EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Scholars claim it’s a loss for civil rights when Americans are not forced to promote same-sex ‘marriage,’ fret about religion’s role in ‘public life’
Civil rights are under the worst attack since the 1950s due to Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, according to a trio of political scientists.
That is, if you think it’s horrific that Colorado cannot force a web designer to create a website for a same-sex “marriage” or strip a counselor of her ability to counsel a gender-confused teen.
The Washington Post recently published the summary of an analysis it commissioned on Supreme Court rulings conducted by Washington University political scientists Lee Epstein and Andrew Martin, along with Pennsylvania State Professor Michael Nelson.
Reporter Justin Jouvenal paints the ominous picture of the Roberts Court under the three Trump-appointed justices, saying this Supreme Court “is the first since at least the 1950s to reject civil rights claims in a majority of cases involving women and minorities.”
That certainly sounds bad and I get the imagery – wow, the 1950s! Basically we’re all living in the Jim Crow South now!
The full results are not available for easy analysis, but the examples given in the story highlight how the political scientists define “civil rights” in such a way to make Trump look bad.
The Washington Post reports:
In recent terms, a number of the civil rights cases before the court have involved protections for gay and transgender people, and in most cases, the court has ruled against them. Last year, the justices upheld a Tennessee ban on gender transition treatment for minors and allowed religious parents to remove their children from school lessons using LGBTQ+ books. In 2023, the justices said a website designer’s First Amendment rights allowed her to refuse to create sites for same-sex weddings.
Let’s take each case one by one to look at the flaws.
The “gender transition treatment” case refers to United States v. Skrmetti, which ruled states can prohibit the surgical and chemical mutilation of gender-confused children.
Nothing in the law prohibits gender-confused teens from voting, using public transportation, running for office, or exercising their rights to free speech. Rather, it ensures that children do not make a devastating, lifelong decision to remove their healthy reproductive organs. One can certainly argue this is a violation of “transgender rights,” insofar as those even exist, but it hardly deals with “civil rights.”
The next two cases are a curious choice, as they both were decided in favor of civil rights.
Mahmoud v. Taylor concerned the rights of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian parents to opt their children out of sexualized school curriculum. Many religious individuals would note that this is a victory for civil rights – families who enroll in public schools are being protected from government officials imposing their own views on sexuality on young, impressionable kids.
However, the Washington Post, and presumably the professors, don’t view religion as a net positive. The article laments how “the court has allowed religion to push into public life.” How dare they! People need to pray only silently in their churches and not in the public square (and even then they are not safe from the FBI).
Finally, the 2023 web designer case is another victory for the First Amendment – an actual civil right. In that case, titled 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Court ruled in favor of a female web designer who did not want to be forced to make a website for a so-called same-sex “marriage.” I note that she is female only since the Washington Post said the Supreme Court’s rulings were against women.
The Court, in a case also criticized by the political scientists and WaPo, also ruled for a female counselor who wanted to provide counseling to gender-confused or same-sex attracted teens.
Beyond sexual issues, the analysis also twists “civil rights” to mean that universities should be free to discriminate on the basis of race.
The professors consider the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling to be a loss for civil rights, even though that case affirmed that universities cannot discriminate against qualified Asian students in favor of less-qualified black and Hispanic students.
The scholars maintain an extensive Supreme Court ruling database and are considered experts by the Washington Post, yet they suffer from a warped understanding of years past. This might explain the fatal flaws in their study.
“It would be surprising to see another John Paul Stevens,” Lee Epstein said, implying the Supreme Court justice was a moderate.
By “another John Paul Stevens,” I presume Epstein means, “A Republican appointed justice who votes in favor of killing preborn babies and finding new ‘rights,’” in the Constitution.
After all, the Associated Press called Stevens a “leading liberal.”
The Supreme Court, thanks largely to Trump nominees, has protected the civil rights of Americans to pray in the public square, direct the upbringing of their children, and participate in the economy without being forced to violate their conscience.
We should all be thankful for these civil rights victories.
