Breaking: Chief Justice Roberts joins the Court's left-leaning justices in blocking enforcement of Louisiana abortion law

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

A divided Supreme Court said Thursday that Louisiana may not enforce a law that opponents say would close most of the state’s abortion clinics and leave it with only one doctor eligible to perform the procedure.

[Jason]

 

[RedSoxFan9]

Roberts really doesn’t want to be chief justice when the supreme court loses its power and legitimacy 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Joins the other four liberals** 

[Boyle5150]

3 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

Roberts really doesn’t want to be chief justice when the supreme court loses its power and legitimacy 

I’m just curious when you think that happens?   

[SilentWorld]

Hm this decision didn’t go how I expected. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

[Jason]

6 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 

 

The law allows Christian clergy and ONLY Christian clergy.

[Boyle5150]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

The law allows Christian clergy and ONLY Christian clergy.

And should allow neither. 

[CitizenVectron]

19 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 

 

8 minutes ago, Boyle5150 said:

And should allow neither. 

 

When I first saw the tweet, I thought, "well, I'm okay with that I guess since religion shouldn't have a say in his final moments." But if they allow Christian clergy...then yeah, just allow all of them. I mean, preferably don't allow any.

[Boyle5150]

3 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

When I first saw the tweet, I thought, "well, I'm okay with that I guess since religion shouldn't have a say in his final moments." But if they allow Christian clergy...then yeah, just allow all of them. I mean, preferably don't allow any.

Agreed!   All or none

or rather, none or All

[marioandsonic]

Good.

[Snaynay1]

On 2/7/2019 at 7:18 PM, Jason said:

 

The law allows Christian clergy and ONLY Christian clergy.

The law allows for only state employees to be in there. They have no muslim dude as a state employee. The guy had to stay in the viewing area. Did you read all the stuff from the case? It clearly states that in all the opinions.

[osxmatt]

Watching the GOP and Fox News turn on John Roberts the past few days has been delicious .

[marioandsonic]

ABORTIONS FOR ALL

[Guest]

On 2/7/2019 at 9:18 PM, Jason said:

 

The law allows Christian clergy and ONLY Christian clergy.

It’s not a law, and it doesn’t do that anyway. The state only allows trained staff into the execution chamber itself as a matter of security. There is nothing in the policy about religious affiliation.

 

On 2/7/2019 at 9:31 PM, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

When I first saw the tweet, I thought, "well, I'm okay with that I guess since religion shouldn't have a say in his final moments." But if they allow Christian clergy...then yeah, just allow all of them. I mean, preferably don't allow any.

Why shouldn’t a person in the execution chamber be allowed to have a person of comfort with them? 

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It’s not a law, and it doesn’t do that anyway. The state only allows trained staff into the execution chamber itself.

 

And the only clergy employed by the state is Christian--it sounds like there were NO imams cleared to perform the same function. So same outcome.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

And the only clergy employed by the state is Christian--it sounds like there were NO imams cleared to perform the same function. So same outcome.

Indeed the outcome is the same, which is part of the argument made by the court of appeals. If the end result is that people of one faith can have something that people of other faiths cannot, the state has run afoul of the establishment clause. Just clarifying that the rule doesn’t make any claim about religious affiliation, just about being trained staff.

 

A Christian can’t have his pastor by his side either.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Sounds like the prisons need to have more than just a Christian counselor then. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Sounds like the prisons need to have more than just a Christian counselor then. 

I find paid clergy of the state a bad concept all around. But I think it would be fine to have some process for vetting and training clergy to be in the execution chamber and without regard to the religious organization they represent. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just now, sblfilms said:

I find paid clergy of the state a bad concept all around. But I think it would be fine to have some process for vetting and training clergy to be in the execution chamber and without regard to the religious organization they represent. 

That's fine, I don't care how they do it. Only supporting one religion in these cases is a horrible violation of the First Amendment. 

[Jason]

13 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Indeed the outcome is the same, which is part of the argument made by the court of appeals. If the end result is that people of one faith can have something that people of other faiths cannot, the state has run afoul of the establishment clause. Just clarifying that the rule doesn’t make any claim about religious affiliation, just about being trained staff.

