The Justices' faith and their Religion Clause decisions

[Novara]

The Justices’ faith and their Religion Clause decisions

This is utterly enraging. And terrifying for our future.

snip.................

Two of the most respected empirical law scholars—Lee Epstein of Washington University at St. Louis School of Law and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School—recently published a statistical study of the Roberts Court and constitutional protections for religion. The study was based on a dataset that included every Supreme Court case that produced an opinion relating to the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses from 1953 to the 2020 term. The data showed that the Roberts Court represents a break in the development of the two religion clauses.

“Over the entire period, the court ruled in favor of religion 59% of the time,” the authors reported. “Win rates do not differ significantly for Free Exercise Clause cases (59%) and Establishment Clause cases (57%). Across the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist Courts the religious side prevailed about half the time, with gradually increasing success. In the Roberts Court, the win rate jumps to 83%.”

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These empiricists also examined the justices in their dataset. They ranked them by their pro-religion votes and concluded:

“The top five most pro-religion justices since at least World War II are Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.”

“They are also all Christian, mostly Catholic, religiously devout (though this variable provides a weaker explanation than the others), and ideologically conservative. Amy Coney Barrett will likely advance this trend.” Barrett, who didn’t join the court until 2020, did advance the trend in last term’s religion decisions, her first full term on the court. (The least pro-religion justice was Presbyterian William Douglas who served from 1939 to 1975).

More: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-justices-faith-and-their-religion-clause-decisions

[BSdetect]

1. The christofascist courts are taking us down.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. The Subversive 6 are here to raise up an extremist theocracy.

[FakeNoose]

3. Is there anything moral or decent about the American version of Christianity?

It doesn't seem so, not since the 1980's.