The Supreme Court Isn’t Serving America, but a Subversive, Anti-Democratic Religious Movement

This Court is Aggressively Remaking America in Real Time

I never in my life thought I’d ask this unnerving question: Is the Supreme Court working on behalf of United States, or is it trying to forge a radical new nation from scratch, that doesn’t remotely resemble America?

It’s not that I merely disagree with their drastic and delusional decisions, although I vehemently do. It’s the deceitful way these extremists blatantly lied to ascend to the High Court, aided by the bad faith machinations of Sen. Mitch McConnell.

It’s the way they flagrantly disregard public opinion and discount precedent, as if previous rulings were scribbled on toilet paper. What we are experiencing, in real time, is an illegitimate cabal of religious renegades abusing power to force Americans to bow to their church-inspired views. It is nothing short of an insurgency of overreaching, black robed revolutionaries. By the time they are through perverting the Constitution, thwarting the will of the majority and rewriting America’s rule book, the country, as we know it, will essentially cease to exist.     

Most notably, these rogues have feverishly labored to abolish separation of church and state. While disingenuously hiding behind the ludicrous, artificial philosophy of “originalism”, they gleefully trample our forefather’s vision of a nation that kept religion out of government. In doing so, they have cunningly flipped the U.S. Constitution on its axis, making enforcement of the First Amendment unconstitutional. Michael Dorf, a Cornell Law School professor said the court's right-wing majority has radically redefined the role of religion and state. 

"They regard secularism, which for centuries has been the liberal world's understanding of what it means to be neutral, as itself a form of discrimination against religion," Dorf said of the conservative majority.

The Supreme Court’s nifty trick is portraying those who follow the Constitution’s Establishment Clause as guilty of discrimination. However, faith is fundamentally different. It’s an act of discernment, rather than discrimination, to ensure that something as combustible as religion isn’t government sponsored.

For centuries, up until the present day, wars have been fought over religion. The Thirty Years’ War, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the slaughter of indigenous people by Christian missionaries were all based on fanatics trying to impose their beliefs.

The Islamists who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were guided by twisted, yet sincere, religious beliefs. The monstrous reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the barbarism of ISIS are prime examples of religious zealotry. The war in Ukraine is partially the result of Vladimir Putin’s delusional religious vision that he is spreading the “traditional values” of the Holy Rus. In America, the groups largely behind the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were guided by a skewed version of right wing Christianity.

Given the horrific, bloody track record of intertwining church and state, our nation’s founders took great pains to create a secular nation. America was clearly founded as an experiment of government by regular men, not holy men. The Founders did not want a state religion, nor did they include religious tests for public office. 

Nonetheless, this heedless, reckless, agenda-driven, broad daylight conspiracy of activist judges, has brushed aside America’s forefathers* to merge government and God. It cannot be overstated what a fundamental departure their rulings are from historic jurisprudence. These unabashed, revolutionary ideologues are unmooring America from its foundations and justifying their perfidious actions with embarrassingly flimsy legal fig leaves.

In a furious, obscene dash to solidify their dangerous, exclusionary worldview, the Supreme Court has dropped a blitzkrieg of legal bombs. In merely eight weeks, they have bum-rushed six unpopular, landmark decisions that have rendered America nearly unrecognizable.  

The most notable ruling was reversing Roe v. Wade, turning America’s women into baby incubators with no control over their bodies. While not specifically an attack on the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, only the most naïve person wouldn’t recognize that central to this heinous decision was the Justices’ desire to impose their personal right wing Christian religious beliefs on all Americans.

The “Coup Court” also sided with Joseph Kennedy, a proselytizing public school football coach in Washington state, who led flamboyant Christian prayers with players at the 50-yard line. As someone who personally experienced coercive Christianity while participating in sports in public school, I know firsthand that this abominable decision will lead zealous coaches and teachers to reward students who pray, while penalizing those who don’t.

These stealth missionaries on the High Court, went on to endorse religious schools in Maine being funded by taxpayers. So, millions of fair-minded Americans must now subsidize their own discrimination. They are forced to funnel cash to born again Christian institutions that brainwash children to believe in the subjugation of women, racial prejudice and loathing LGBTQ people.

