Pirate's Cove

Let’s have a thought experiment: what if government was restricting reporters from going out and doing their jobs (not that most seem to do more than sit at their desks and read Twitter and left wing outlets) during COVID, sued, and SCOTUS said “yeah, Freedom of the Press.” Do you think Democrats like Obama veterans Laurence H. Tribe and Michael C. Dorf would decry the ruling? What if government was cracking down on protesters (real ones, not the ones burning down black areas) and SCOTUS said “there’s a Constitutional Right to protest? Would they applaud the ruling, or say it was dangerous during Bat Soup Virus?

To this Supreme Court, religious freedom trumps public health — even amid COVID-19 plague

Balancing public health against the right to free exercise of religion poses a difficult challenge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, when cases from California and Nevada reached the Supreme Court earlier this year, the justices deferred to the judgment of their governors, who are, after all, accountable to the people.

They didn’t defer: the Progressives (nice Fascists) voted against the 1st Amendment

But those cases were decided by narrow 5-4 margins before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September. The court changed its tune late Wednesday night, when her replacement — Amy Coney Barrett — and the four earlier dissenters formed a new 5-4 conservative majority that invalidated restrictions on worship services in hot zones designated by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Yeah, one who didn’t believe in the 1st Amendment was replaced by one who did

The ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, brought by Catholic and Orthodox Jewish congregations, was especially notable because it was unnecessary. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained in his dissent, by the time the court ruled, the New York houses of worship were no longer “subject to any fixed numerical restrictions.”

Oh, it was necessary, to keep Government from attempting to do this again as COVID surges

Those comparisons are inapt. Government discriminates illicitly when it fails to treat like cases alike. One needn’t discount people’s spiritual needs to recognize that liquor stores, bike shops, groceries and pet shops differ from churches, synagogues and mosques with respect to public health. The risk of coronaviral spread is not merely a function of the number of people at a venue; it increases dramatically as they linger in a stationary position, especially when they speak or sing.

There’s no right to booze, bikes, and hamsters in the Constitution.

Moreover, the ruling’s majority didn’t appear to appreciate the challenge Cuomo faced. Any line the state draws in this realm is bound to be crude, but the alternatives are still worse: A blanket ban on all large gatherings with no exceptions whatsoever would be excessive; no restrictions on gatherings would have literally deadly consequences; highly specific determinations, focusing on, say, the duration or volume of songs, would entangle religious institutions with government.

And that’s why there is, specifically for this discussion, a right to practice religion without government interference, in both the federal and NY State constitutions. Because then there would always be “challenges” for which Government could do something negative to religion. If Cuomo was so concerned, perhaps he should have cracked down on all the protests, which he did not. You can’t support one Right without the other. Also, perhaps sticking sick people in nursing homes might not have been a good idea. Let’s skip to the end through their continuous whining and anti-Rights yammering

After introducing his foreign policy team last week, President-elect Joe Biden proclaimed that “America is back.” In important respects, that will be true come Jan. 20. But at the Supreme Court, America is increasingly unrecognizable. A court that affords no protection to unenumerated rights to bodily integrity and privacy, while simultaneously eroding the separation of church and state would look less like our familiar institution and more like the highest judicial authority of a place like Gilead — the theocratic and misogynist country in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

So, the whole point of the screed is that the Supreme Court may very well rule on the side of the Constitution rather than Joe’s Modern Socialism. There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution, and ruling that citizens and churches have Rights is exactly what the purpose of the Supreme Court is. To protect the Constitution and Citizens from the Legislative and Executive branches. And, if the Court is protecting Constitutional Rights, that’s dangerous for Joe Biden’s agenda? Think about that position.

Read: USA Today: SCOTUS Ruling For Religious Freedom During COVID Is Mean, You Know »