US Supreme Court girds for culture wars with LGBT, guns and race cases

Reuters.com ^ | October 5, 20256:05 AM CDT | Jan Wolfe

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Summary

• Gay "conversion therapy" case to be argued on Tuesday
• Court will examine laws banning transgender athletes
• Justices to hear challenge to Hawaii handgun limits
• Voting Rights Act provision imperiled in Louisiana case

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court is set to wade back into the nation's culture wars during its new nine-month term that begins on Monday with a series of contentious cases on issues including transgender athletes, gay conversion therapy, guns and race.

The first of these goes before the court on the second day of its term. Arguments are slated for Tuesday over the legality of a Democratic-backed Colorado law banning "conversion therapy" aimed at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. Republican President Donald Trump's administration is supporting the Christian professional counselor who challenged the law.

"Like last year, this term the Supreme Court again will face issues that arise from the culture wars and the Trump presidency that deeply divide our country," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, during its last term that ended in June upheld Tennessee's Republican-backed ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors and let parents keep their children out of classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read. Acting on an emergency basis, it also allowed Trump's ban on transgender people in the military.

The Colorado case plaintiff challenged the state's law as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech, saying it unlawfully censors her communications with clients. While lower courts upheld the measure, the First Amendment argument is expected to find a receptive audience in the Supreme Court's conservative justices.

[Jim W N]

Sexual orientation, “gay conversion therapy”, transgender junk, and state handgun laws are NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY FEDERAL GOV’T (Supreme Court) issues.

They are STATES’ issues.

[unixfox]

This just shows how far society has sunk. Pathetic.

[Reddy]

I’m really curious to see which way they go on anchor baby ruling……..

[BohDaThone]

but if conversion therapy is a state issue. the state has already decided to ban it. regardless of the therapists speech and belief rights??

[SaveFerris]

(This just shows how far society has sunk)

Indeed. This METASTASIZING CANCER is ALL OVER NORMAL SOCIETY.

It has infected EVERYTHING. Somebody noted, a while back, that Chick-fil-A seemed to be using gay guys in their commercials. At least a couple of commercials. I had been avoiding their commercials by not paying much attention.

Who goes to these events and what IDIOTS take their CHILDREN to these homosexual events?

Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:2, DEMOCRAT Nancy Pelosi ...



Do NO harm, Christians, but reject
this Godless Reprobate Agenda. Walk Away.
(For the thread)



🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 PRIDE GOES BEFORE DESTRUCTION - Proverbs 16 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

[Aeneas2112]

Gun rights are a FEDERAL issue when a state infringes upon them, IMHO.

[Jim W N]

Gun rights are a FEDERAL issue when a state infringes upon them, IMHO.

That may be your opinion or your preference, but the Constitution gives the feds NO such power over the states.

The first ten amendments are pointed directly and exclusively at the feds and nowhere else as the 9A and 10A explain.

[Openurmind]

This is when they will take it all back and put us right back to pre-second term Biden conditions. This is what they do. Give us a bone and then take it back away again.

[Jim W N]

but if conversion therapy is a state issue. the state has already decided to ban it. regardless of the therapists speech and belief rights??

Yes. The federal gov't powers are ONLY derived from that which the Constitution enumerates and delegates to the feds.

Regulation of conversion therapy, speech, and belief rights are not delegated to the feds by the Constitution. And as the 9A and 10A explain, if it's not delegated to the feds, then it is a power and right of the states and people.

[Ancesthntr]

State gun laws are NOT a state issue when they violate the 2nd Amendment. The 14th Amendment guarantees that the BOR is enforceable against the states.

[SaveFerris]

(contentious cases on issues including "TRANSGENDER" ATHLETES)

[Jim W N]

State gun laws ARE a state issue and do NOT violate the 2nd Amendment which is pointed only at the feds explained by the 9A and 10A.

The counterfeit Incorporation Doctrine has been tried and found wanting. The 14A was ratified as limited to being a Civil War Reconstruction amendment to give ex-slaves full citizenship. Nothing more. Not something that could give the feds sweeping powers the ratifiers never contemplated.

Quit promoting Leftist lies that ALWAYS expand unconstitutional federal gov’t.