Additionally, the court ruled in favor of a Christian group that sought to fly a flag with a cross at Boston city hall but was rebuffed because they violated separation of church and state. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that this hopelessly biased, divisive Supreme Court majority will always elevate the faithful over competing concerns.  

Furthermore, the Court ruled to permit the carrying of concealed handguns in New York City. While not ostensibly the promotion of religion, it is broadly in-line with fundamentalist Christian support for interpreting the Second Amendment to allow universal access to weapons of war. Why would followers of the Prince of Peace support such lunacy? Well, contemporary right-wing Christians are inundated by parachurch organizations, such as the Family Research Council, who portray them as victims. These unsavory groups peddle paranoia and depict Evangelicals as martyrs under constant attack who must defend themselves against heretics and heathens.

Finally, the Court gutted environmental protections at a time when climate change is the greatest threat to mankind. The New York Times reports:

One by one, the tools available to President Biden to fight climate change are being stripped away.

After a Supreme Court decision on Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency will have less authority to limit carbon dioxide from power plants, a major source in this country of the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

The United States, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged to cut its pollution in half by the end of the decade. Some experts say that after the Supreme Court’s decision in the case, West Virginia v. E.P.A., it will soon be mathematically impossible to meet that goal.

This, once again, is a faith-based ruling by religious extremists who are putting our nation and planet in jeopardy. Other than industrialists that stand to profit, the primary group of people who oppose fighting climate change are religious nuts. They fervently believe that God gave man dominion over earth, and thus we can abuse the planet and the Lord will solve the problem. Meanwhile, most rational people, who rely on data, facts and science are helplessly trapped in a matrix of their madness.

If the “Coup Court” does nothing else, it has already significantly damaged our country. Unfortunately, all indications show that they are just warming up. They announced on Thursday that they are taking a new case, Moore vs. Harper, that could literally spell the end of democracy.

In carefully selecting this case, they seem intent on ruling that state legislatures have exclusive authority to set and interpret state election laws. This would potentially give radicalized GOP legislatures the unchecked ability to overturn elections. Under such a ridiculous interpretation of the law, governors, state courts and voters could do nothing to remedy brazen election theft. Vox called this crazy case “perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the January 6 attack.”

If this weren’t scary enough, the “Coup Court” appears to be working with extremist lawmakers to enact their Gilead-like vision. In response to Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion that the Court should review rulings that permit marriage equality, contraception and LGBTQ people engaging in sexual relations, Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton signaled that he would happily defend the state’s archaic sodomy law if the Supreme Court elects to revisit the issue.

Given the extremism of today’s GOP and the advances in surveillance technology since the 2003 sodomy ruling, Lawrence v. Texas, what Paxton suggests is an act of war against the LGBTQ community. The enforcement of new sodomy laws would likely lead to a totalitarian regime of secret police reminiscent of the Stassi.

That innocuous gay app you’re using to get a date? That could soon be evidence of “sodomy”, which could lead to police kicking down your door in the middle of the night. With the fascist bent of the Republican Party, it’s not difficult to imagine right wing prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves by creating a dragnet to arrest LGBTQ people. 

If one objectively steps back to consider the totality of the Supreme Court majority’s swift and sweeping actions, it’s fair to ask whether they are serving America or a subversive movement to overthrow the United States. We already know that Clarence Thomas is onboard with shredding the Constitution, given the treasonous actions of his Big Lie-promoting wife Ginni.

If four additional Justices share in Thomas’ perverse vision for our country, as it increasingly appears they do, our nation could rapidly disintegrate or be disfigured into an authoritarian theocracy that resembles a Christian version of Iran.

We can no longer say, “it couldn’t happen here.” Each day provides fresh evidence that a terrifying transformation is already underway. An unhinged Supreme Court majority isn’t even bothering to slowly boil the American frog into submission. It’s gleefully pitching the frog, in the light of day, into a bubbling, caldron of water, as an arrogant show of unchecked force. These are not the impartial actions of reasonable Judges who aim to represent all Americans, but the ambitious actions of mutinous rebels who are intent on toppling democracy.

*Note: Our nation’s forefathers were products of their time. Some owned slaves and most had retrograde views of women. Nonetheless, despite their obvious human flaws, they were correct about separation of church and state. Their wisdom in this area, eventually allowed for the expansion of human rights and democracy as the nation slowly progressed.