Supreme Court dumps two more important decisions | Eastern North Carolina Now

It’s June and the U. S. Supreme Court is dumping the term’s decisions on us before they leave for a long summer vacation (until October, and they still get paid).

Two decisions handed down yesterday are interesting, if not from a jurisprudence perspective, at least from the politics of the Court. 

The first case could become important as the lower courts use it to reign in the LGBTQ Movement where conservative Trump appointees may reveal their importance.  The case also shows that one swing vote joining the three dissenting justices may portend a future expansion of religious protections.  To learn more, read the dissenting opinions. 

Amy Howe reported the following on the unanimous decision in Philadelphia: 

In a clash between religious freedom and public policies that protect LGBTQ people, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause when the city stopped working with a Catholic organization that refused to certify same-sex couples as potential foster parents.

The ruling was a victory for Catholic Social Services, an organization associated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and two foster parents, who alleged that Philadelphia’s refusal to make foster-care referrals to CSS discriminated against the group because of its religious beliefs about traditional marriage. But the decision fell short of the broad endorsement of religious freedom that the challengers had sought. While the justices unanimously agreed with CSS and the foster parents that the city’s action was unconstitutional, a six-justice majority left intact the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which held that government actions usually do not violate the free exercise clause as long as they are neutral and apply to everyone.  There’s more:  click here.

The second most interesting case, simply because of the Elite Media’s field day about it, was the upholding, again, of ObamaCare.  You can read about that case here.