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Supreme Court Rules Against First Amendment
The left has won the culture war, and now they’re roaming the countryside shooting the wounded. The Supreme Court quietly endorsed progressives’ mop-up operation by refusing to hear the case of Kevin Stormans who had his life turned upside-down by government bureaucrats in Washington state.
The Stormans family pharmacy has served Olympia residents for four generations. But in 2007, they ran afoul of the state’s pharmacy board which mandated that every pharmacy stock and dispense the “morning-after” pill, an abortifacent. This violated Stormans’ religious, moral, and ethical beliefs, so he challenged the regulations in court.
If women wanting a Plan B pill called in a prescription, he would gladly refer them to one of the 30 other pharmacies within a five-mile radius supplying the drug. No one was harmed or prevented from receiving the pill, while Stormans was allowed to freely practice his faith.
This wasn’t acceptable to state bureaucrats, who insisted that every man and woman bend their knee to a strange new god, Planned Parenthood. After years of litigation, a federal court agreed with Stormans. The state immediately appealed to the famously liberal 9th Circuit which sided with the bureaucrats.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to enforce the first amendment and ensure that an all-powerful government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. Instead, they abstained, refusing to even hear the case.
Representing the constitutional minority on the Court, Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas) registered his disapproval with the majority:
This case is an ominous sign. At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. There are strong reasons to doubt whether the regulations were adopted for—or that they actually serve—any legitimate purpose. And there is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State. Yet the Ninth Circuit held that the regulations do not violate the First Amendment, and this Court does not deem the case worthy of our time. If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.
Great concern, indeed. This anti-constitutional interpretation might as well insist that kosher delis serve bacon and Hindu-owned restaurants sell hamburgers. But that comes later. For now, the left’s social warriors are focused on stamping out the scourge of “live and let live” Christians like Kevin Stormans. Every knee must bow before the strange new god.
For more background on the case, Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Stormans, created this video:
https://youtu.be/gSpH6EU1YM0
Published in Law
I know Clinton’s will be bad, and suspect Trump’s picks will be marginal. And I also know that a moderate who sides with the left is, for practical purposes, as bad as a leftist activist on the bench.
I’m not putting much faith and hope in this man.
When people who ran public businesses were told that they had to accommodate everyone in the general public and could not discriminate against gays, many Americans cheered. Now, that same rule is being used to force businesses to accommodate abortion.
In the wedding cake situation, the argument was that you could not refuse to provide a service to one customer while denying it to another. But this is different, because the pharmacist isn’t denying it to any subset of individuals … he’s denying it to everyone. He’s not discriminating against selling to any group; he’s just refusing to sell a product at all.
This is equivalent to mandating what products the pharmacist can sell. It mandates that he must sell abortifacients. Would they next mandate that 7-11s must sell marijuana?
Since when does a bureaucrat get to decide what products a business must provide? (Answer: because in a system of checks and balances, when no one applies a check, the grab for power becomes automatic and grows until someone does.)
My husband and I are both depressed about this. Such fine people with a multi-generational business. That the state and then the 9th circuit would deny them religious liberty and the Supremes would refuse to take the case beggars belief. PP and the ACLU are now going to be working their way through the states shutting down religious freedom in this way whenever they can. We all need to fight them in whatever way we are able. For starters, make a donation to ADF, then get active in your state. Make no mistake. They are hellbent on destroying your religious liberty. They will stop at nothing.
ADF–Alliance Defending Freedom, by the way, is an amazing organization that takes these cases free of charge. There are other organizations that do this, but they are the main one. They have an excellent win record of 80% in spite of the horrible, hostile climate in which we live. They are all people of faith who are committed Christians who see defending religious freedom as their mission. I think of them right now as the rebel alliance going up against The Empire.
The Declaration of Independence says that the purpose of government is to secure rights.
Well, my friends, this government is not securing mine. Yours either.
In a rather perverse way, this result leaves a ray of hope.
Had SCOTUS taken the case, a likely 5-3 decision upholding the Ninth Circuit would have provided powerful precedent. At best, a 4-4 ruling (assuming that Kennedy came to his senses) would have left things in essentially the same posture as now. While this is unfortunate for the Stormans, the possibility exists that other Circuits may see things differently, pending eventual SCOTUS review.
As far as law goes, the situation looks pretty clear to me.
We all know the right to freely exercise your religion is overruled by the sacred right to life–if your religion requires ritual child sacrifice. The First Amendment has that exception.
The Left, including Kennedy and thus a majority of SCOTUS, thinks the free exercise of any form of Christianity that won’t fully participate in all of same-sex marriage, transgenderism, abortion, and birth control would violate a right so sacred that it, too, overrules the First Amendment.
That right is the right to engage in whatever sexual activity (or take up any sexual lifestyle) you like with the full approval of society.