[Ancesthntr]

The 14th amendment was ratified after the ninth and 10th amendments. As such, whatever changes it wrought in the Constitution overrule the text of the 9th and 10th amendments to a certain extent. Please note that this was recognized explicitly in the 2010 case of McDonald vs. City of Chicago, in which the United States Supreme Court stated that the 2nd amendment protections for the right to keep and bear arms was applied to the states due to the text of the 14th amendment.

If your view were to apply, every single state in the union could theoretically ban all firearms, and that would be constitutional. A greater piece of nonsense I have never heard in my life. Such a position necessarily results in some American citizens being able to exercise constitutionally-protected rights, while others cannot exercise those very same rights. It would also result in citizens of one state being held criminally liable for exercising basic rights that are protected in their home state, if they step over the wrong imaginary line by so much as 1 inch to an anti-gun state. Such a desperate application of the basic rights protected in the first 10 amendments is anathema to our system of government - and to the extent that one of our most basic rights is not recognized universally within the country, that is being slowly but surely remedied via the court system. And thank God for that!

States and localities have the power to regulate firearms and their usage, but ONLY to the extent that such regulations do not violate the second amendment.

[Ancesthntr]

“desperate” should be “disparate.”

[Jim W N]

every single state in the union could theoretically ban all firearms, and that would be constitutional.

The Constitution doesn't forbid it, but state gov't is considered local governance and it would be up to the people of that state to allow such a ban. HIGHLY unlikely in any state and almost impossible in all the states. A fictional threat.

What is not a fictional threat is the mostly unconstitutional and totalitarian power wielded now by the federal gov't - the greatest threat to America's Free Constitutional Republic.

The Constitution as written and originally understood and intended is the key to securing our freedoms from gov't overreach, and reinstating the Constitution is the key to restoring America's Free Constitutional Republic.

[fwdude]

So, can I presume that Kim Davis won’t get her hearing before the Court on the homo-Fascism attacks?

[Ancesthntr]

So, using the 14th amendment to enforce the second amendment against the states is somehow transformed by you into “government overreach.“

Perhaps the southern states can reinstitute slavery, since that was clearly allowed by the constitution, as it was originally ratified? Using the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments against the states, to free the slaves and guarantee them basic rights, would be government overreach… at least according to you.

Listen, I am absolutely against government overreaching whatever power it is granted in the constitution. I would not have been a member of Free Republic for the last quarter of a century if I believed in government overreach. But what you are saying is simply wrong. The Supreme Court was very clear in McDonald vs. City of Chicago that the second amendment is to be applied against all of the states and their subdivisions because of the action of the 14th amendment. I am glad of that, not because I like government overreach, but simply because I am in favor of the individual citizens of this country having as much power in their hands (quite literally, in the case of firearms) as possible, and that interpretation of the law completely defangs anti-gun governments, such as exist in numerous states and even more cities and towns, throughout this country. That acts to LIMIT government power, NOT grow it. I simply cannot understand, much less agree with, your point of view on this matter.

[Jim W N]

As a Post-Civil-War Reconstruction amendment, the 14A was ratified to end slavery and make ex-salves full citizens, NOT to give the feds sweeping, totalitarian powers.

[Ancesthntr]

I simply do not understand your opposition to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states via the 14th amendment. How could it possibly be a “sweeping, totalitarian power“ for some guy named McDonald in Chicago to challenge a Chicago gun law based on his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms? If anything, this is an ANTI-totalitarian provision. The Bill of Rights protects individuals against governmental power. Early on, the founders were only worried about the federal government exercising undue power against individuals. However, as history moved on, totalitarian-type power was exercised against individuals by states and localities. The 14th amendment was a cure for that. It broadened the protection that the Bill of Rights gave us for our pre-existing rights, by making sure that states and localities ALSO could not prohibit our free exercise of our fundamental rights. This EXPANDED individual liberty, it did not diminish it - and it absolutely did not increase the power of the federal government. The 14th amendment incorporation doctrine has never been interpreted to mean that a law passed by the federal government had to be obeyed by states and localities. That WOULD be totalitarian. However, as utilized so far it is completely ANTI-totalitarian.