Supreme Court’s Division on Lockdowns Causes Concern

Latest Polls (view all)

Where do you stand on the Transgender Issue now that the issue has gotten to the overt point of the open celebration of this lifestyle choice, dictated by certain direct and explicit actions.

84.13% I do not approve of behavior that has within its expressed tenants policies that harm children.

14.29% I do support the Trans Community in all its many facets because diversity is at a premium in today's society.

1.59% What is a "Children's Drag Queen Story Hour?"

Click Here to Vote
63 Vote(s)

View all Polls

Supreme Court’s Division on Lockdowns Causes Concern

Published: Sunday, February 14th, 2021 @ 9:13 pm
By: John Locke Foundation ( More Entries )

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Mitch Kokai.

Scott Street writes for the Federalist about potential implications of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Like numerous judges across the country for the past year, some justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appear unable to put aside their political views and question the legality of lockdown orders. That's apparent in last week's late-night decision in the ongoing battle between California's churches and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The order arose after Newsom ignored the Supreme Court's prior decision that found bans on indoor worshipping to violate the First Amendment.

Just one week after the Supreme Court issued that decision, Newsom's government issued a regional "stay at home" order that again banned all indoor church services during a sacred holiday season, but let grocery stores and large retailers like Costco and Best Buy stay open inside at 25 percent capacity. The order showed a shocking disregard for the law, particularly during the Holy Season and especially for a governor that has demanded complete fealty to his orders.

California must have known that it would be hauled back before the Supreme Court, and the court made it pay. Justice Neil Gorsuch's plurality opinion hammered that point, saying: "Recently, this Court made it abundantly clear that edicts like California's fail strict scrutiny and violate the Constitution ... Today's order should have been needless; the lower courts in these cases should have followed the extensive guidance this Court already gave."

Of course, one may expect such defiance from California politicians, whose state voted nearly two to one for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, but it is much scarier to see it come from three Supreme Court justices — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer — who discarded all respect for stare decisis and essentially accused their colleagues of killing people. ...

... Sadly, Kagan's dissent reflects a larger failure by the legal community during the COVID-19 pandemic: a failure to exercise any independent judgment or critical thought in the face of the greatest assault on civil liberties in modern American history.

Go Back