can’t stop that God-designed process!
However, the results are not ideal. Widespread confusion and hopelessness. Majority rule did not do that.

Secular human reasoning wants to outsmart God. “We” can do it better. Over+over+over.

Today’s Catholics are no less bothered about what their children meet in gov schools (without God) than before,
and they have LOTS of company. Lots of non-Catholics choose Catholic schools for many reasons.

[Josh]

And a good enough reason to let the parent's put their children in the schools they choose themselves with the tax monies spent on education.

That isn't the way public services work. We do not individually get to pick and choose which government services we wish to fund with our tax dollars. We do that collectively and democratically when we pass school levies or when state legislatures set budgets.

The Supreme Court disagreed in the Maine decision.

There are endless government programs and services that we all pay for collectively, but do not individually use or benefit from except tangentially. That is what living in a modern society means.

I fail to see how what you said means parents should be forced to pay for failing government schools instead of being able to send their children to good quality (and often cheaper) schools.