REAL NEWS. SPICY TAKES.

SO YOU HEARD ABOUT ABORTION. BUT DID YOU HEAR ABOUT ALL THIS?

GIRL.

I N T H I S P O S T

LET’S RECAP ➡ MIRANDA RIGHTS ➡ SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE ➡ OPEN CARRY ➡ IN SUMMARY

Abortion wasn’t the only issue the Supreme Court decided within the past week.

As if 1973 weren’t far enough in time to turn back the clock, a majority of the Supreme Court has been zigging and zagging all up and through these judicial streets like a Great Value Dr. Strange.

Here are five more decisions you probably didn’t hear about that could have a massive impact on err’body.

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW @FullSetSociety ON ALL YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM TO SPREAD THE WORD.

MIRANDA RIGHTS

I find it ✌🏾funny✌🏾 how we were just talking about “due process” and how it’s related to the Constitutional Right Formerly Known As Abortion, and then—wham-bam-thank-you-shazam!—law enforcement’s responsibility to remind you of your 5th and 14th Amendment rights just vanished in thin air. Poof! Accountability gone! Like that sharp edge of Dr. Strange’s lace-front: lush here, bare there.*

(*No shade, Hollywood. We just need you to hire the round-the-way gorls to get y’all together! 😩)

From Rolling Stone:

“The high court Thursday made it more difficult for victims to sue if the police fail to read them their rights, relieving cops of consequences for violating the rights of the people they arrests that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution guarantee the right to due process.”

Slate Senior Writer, Mark Joseph Stern writes about how this decision could impact real people:

The Supreme Court took the first steps toward overruling Miranda v. Arizona… declaring that suspects have no constitutional right to receive the famed Miranda warnings when they’re taken into custody. Its 6–3 decision in Vega v. Tekoh ensures that many suspects who are denied these warnings will have no legal recourse, even if they are wrongly convicted.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE

SKIP TO

CARSON v. MAKIN

KENNEDY v. BREMERTON SCHOOL DISTRICT

If your people ever seriously considered using that one family member’s address because it was near The GOOD School, you may be wondering why I feel so sus about this next decision.

And that’s cool! Opinions are a complicated thing because for some wild reason or another, we all get to have them!

(And, unlike the majority of the Supreme Court—EYE respect YOUR VERY VERY PERSONAL CHOICES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ME! )

😒

From CNN Politics:

“The Supreme Court said Tuesday [6/21/2022] that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools.”

Whether you’re a person of faith or not, you can probably already see where this could go.

Let’s revisit the “freedom of religion” bit in the First Amendment real quick.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion—and—in order to protect that freedom, it also includes that the government cannot make “any law ‘respecting an establishment of religion.” The government can’t establish an official religion, nor is government allowed to take actions “that unduly favor one religion over another,” or preferring non-religion over religion” and vice versa.

This idea is known as the separation of church and state.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING HOW A TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM COULD THREATEN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM…

Two, self-identified Christian families challenged a Maine law preventing public money for two private religious schools. According to Reuters, “the two different religious schools in the state of Maine case describe themselves as seeking to instill a ‘Biblical worldview’ in students, according to court records.”

The schools refuse to hire gay teachers or admit gay and transgender students, and in the case of one of the schools, the curriculum teaches that a "husband is the leader of the household" and includes a class in which students learn to "refute the teachings of the Islamic religion with the truth of God's Word." >>

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR PUBLIC FUNDING IN THE FUTURE

Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law shares what this could mean for the future of (real) religious freedom:

"Although framed as a school-choice ruling, it's hard to see how this won't have implications for a far wider range of state benefit programs — putting government in the awkward position of having to choose between directly funding religious activity or not providing funding at all."

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

If you heard about this case at all, it’s possible you heard that it was about “school choice” or inspired by a 2006 sports flick.

Joseph Kennedy, the plaintiff in the case, says he was “channel-surfing at home one night when he came across a 2006 movie, Facing the Giants, about a football coach who turns a losing streak around after deciding to praise God after every game.”

When I tell you my Christian-adjacent fingers typing right here and now on this keyboard can sense the heart rate of my non-Christian homies of faith rising rapidly all over the nation???! 😬

According to SCOTUSBlog, the facts of the case start dancing around depending on who you ask. >>

Kennedy—and, importantly, Justice Neil Gorsuch—say he was fired for ✌🏾briefly and privately✌🏾 praying on the field.

The school district says he was suspended for “refusing to stop holding public prayers” dead-center on the field, at the 50-yard line.”

The district says this pattern “created pressure for students to join him and ‘genuine safety concerns for students on the fields because of the spectacle that ensued from his media outreach on praying.’”

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR PRAYER, SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS’ RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

But never mind the “they said/who said” of it all. The facts of the case appear to disagree with Justice Gorsuch’s opinion.

That’s right, baybeeeeee!

Photo evidence captioned “Photograph of J. Kennedy standing in group of kneeling players,” in 720p is included in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent!

<<

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR PRAYER, SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS’ RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

As Vox established in April 2022:

“Six decades ago, in Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court held that the state may not pressure schoolchildren to pray in a particular way. “

Paul Peterson is a parent of four former Bremerton High School students, and a one-time colleague of Joseph Kennedy, the coach in the case. In an opinion piece for NBC News, Peterson wrote:

I feel for any kids, especially religious minorities or nonreligious kids, who participated because they thought it was the only way to be a good teammate, to impress their coach and to be included as part of the team.

Caroline Mala Corbin, professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law rings the bells even louder, citing not only the privilege of the coach’s religious practice over that of his students, but the privilege of a single religion over everyone else’s:

In these justices’ eyes, the religious rights of Christians may still take precedence over all else.

OPEN CARRY

From the New York Times:

“The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Americans have a broad right to arm themselves in public, striking down a New York law that placed strict limits on carrying guns outside the home and setting off a scramble in other states that have similar restrictions.

The decision…will force five states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey, home to a quarter of all Americans — to rewrite their laws.”

For context:
We live in a country that just let a bunch of Black elders get murdered at the grocery store; more than a dozen more elementary school-aged children in a predominantly Brown community were shot to death while their parents were accosted by cops outside; and—somehow—in-betwixt and between, our country managed to eke out another double digits worth of mass shootings.

(I really want to get into the other kinds of gun violence disproportionately affecting the people I know—but because I’m long-winded—we’ll do so at a later date.)

In the meantime, I’d be lying if I pretended that I’m not very very very very very very very very very concerned about what comes next. I’m not sure I mentioned that I am VERY worried.

Like. 👁 👁 👁 👁

I know I’m not alone in my angst, because of takes like these from the New York Times:

Furor Over the Supreme Court Ruling on Guns: Readers express dismay over the justices’ rejection of a New York gun law.

Or this, from the Associated Press:

The American Medical Association has called the ruling a “harmful and deeply disturbing decision.”

But this take in the Washington Post’s Opinion section is different.

It’s a non-catfishy, reputably authored, take from a few super-degreed folks at Bronx Defenders, a public defender nonprofit:

Because possession of an unlicensed, loaded firearm is a “violent felony” under New York law, people with no criminal record who are convicted face a mandatory minimum sentence of 3½ years in prison; the maximum is 15 years. They can lose their jobs, their housing, their children and, if they are not citizens, their right to live in the United States. All for carrying a gun without ever threatening anyone or pulling the trigger — conduct that in many states is not a crime at all.

Where’s your head at?
How are you feeling about the Supremes’ lately?
What questions do you still have?