# The Supreme Court isn't done: Watch and see a lot of individual rights fall **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** roe\_vs\_wade\_abortion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843 "2022-06-25T15:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2022, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/181 "2022-07-02T22:26:49Z")
The conservative Christian movement has never paid much attention to Christ. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/182 "2022-07-03T00:46:22Z")
Yes, that was the ACLU’s argument. The Court disagreed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/183 "2022-07-03T00:55:11Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Yes, that was the ACLU’s argument. The Court disagreed. I repeat: > [@Kimstu](#): > > Yes, we all know what the Court’s conservative majority ruled in this case. I mean, if you’re just going to respond to all discussion of every criticism of the majority decision by reiterating the same obvious remark along the lines of “but the Court disagreed with that criticism”… okay, knock yourself out, but it’s not a very substantive contribution to the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/184 "2022-07-03T00:56:35Z")
So, @D_Anconia , you’re saying that the Court made the correct decision, at the time, in Roe v. Wade? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/185 "2022-07-03T01:23:01Z")
No, I’m not saying it was the correct decision, but it was the law of the land for 50 years. After the Dobbs ruling, I’m saying that people shouldn’t be making non-factual claims that Mr. Kennedy was establishing a religion, or that his Free Exercise rights weren’t violated. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/186 "2022-07-03T01:30:04Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > After the Dobbs ruling, I’m saying that people shouldn’t be making non-factual claims that Mr. Kennedy was establishing a religion, or that his Free Exercise rights weren’t violated. Gee, I hope you were out there during the past 50 years being equally scrupulous about correcting people who claimed “Abortion is murder”. Obviously that was a non-factual claim, right? Seriously, though, of course people can still validly opine that Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause or that he didn’t have a Free Exercise right to act as he did. It would be factually incorrect to say that the Court has ruled in accordance with either of those statements. But as Chronos has already explained to you, people are entitled to disagree with the Court about what qualifies as a proper interpretation of the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/187 "2022-07-03T01:38:48Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > No, I’m not saying it was the correct decision Why not? Obviously, it was constitutional because that was the way the Court ruled, right? Anybody between 1973 and 2022 who said that pregnant people didn’t have a constitutional right to an abortion was making a non-factual claim, right? So how could the decision be “incorrect”? Or, if the Roe decision was incorrect, then why can’t the Kennedy v. Bremerton decision be incorrect? See, this is the sort of semantic tangle you end up in when you try to restrict the concept of “constitutionality” to mean only “consistency with most recent rulings of Supreme Court”. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/188 "2022-07-03T06:19:39Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > After the Dobbs ruling, I’m saying that people shouldn’t be making non-factual claims that Mr. Kennedy was establishing a religion He was attempting to enjoin players and spectators into a session of prayer during a school athletic event. He was not on his own time. He was not in private. He was not in church. Explain how that’s not “establishing a religion.” ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/189 "2022-07-03T06:43:01Z")
D’oh. I meant Kennedy v Bremerton. Here’s a partial quote of the relevant section of the ruling: "This Court has since made plain, too, that the Establishment Clause does not include anything like a “modified heckler’s veto, in which . . . religious activity can be proscribed” based on “‘perceptions’” or “‘discomfort.’” Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98, 119 (2001) (emphasis deleted). An Establishment Clause violation does not automatically follow whenever a public school or other government entity “fail[s] to censor” private religious speech. Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 250 (1990) (plurality opinion). Nor does the Clause “compel the government to purge from the public sphere” anything an objective observer could reasonably infer endorses or “partakes of the religious.” Van Orden v. Perry 545 U. S. 677, 699 (2005) (BREYER, J., concurring in judgment)" (any errors in copying or formatting are unintentional, and mine) ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/190 "2022-07-03T07:04:43Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > An Establishment Clause violation does not automatically follow whenever a public school or other government entity “fail[s] to censor” _private_ religious speech. Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 250 (1990) (plurality opinion). Again, **it was not private.** So this set of points and authorities is already in error. All of which supports the notion that the justices decides this case, not on its merits, not on precedent, not on statute, but to further their own religious beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/191 "2022-07-03T17:24:20Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The conservative Christian movement has never paid much attention to Christ. " “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ” - Ghandi ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/192 "2022-07-03T17:34:20Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Again, **it was not private.** So this set of points and authorities is already in error. All of which supports the notion that the justices decides this case, not on its merits, not on precedent, not on statute, but to further their own religious beliefs. The recitation of the facts in the majority opinion are flatly counter factual. So the Supreme Court lied about what actually happened and then built its reasoning upon that lie. