It’s been quite a week. Beginning with Juneteenth, the celebration of the abolition of slavery, in the closing days of Pride Month, this week’s promise took several sharp turns.
This week alone, SCOTUS has further eroded the Separation of Church and State, further enabled America’s gun obsession, weakened the rights granted under Miranda, and officially overturned Roe v. Wade with the explicitly stated intention of bringing Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell under review (that’s GOP talk for making them next on the chopping block). Notably, Loving, which stands to be gutted under the same principles, was not mentioned in the upcoming ‘To Do list’ penned by Justice Thomas, for obvious reasons. But I am mystified as to how he could not be aware that Loving is not among the soon-to-be-condemned.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ … we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents … After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated.” _Justice Clarence Thomas
It may not be immediately obvious how (or even if) these cases are related, but they are. All represent part of a long effort on the part of the Evangelical Right to transform the US into a theocratic tyranny. But first, let’s take a moment to look at each of these decisions and what they mean specifically.
Vega v Tekoh
If you are not familiar with what ‘Miranda’ refers to, it’s the set of instructions a law enforcement officer is required to give a defendant on arrest informing them of their constitutional rights, such as remaining silent, and having an attorney to represent them. It has been the case that if a defendant was not informed of their rights, and confessed, they had a case to have that confession barred from their court proceedings, since, they argued, they were unaware they had the right to remain silent, or have an attorney present during interrogation. Now, this has not always been a question about whether someone knew they could legally keep their mouth shut. It’s been about police using all kinds of tactics to force confessions, including intimidation, threats of more dire charges if they did not confess, as well as taking advantage of someone’s possible ignorance of the rights they have.
In other words, it has served as a check on police power to force a confession using manipulation. SCOTUS did not overrule the right to legal counsel or the right to avoid self-incrimination. But they ruled that not being informed of one’s rights is not ground for any remedy under the law and that while the rights Miranda describes are protected, being informed of them is not a right. While that may be true, “Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the ruling was taking away the remedy that individuals have when their constitutionally protected right is violated. ‘The majority here, as elsewhere, injures the right by denying the remedy,’ she wrote.” What this will do is protect cops who do not inform a detainee of their rights, and therefore, trample all over them. This is a blow to civil rights and due process.
Carson v. Makin
In this case, SCOTUS further weakened the wall of separation between chruch and state by ruling that a requirement by Maine’s tuition assistance program that schools be ‘nonsectarian; to qualify was in violation of the Constitution. In this case, the plaintiffs wanted taxpayer dollars to send their children to Christian schools which not only teach religiously based (and biased) curricula but also maintain policies that actively discriminate against LGBTQ students and faculty.
What Maine’s requirement was designed to do was prevent religious schools from being funded by, and therefore, in effect, endorsed by the state, as the establishment clause prohibits However, the plaintiff argued, and the court ruled, that denying assistance to families who selected religious schools violated their right to free exercise. However, according to Reuters, “The two schools describe themselves as seeking to instill a ‘Biblical worldview'” in students, according to court records. They refuse to hire gay teachers or admit gay and transgender students. Bangor Christian Schools teaches that a ‘husband is the leader of the household’ and includes a class in which students learn to ‘refute the teachings of the Islamic religion with the truth of God’s Word.”
At odds here are, supposedly the rights of the parents to exercise their religion by choosing schools, and the taxpayers’ right to not find religious instruction. However, it is questionable if the right to free practice of religion includes getting free tuition to a religious school. What is not questionable is that having taxpayers, regardless of their own religious leanings, funding schools with a very specific leaning, particularly when it is an institution that discriminates in clear violation of the constitution. This, to me, is a chilling sign that the rights of non-religion (i.e. non-Christian) persons and the rights of LGBTQ persons–the most obvious grounds on which to challenge this ruling–will themselves soon no longer be relevant.