Such a right is not written in the Constitution, and has nothing at all do with the original meaning of any part of it.
It is written into Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
And the Left is entirely correct to believe that this right trumps the First Amendment–provided that the Left is also correct that the Constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it says.
I agree that this is the goal.
Thanks for the information. I’ll look at making a donation to this or similar group, rather than just curse the trend!
#shootback
This is so [COC]ing outrageous!! The next thing you know they’ll be saying they can tell us what to buy, like health insurance.
This dovetails with the discussion about Richard Posner yesterday, who basically argues that.
One thing to consider: We can amend the text of the Constitution. We cannot amend a precedent. If the precedents in Roe and Casey overrule the Constitution, then we citizens have no power of redress, since nominating and confirming new justices still wouldn’t be able to overturn it. Stare decisis is supreme.
But then we have the great triumph of Brown v. Board of Education, which did overturn a precedent.
Posner counters that this incongruity is resolved when judges make practical adjustments based on contemporary perspectives.
We are thus a nation of men, not laws.
Columbo: I stole your line when I shared the article on FB. Hope you don’t mind.
One step closer to the revolution.
This country was founded by people who wanted to escape the Star Chamber, which imposed a state religion and impeded the people’s practice of their own.
I suppose our leaders figure a few passed centuries have altered our commitment to religion. They are wrong about that.
In the meantime, I agree with MWM that so long as there are no price controls, that pill will get a $500 stocking fee.
Also, if you look at the side effects, interactions, warnings, etc., listed below, one hell of a disclosure form can be made and I’d have the patient write next to each of the 500 lines of it, “I understand that X may occur, I’ve been advised against taking this pill, and I agree to forgo any claims against the pharmacist should that happen to me.”
If you don’t have the half hour it takes to sign the form, you can’t have the pill.
The top of the form would say, “Disclosure Form for Baby Killers.” Don’t like it? You can’t have the pill.
https://www.drugs.com/cdi/levonorgestrel.html
You may have surrendered. I haven’t.
Eric Hines
The left has adopted a simple motto: In defeat, malice; in victory, revenge.
Some day we will stop running around in circles and realize the truth of the matter, that they are not interested in accommodation, they are not interested in a cohesive nation, they are interested in their naked ambition of acquiring and wielding absolute power.
Our choices are limited.
What will it be?
I hope, pray, and train for 2 and 3, but fear 1 already rules the day for the majority.
4-Defeat them and keep our nation. It’s not over yet folks. It’s this kind of thing that galvanizes us to get the word out. I actually don’t think many who identify as Dems know what is going on.
Prediction:
Unfortunately, I think this is true. Scratch any progressive and you’ll find a totalitarian at heart.
Christian freedom, no follower of Islam will ever face such attacks from that quarter.
Indeed.
You know what? I’magonna quote what I just said on Facebook.
What’s the point of the American system of government without a written Constitution operating as the one supreme law? And what’s the point of a written Constitution whose meaning changes when the writing stays the same?
Kudos to those on the Left who acknowledge that they believe in an UNwritten Constitution to supplement the written one as a superior or co-equal law!
I suppose from such folks the answer to the first question is “There’s not really that much of a point.”
Well said, Merina. This is an awesome institution standing athwart the atheist, “progressive,” illiberal juggernaut of the Left. It deserves our generous, full-throated support. (I am an allied attorney, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt. Do your own research — and then donate!)
These words to the contrary [of the position mentioned in the second comment] were well written:
“The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it, or that the Legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.
“Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
“If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written Constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.”
The alternative position is that the truth of what’s written in Marbury is purely incidental, that its reasoning has nothing to do with the supremacy of the Constitution but only with the fact that its direct target is Congress–that the substitution of “Legislature” with “Court” would render the entire thought process fallacious.
Attribution: If I have seen clearly, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants–most particularly, Michael Stokes Paulsen.
Yeah, my thought exactly, we will be reduced to such guerrilla tactics.
I understand the strategy, but it still doesn’t allow the person their religious rights / freedom.
I used to think it might come to #2. However, since so many of the people I thought would support limited government conservationism have decided that Donald Trump is the answer to our problems (his primary supporters – not those who’ve decided reluctantly to support him in the general), I have lost any belief that we could actually form a smaller, free country.
added: believe me when I tell you I’m sincere in this feeling – I’m not trying to jab or provoke anyone. That so many ‘conservatives’ feel that this ignorant, self-aggrandizing man, who captured so much support just by saying ‘what you wanted to hear’ despite his long history of supporting opposing views and his relative ignorance of our Constitution, has left me unable to imagine how we’ll ever regain our liberty, either within the current country structure, or by separating from it. I am demoralized.
Were there any actual plaintiffs (store customers) claiming damages here, or was this just the state going on a crusade looking for Christians that they could attack?