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/193 "2022-07-03T17:57:57Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > And Kennedy violated the _students_ and _spectators_ Free Exercise rights. But you obviously don’t care about them. Correct–the core ruling in this case isn’t that bad, in fact I agree with it “in a vacuum”, as Gorsuch described it “the right to offer a private personal prayer” should not be trammeled unnecessarily by an employer, even if that employer is a part of local / State government. Where Gorsuch chose to leave reality was in describing the prayer as quiet, private or personal. As a point of fact, the coach **had** quietly prayed for many years without issue, by quickly kneeling down by himself, praying, then getting up. The matter only became an issue for the district when he turned it into a huge spectacle involving students from both teams, local news media, local politicians etc. It was about as private as a block party at that point. The main constitutional concern is if Gorsuch and his junta are willing to describe such obviously non-private and non-personal religious acts the way he did in his decision, it means the sky is the limit on how egregiously a school official can shove religion down the unwilling throats of students. > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > After the Dobbs ruling, I’m saying that people shouldn’t be making non-factual claims that Mr. Kennedy was establishing a religion, or that his Free Exercise rights weren’t violated. You should not speak this way in legal matters. In the legal field if you are seeking to assert that something is unconstitutional, it is generally understood that your assertions of such are _argument_ not _statements of fact._ You are conflating the two in a way unhelpful to dialogue. It was perfectly fine for conservative legal scholars to argue Roe was improper or that abortion was not constitutionally protected– **because they were asserting argument** , they were not making a factual claim about the status of precedent or how the government enforces laws in being. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/194 "2022-07-04T01:19:41Z")
On a message board, it’s different. Most of the posts here are opinions, and that’s perfectly fine. Sometimes I wish people would use qualifiers, such as “I think” “I believe” “In my opinion”, etc. instead of declarative statements like A is B. Probably that’s just me. But in factual threads, I don’t want to read what someone thinks is true, what they read 30 years ago, what they remember, what happened to a FOAF, or what they think should be true. In threads about the law, it’s especially helpful to distinguish between what the writer thinks the law should be, and what the law actually IS. X is illegal or Y is unconstitutional can be shown by what the law says. “Mr. Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause” is simply factually incorrect, since the highest court has ruled otherwise. In my opinion, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/195 "2022-07-04T01:54:14Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > “Mr. Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause” is simply factually incorrect Nope. To say “The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause” would be factually incorrect, of course. But as Martin\_Hyde explained, the statement “Mr. Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause” is an argument, not an assertion of objective fact. And such arguments are subject to disagreement. For example, AIUI, prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Kennedy’s suit on the grounds that the reason for his suspension was the school district’s perceived risk of constitutional liability under the Establishment Clause for his religious conduct, so their suspending him did not violate his constitutional rights. In other words, the lower courts held that Mr. Kennedy’s actions did violate the Establishment Clause (at least to the extent that the school district was justified in telling him to knock it off because he was putting them at risk of being found to violate the Establishment Clause), and thus his suspension was legitimate. Was the lower courts’ finding “factually incorrect”? Did it only become “factually incorrect” once the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ decision? (And, to repeat my previous question, does that mean it would have been “factually incorrect” to state on June 23 that a pregnant woman doesn’t have a constitutional right to an abortion, and that statement only became “factually correct” on June 24 when the Court issued its Dodd ruling?) > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > In my opinion, of course. Opining that every claim about constitutionality has to be evaluated as a factual statement rather than an argument, based on whether or not it agrees with the most recent interpretation handed down by the Court, is semantic gibberish. It’s just a lazy way of pre-emptively declaring one’s opponents wrong (on issues where one happens to agree with the Court’s most recent opinion, at least) without engaging with the merits of the arguments and interpretations involved. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > In the legal field if you are seeking to assert that something is unconstitutional, it is generally understood that your assertions of such are _argument_ not _statements of fact._ You are conflating the two in a way unhelpful to dialogue. That’s a very nice way of putting it. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/196 "2022-07-04T02:19:22Z")
The SCOTUS is the court of final appeal. In any particular case, if the Supreme Court rules “X”, “X” is the law. Now, Congress and the President can change the law (difficult), or we can change the Constitution (extremely unlikely). And of course, people are free to argue that the Court was wrong until the cows come home, but unless and until the law is changed, that IS the law. Poeple who claim otherwise are incorrect, at best. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/197 "2022-07-04T02:33:08Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > In any particular case, if the Supreme Court rules “X”, “X” is the law. […] > > And of course, people are free to argue that the Court was wrong until the cows come home, but unless and until the law is changed, that IS the law. Yes, we all know that. What we are patiently trying to explain to you is that when people make statements like “such-and-such action is unconstitutional”, when the Court has ruled that it is constitutional, what they are doing is arguing that the Court was wrong, not claiming that the Court’s decision doesn’t have the force of law. So your attempts to respond to such arguments by just repeating what the Court decided, and that the Court’s decisions have the force of law, are really not the powerful forensic “gotcha” that you seem to imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/198 "2022-07-04T02:37:32Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The SCOTUS is the court of final appeal. In any particular case, if the Supreme Court rules “X”, “X” is the law. The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal, but it does not settle arguments forever, otherwise Plessy, Lochner, and now Roe etc would never have been overruled. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/199 "2022-07-04T02:40:59Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > “Mr. Kennedy’s actions violated the Establishment Clause” is simply factually incorrect, since the highest court has ruled otherwise. I was unaware the Supreme Court had been vested with papal infallibility. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/200 "2022-07-04T02:45:11Z")
It’s not meant as a “gotcha”, it’s reality. Why can’t people post their disagreements with the ruling, including some kind of substantive reasoning behind their disagreement, rather than blanket statements like “such-and-such action IS unconstitutional”? I’m referring to GD/PE here. We have an opinion forum, where that would likely fly, and of course the Pit for rants. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843.md?page=11)