... even suggesting that the pressure Christians face surrounding their religious beliefs is akin to the strictures the U.S. placed on Germany and Japan after World War II.“Is our country going to follow that course?” Alito asked. “For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry and can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed. ... The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.”
Alito offered as a case in point marriage equality, which he believes victimizes people who believe in opposite-sex marriage supremacy.
The Gays aren't the only ones assaulting religious liberty, he said. Governmental attempts to stem the spread of COVID-19 also have Alito fuming: “Think of worship services! Churches closed on Easter Sunday, synagogues closed for Passover in Yom Kippur!”
As the present "third wave" of the disease dwarfs the first and second waves in this country, he's not going to like the looks of Christmas this year, either.
But it's not as if the coronavirus is ignoring secular holidays such as Black Friday, New Year's Eve, or Superbowl Sunday, either.
Some legal scholars seemed surprised by Alito's brazenly political speech. In one lawyer's tweet,
“This speech is like I woke up from a vampire dream,” University of Baltimore law professor and former federal prosecutor Kim Wehle wrote. “Unscrupulously biased, political, and even angry. I can’t imagine why Alito did this publicly. Totally inappropriate and damaging to the Supreme Court.”
I'm not sure why this should come as a shock to anyone. After all, Alito is the Supreme Court Justice caught shaking his head and clearly mouthing "Not true!" at Barack Obama during the then-President's 2010 State of the Union address. (Obama was criticizing the Court's Citizens United ruling.) While that's not quite in the same league as shouting "You lie!" or tearing up one's copy of the speech, the people who did those things were members of Congress — politicians — and I guess we've come to expect that behavior from the House and Senate. The other Justices present during Obama's address sat dispassionately throughout.
In another speech to the Federalist Society four years ago, Alito bemoaned the liberal "campus culture" at some colleges and universities that supposedly stifles conservatives' free speech. Maybe so. Alito might be afraid to speak on liberal campuses of higher learning, but he is right at home bravely speaking to right-wing and libertarian septic think tanks.
None of the views Alito expressed are likely to shock those who have read his legal opinions or other public statements, [University of Massachusetts School of Law professor John T.] Rice said, but their public airing flies in the face of Chief Justice John Roberts’s efforts to keep the court above the political fray.
“Is there a rule that Justice Alito violated? Is there any recourse against him? No,” Rice said. “But was it wise? No.”
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