What Donald Trump does in the morning, he undoes in the evening.
In picking Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court nominee, Donald Trump has effectively erased anything positive about his earlier decision not to undo an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against us. Gorsuch is a younger Antonin Scalia, who, at 49, could serve three decades or longer on the bench to extend Scalia’s culture war against us.
As a major proponent of religious liberty, Gorsuch is perfectly poised to make the right-wing dream of making discrimination legal come true.
The selection of Gorsuch is a clear signal to the religious right that Trump is their man. He is everything that conservative Christians would want in a Supreme Court jurist, which is why they are turning backflips over his nomination. The right was concerned that Trump might go with his other finalist, Thomas Hardiman, whom many conservatives considered insufficiently doctrinaire.
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Instead, Trump chose someone who has the potential to make our lives miserable for decades to come. Gorsuch was one of the judges who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby when the company sought to carve out a religious exemption for providing contraceptions under Obamacare. He obviously would have no problem extending religious exemptions to anyone who objects to gay marriage, essentially allowing businesses or landlords to discriminate against us with impunity, no matter what the law says.
The news will be focusing on Gorsuch over the next few days, but the real news is about Trump. He’s the grand master of the hollow gesture. He will tout his support for gay rights by pointing to his refusal to undo the executive order. Yet he wants to appoint a judge who will have a far more reaching impact than the executive order.
Moreover, there’s little reason to believe that the executive order will stand by itself in any case. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is predicting that another executive order will be following soon. That one will likely exempt “any religious corporation, religious association, religious education institution or religious society” from having to follow the original executive order. In short, Trump will be making nondiscrimination optional.
Throughout the campaign, lots of people didn’t think Trump would do the things he said he would do. Now we’ve seen a Muslim travel ban, a Mexican wall and an attack on Obamacare. He promised that “Christians will love” his Supreme Court pick. He wasn’t kidding. He’ll keep professing how much he loves us, but don’t be fooled.
When it comes to gay rights, Trump is in the pocket of the homophobes.
DCguy
Wow, he said the gay marriage ruling was terrible, he said he was going to appoint judges to strip away lgbt rights. He’s doing what he said.
Just another anti-lgbt bigot that the self hating Log Cabiin Republicans can worship and lie about how pro-gay they are.
Holloway
Gorsuch has an interesting way of doing things that’s arguably more reminiscent of Clarence Thomas than Antonin Scalia.
Things like the drug war and gay marriage he doesn’t opine on directly in favor of one side or the other, rather he sticks to interpreting the constitution both in letter and in what he thinks was the spirit it was written in.
I think he wants issues of anti-discrimimation law to be worked out state by state rather than this insane winner-take-all game at the federal level everybody wants to play these days -_-
captainburrito
That would have meant Alabama would not have had inter-racial marriage legalized till 2000 instead of the 60s. How long would it have taken for public accomodations laws?
Kangol
So we should have allowed slavery to end state by state rather than “this insane winner-take-all game at the federal level everybody wants to play” back in the 1860s? Yeah, right, no thanks!
1EqualityUSA
We are pawns on a chessboard. Any coercive laws passed in this era of religiopolitical gamesmanship will be overturned in time. The precedent set now applies to future legal knots. Separation of Church and State is wise because politics and religion taint each other. Neither are satisfied, and both are compromised. Mixing religion and government must be addressed. A politicized Supreme Court loses standing when we are burdened by the adamant religious beliefs of others, robes, or none. If church leaders haven’t the talent to win hearts in appropriate Houses of Worship, would the outcome differ, using governmental muscle? Sidling up to politicians to force will and beliefs onto other citizens is not winning hearts, it’s coercion. Oppression is a prairie fire. Be brave enough to ask yourselves, “Who’s next?”
CodyJ
totally agreed!
KaiserVonScheiss
Gorsuch sided with Hobby Lobby because of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed by Republican Congress in the 90s and signed by Bill Clinton. I don’t like the law. It’s broadly written, too broadly written.
But Gorsuch was doing his job. I don’t like the outcome, but I agree with the decision. If the law says X, the ruling should be X. This is not a hard concept.
Here’s the law. Read. Read how broadly written it is, but the blame lies not with Gorsuch or the court system. Blame Congress.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000bb%E2%80%931
Heywood Jablowme
Interestingly, or ironically, the impetus for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was to protect Native Americans’ use of peyote in religious ceremonies after the Supreme Court said they couldn’t do that.
As a Democrat I almost hate to correct you on this point, but it wasn’t a Republican congress that passed it. Still D majority at that time (1993), although the vote was almost unanimous. And the guy who introduced the bill was none other than Chuck Schumer.
I suspect the Republicans of that time saw opportunity in the Act far beyond a few peyote-stoned Indians!
KaiserVonScheiss
I guess you’re right. The GOP didn’t take over until the 1994 Contract with America. In my defence, I was only 9 at the time.
woodroad34
He’s fairly inconsistent…the only thing he’s consistent about is his bad decision making skills. How can you trust someone when the free world hates you or thinks you’re a threat to stability?
Heywood Jablowme
Yes, it’s like how they compare Gorsuch to Scalia and they’re always saying Scalia was such an “originalist,” after he created an entirely new Second Amendment out of thin air!
Kangol
“A well regulated Militia being necessary”…except we have a standing military (the largest and most powerful in the world), and even then the “regulated” part gets dropped by the gun fanatics, but hey, Scalia was a “literalist” and “Originalist,” and sure enough, those early Constitution drafters were thinking, everyone should be able to bring a machine gun into a church or school or public park, you name it. What a farce. The bigger question to me is: what happens if one of the two older, liberal justices (centrist Breyer, or left-leaning Bader Ginsberg), or Anthony Kennedy has to leave the bench?
GayEGO
You cannot trust Trump as he is clueless about civil, American citizens’ rights.
GayEGO
Trump does not surprise me, he is a loose cannon that is clueless about the meaning of Religious Liberty which can only be practiced within each religions boundaries and cannot be forced on American citizens outside the boundaries of each religion.
eightinchnail
When he was elected I thought what the …. but then thought maybe we need to give the guy a chance. Two weeks in and as a citizen of planet Earth he scares the hell out of me.