9thIDdoc
Gold Member
- Aug 8, 2011
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Legislation that is unconstitutional is illegal. Protecting the public from illegal legislation is the primary job of the Supreme Court.No? What in that statement was wrong?The Courts have always referred to the seriousness of this public health emergency and respected the state' right to take steps to protect the public.
No ... It's not the Supreme Court's job to legislate nor govern, and only to determine the Constitutionality of the law.
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When the Supreme Court rules a law unconstitutional, it does in fact interfere with legislation, in this case to keep the public safe in an emergency. Religion should have no special privileges to meet and break public health laws; the virus doesn't know why you're together or how holy you are, only that it can spread to a new host.
"Emergencies" don't last a year. The States don't have the right to over-rule the Constitutional rights of the People for any reason. Nor have any of the measures being yapped about been shown to actually protect anyone. If they were actually effective they would have worked long sense. Some folks seem determined to throw out the baby with the bath water.The Courts have always referred to the seriousness of this public health emergency and respected the state' right to take steps to protect the public.With any luck at all, 99.9% of ministers in these critical areas will keep their doors closed and worship on line in order to keep their parishioners safe until the case #'s come down and public health officials give the all clear. Many outbreaks have been tied to church services all over the country. I agree with Kagan on this, all the way. Let's hope it doesn't lead to a slippery slope.
Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, dissented from this order in a blunt opinion highlighting the possibility that her colleagues’ decision will kill people. “Justices of this Court are not scientists,” Kagan began. “Nor do we know much about public health policy. Yet today the Court displaces the judgments of experts about how to respond to a raging pandemic. … That mandate defies our caselaw, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the pandemic.” She pointed out that, contrary to the court’s belief, California has not actually treated churches less favorably than secular businesses and assemblies: Political meetings, lectures, and plays are also banned, she wrote—and these “secular gatherings,” like religious worship, “are constitutionally protected” by the First Amendment. The court simply created “a special exception for worship services.”
“To state the obvious, judges do not know what scientists and public health experts do,” Kagan explained. “So it is alarming that the Court second-guesses the judgments of expert officials, and displaces their conclusions with its own. In the worst public health crisis in a century, this foray into armchair epidemiology cannot end well.”
The court does not make decisions based on what might or might not kill people. Neither do they appeal to science.
They rule on the constitutionality of a law.
Period.