 

A Christian can’t have his pastor by his side either.

 

But if the state doesn't have any imams on staff, then it doesn't really matter which specific imam they allow in as the accommodation, so it may as well be his imam. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

But if the state doesn't have any imams on staff, then it doesn't really matter which specific imam they allow in as the accommodation, so it may as well be his imam. 

 

Should the Christian inmate be allowed to have their pastor come in as well? 

[Jason]

22 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Should the Christian inmate be allowed to have their pastor come in as well? 

 

Are you just willfully ignoring what I actually said?

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Are you just willfully ignoring what I actually said?

No. I think you're proposing a solution that creates the exact same problem that you're attempting to fix, just now it is at the expense of somebody of another religious affiliation.

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

No. I think you're proposing a solution that creates the exact same problem that you're attempting to fix, just now it is at the expense of somebody of another religious affiliation.

 

Long term the state needs to either hire a spread of clergy, or stop directly employing clergy and move to systemically clearing clergy on request. But in this specific instance there wasn't time to do either so I don't see how it's more "unfair" to give this guy his imam when other inmates have to use the state-appointed one than it is to deny him any clergy due to the state's broken setup. 

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Long term the state needs to either hire a spread of clergy, or stop directly employing clergy and move to systemically clearing clergy on request. But in this specific instance there wasn't time to do either so I don't see how it's more "unfair" to give this guy his imam when other inmates have to use the state-appointed one than it is to deny him any clergy due to the state's broken setup. 

Because people of other religious affiliations don’t get the same treatment, which is the issue at hand. The solution is to either open things up to allow inmates to choose any person to attend them (assuming they complete whatever training is necessary), or disallow any attendee in the chamber. They can all already invite their preferred clergy to the gallery.

 

I think we agree on the actual solution.

[Chairslinger]

Just remember, this is the supposed religious freedom court. But this guy's religion was outweighed by the state's....need to kill him really fast. Geez, wonder if that would have happened if he were a Christian.

 

It's not just a slippery slope, it's a hint of where this court is going. Remember last term we also had them rule that everything that Trump said about Muslims didn't matter, but that panel in Colorado that said the most mild criticism one time about Christianity after they had already made their judgment was just a horrible violation of religious rights. So it's a pattern at this point. Should be horrifying just how far they go the next 20 fucking years at least that they control the court.

 

It's a shame that these state chaplains often wind up having obscene costs. Unlike Congressional prayers, I think it would be best to accommodate believers at the hour of their death with someone of their faith. You don't have to be a believer yourself to see why that would be important to someone who does. As an atheist I am fairly opposed to telling people comforting lies, but if there was any circumstance where it would be acceptable I think it would be to make an execution a little less cruel for someone.

 

9 hours ago, osxmatt said:

Watching the GOP and Fox News turn on John Roberts the past few days has been delicious .

 

 

Oh, I think Roberts will be making it up to them soon. People should not take this as a good sign.

 

All that this proves is that Roberts doesn't want to gut Roe/Casey/Hellerstedt on a case that has laughably bad facts, was baldly activist and partisan, and was attempting to overrule SCOTUS from beneath them.

 

It's more telling that there were 4 votes to do just that. They're one vote away from taking any case and using it to kill Roe. And the one guy who temporarily put off doing so also voted with the conservatives on Hellerstedt....the law that was virtually identical to this one.

 

Not only will Roberts almost surely be coming after Roe, he might even do it when they hear this actual case. It is not talked about just how low of a bar Roberts cleared here. If the law had went into effect all but 1 clinic would have closed. Dozens, of not hundreds of women would have been stuck with unwanted pregnancies while waiting on the court to hear the case. That is the very definition of irreparable harm, and the exact thing stays are for(even without all the other fuckery in this case). The real headline here should be how embarrassing it is that it got 4 votes, and that willfully ignorant traitor Collins should be bombarded with questions about how she feels that Kavanaugh just tried to kill Roe via a post-it note with "Abortion am bad" written on it in crayon.