A new book by Justice Samuel Alito presents his view of the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the country with a focus on religious freedom.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the devout Catholic conservative who has long warned of animus against religion in America, says in a new book that he believes the court’s landmark decision extending marriage rights to same-sex couples was “perhaps the decisive point in our nation’s turn against religious liberty.”

Alito, who dissented sharply in the 2015 case, made the claim at Catholic University of America three years after Obergefell v Hodges in a speech that was not open to the public or widely covered at the time. The remarks were published this month in “So Ordered,” a collection of Alito speeches that he says reflect his judicial philosophy and outlook on the country.

  • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
    11·
    4 hours ago

    “In dissent from that ruling,” he said in the 2018 address, “I expressed my worry that equating the expression of certain views with bigotry – or, if you like, with dignitary harm – would drive believers out of public life.”

    Alito suggests that his prediction has come to pass.

    “Quite suddenly, religious liberty has become controversial,” Alito said in a newly published 2022 speech to the Magnificat Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting Catholic culture and traditions.

    So the lifetime appointee on the most powerful court, the majority of whom are religious believers who willingly impose their will on others, in a governmental and political environment controlled by religious believers in every branch of government, believes that the Obergefell decision “dr[o]ve believers out of public life.”

    Big wiping-his-tears-with-hundred-dollar-bills energy here.

    The cases he uses as examples involve businesses threatened with punishment for refusing to provide services for gay weddings and faith-based organizations harmed by government health or employment regulations without any religious exemption.

    “What we see in these and other cases,” Alito says in the 2022 speech, “is a refusal to live in peace with those who violate the new moral code.” He says the dynamic will “virtually guarantee that the Supreme Court will continue to see a steady stream of religious-liberty cases.”

    To be clear, the “new moral code” that is being “violated” is: Treat other human beings like equal human beings.

    There is no deeper meaning here. He’s upset that he doesn’t view LGBTQ people as deserving the right to equally participate in society, and is therefore the one being oppressed.

    • Slashme@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I wonder whether he thinks it’s OK for a business to refuse services to Catholic customers. Or is that suddenly discrimination again?