In yesterday's Supreme Court oral argument on public money for parochial schools, the conservative justices compared 37 states’ no-aid rule for religious institutions to racial discrimination. This marks a telling about-face. 1/
Think back to Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado in 2018, when the question was whether a Christian baker could refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. In that case, the conservatives strenuously resisted comparisons to racial discrimination. 2/
Start with Justice Alito’s skepticism in this question to Adam Unikowsky yesterday morning: 3/ 
Justice Kavanaugh and CJ Roberts pressed this point, too. The upshot: religious discrimination is akin to racial discrimination and just as odious. Anti-Catholic bias motivated states’ moves against money for religious schools and is just as despicable as racial bigotry. 4/
But Justice Breyer had a compelling response. 5/
And Justice Kagan noted a bevy of non-bigoted reasons to keep state money away from religion: 6/
So there are many good reasons to resist the race analogy here. Which makes it v interesting to look back at Masterpiece, where the liberal justices drew a (stronger) connection w race and the conservatives pooh-poohed it. Consider this exchange with the baker’s lawyer: 7/
So racial discrimination is different from discrimination against gays and lesbians, the conservatives said, because there are *good* reasons for denying cakes to gay couples but no good reason to deny cakes to people of certain races or to celebrate interracial weddings. 8/
Which brings us full circle: the good, upstanding, respectable reason to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple? Religious scruples! 9/
Bottom line: there are 4 & maybe 5 justices who regard any potential slight against religious people—even principles designed to protect them, like church-state separation—as unconstitutional hostility. That foretells radical change in America's constitutional protections. 10/10
