The Supreme Court justice is back to complaining about LGBTQ people in a recent opinion from the court.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is complaining that people who oppose homosexuality were being unfairly branded as bigots, despite that being a dictionary definition of bigotry.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a case about whether it is legal to exclude potential jurors based on their religion. The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Jean Finney, who is lesbian, against her longtime employer, the Missouri Department of Corrections, for workplace discrimination and retaliation due to her sexuality. During jury selection for the trial, which Finney won, her lawyer asked the judge to remove three jurors who had expressed beliefs that homosexuality is a sin. Finney’s lawyer argued their religious beliefs would bias them against LGBTQ people.
The state of Missouri appealed the decision, arguing that the jury selection process had been discriminatory on religious grounds. An appeals court sided with Finney, ruling the jurors had been eliminated due to their beliefs about homosexuality, not because they were Christians. Missouri appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which declined Tuesday to hear the case.
In a statement, Alito said he agreed with the decision not to hear the lawsuit, but warned he felt the case was a harbinger of greater danger.
The appeals court ruling “exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges,” Alitio wrote, referring to the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage equality.
“Namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” he said. “The opinion of the Court in that case made it clear that the decision should not be used in that way, but I am afraid this admonition is not being heeded by our society.”
The thing is, he’s also totally incorrect. They aren’t labeled as bigots because they’re Christian. They’re labeled as bigots because they’re homophobic. There’s Christians who have no issue at all with gay people. You can’t say deeply religious people are being labeled as bigots when there’s also deeply religious people who have no issue with it.
I’d love for Alito to argue “okay but if they don’t hate gays they aren’t real Christians” because it opens a can of worms I’d love to finally open. If someone doesn’t count as religious because they aren’t a real Christian, a whole lot of religious exceptions disappear.
You’re right, but he doesn’t care about any of that. He doesn’t care that some christians are cool with gay people and others aren’t. He thinks that all christians have a constitutionally protected right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, and that any governmental action that prevents that discrimination is infringing on a christian’s religious freedom.
This is, of course, based on his personal feelings as a Catholic fundamentalist. I wonder if he’d extend the same religious freedoms to somebody who believes their God wants them to discriminate against old white men