Posted on 02/21/2024 8:13:15 AM PST by Twotone
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito raised concerns on Tuesday about potential jurors who hold “traditional religious beliefs” on homosexuality being labeled as “bigots,” according to a statement attached to an orders list.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to weigh a case about whether potential jurors can be excluded based on their sincere religious beliefs. The case surrounded a lawsuit by Jean Finney, who is lesbian, against her former employer, the Missouri Department of Corrections, for workplace discrimination due to her sexuality.
Alito, one of the high court’s six Republican-appointed justices, issued a statement toward the bottom of Tuesday’s orders list that agreed with the decision not to hear the lawsuit, but warned that he felt that there were potential negative implications underlying the appeals court’s decision in Finney’s favor.
“That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges,” Alito said, citing the 2015 case that found same-sex couples can be married under two clauses of the 14th Amendment.
Alito highlighted his previous concerns that “Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government.”
During jury selection for Finney’s trial, which she won, her lawyer requested that the judge remove three Christian jurors who expressed their beliefs that homosexuality is a sin, arguing the jurors’ beliefs could serve as a bias that would taint the final decision. Missouri appealed the decision, arguing that the jury process had been discriminatory on religious grounds. An appeals court held that the jurors were eliminated due to their beliefs, not because they were Christians. The state then appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to weigh the case.
The former President George W. Bush appointee’s statement appeared to show a continuation of his discomfort with Obergefell, which was decided by a narrow 5-4 vote.
Since 2015, both Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have appeared to nudge their colleagues toward potentially reconsidering the 2015 ruling. They contend that the 5-4 decision concocted a right not based in the text of the Constitution and that it had cast “people of good will as bigots.”
Only two members of the court who were in the Obergefell majority, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, remain on the court.
The Supreme Court by 2020 was transformed into a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority with the help of former President Donald Trump, who nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the bench.
What about non-religious people who think sodomy is disgusting? They still get bounced for having an opinion?
bttt
I could imagine booting potential jurors who approve of lesbian relationships could be allowed.
The legal system is such a clown show.
The Supreme Court’s cowardice, avarice and deviant thinking is rapidly propelling it to irrelevance. Their moral compromises are ending their era of authority.
They are already being ignored sometimes, and even overruled by Aloha.
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