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Feb 26 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Had so much fun talking to Leah about this extremely fake case manufactured for the sole purpose of obliterating civil rights for LGBTQ people! slate.com/news-and-polit… Image
As I told @MSignorile on Tuesday, I don't have a problem with manufacturing test cases. But I think it's important context here, because ADF set out to create the narrative that blue states are persecuting Christians for their anti-gay beliefs, and that just didn't happen here.
303 Creative is one of many test cases that ADF teed up to build the narrative—already endorsed by some justices—that blue states are trying to drive anti-gay Christians out of the marketplace. But unlike the baker, florist, and photographer cases, nobody was ever penalized here.
The theme running through these test cases—state bureaucrats punishing a small business owner for their faith—is absent in 303 Creative. No one forced Lorie Smith to serve gay clients. ADF will paint her as a martyr like Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman; don't believe it.

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More from @mjs_DC

Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Mar 1
The conservative legal position appears to be that the commander-in-chief has inherent constitutional authority to conduct military operations without congressional approval and indefinitely detain “enemy combatants”—but not order all his troops to get vaccinated.
Fascinating religious claims in this case: The SEALs say they received “divine instruction not to receive the vaccine” and believe that mRNA alters “the divine creation of their body by unnaturally inducing production of spike proteins.”

What is going on in the 5th Circuit?
When Trump tried to ban trans people from the military, conservative lawyers and judges insisted that the commander-in-chief has nearly unlimited discretion over his troops. Now these same people claim he can’t direct his troops to get a vaccine? Because of “divine instruction”?
Read 6 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 28
NEW: The Supreme Court takes up a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, potentially imperiling a large swath of federal regulations protecting tribes and their members. supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
The Supreme Court declines to take up a case denying a "ministerial exception" to employment discrimination law. Four justices—Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—say the lower court got it wrong, but the decision may not be reviewable yet.
supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor… Image
Sotomayor dissents from the court's refusal to take up an ineffective assistance of counsel case in which the same lawyer represented four defendants—two of whom testified against the other two. supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor… Image
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 23
In the span of just four days, Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott have outlawed gender-affirming care for trans minors in Texas and ordered "licensed professionals"—including teachers—to report children who undergo such treatment (and their parents) to the state.
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2127…
RIGHT NOW in Texas, parents who allow their trans children to receive gender-affirming care may be investigated, punished, and stripped of custody. Teachers and social workers who do not report these parents and children to the state may be fired and criminally prosecuted.
Paxton and Abbott have ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to launch a sweeping investigation into every parent suspected of allowing gender-affirming care for their children, then report their findings; DFPS employees who do not comply may be jailed.
Read 6 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 22
BREAKING: The Supreme Court will decide whether LGBTQ non-discrimination laws that "compel an artist to speak or stay silent" violate the First Amendment. supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
The Supreme Court ducked this question in Masterpiece Cakeshop, but will now address it with a 6–3 conservative supermajority.

It is very likely that the court will cut back LGBTQ non-discrimination laws' application to "artists," especially in the context of same-sex weddings.
Note, however, that this cases reaches far beyond LGBTQ non-discrimination laws, threatening ALL civil rights laws that, as SCOTUS put it, "compel an artist to speak or stay silent." It is a direct threat to government's ability to bar discrimination in public accommodations.
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 18
🚨Rejecting decades of precedent, Trump Judge Lee Rudofsky holds Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has NO private right of action—meaning nobody except the U.S. Attorney General can bring a VRA lawsuit.

This would render the law largely unenforceable. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
A majority of the Supreme Court has previously found a private right of action in Section 2 of the VRA, but Rudofsky rejects that reasoning and instead agrees with Gorsuch and Thomas, who suggested that no right exists.

This could tee up a death blow to what remains of the VRA.
If SCOTUS agrees with Rudofsky, then ONLY the attorney general can bring lawsuits against racial gerrymanders and voter suppression under the Voting Rights Act.

The AG has limited resources, and for decades private plaintiffs have filed VRA lawsuits. Rudofsky wants to end that.
Read 6 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 16
Ben Shapiro continues to lie about Florida's new anti-gay bill. On his podcast today, he claimed that the bill prohibits exclusively (1) the teaching of homosexuality or gender identity to (2) children in grades K-3. Both are lies, as anyone who simply reads the bill can see.
The bill does not merely ban "teaching" about homosexuality or gender identity; it bars teachers from "encourag[ing] classroom discussion" of the topic—an intentionally vague and over-broad rule that could prohibit a teacher from simply mentioning their same-sex spouse.
Moreover, the bill does not apply solely to grades K-3, as Shapiro insists.

For grades K-3, it imposes an absolute ban.

For grades 4-12, it bars teachers from discussing LGBTQ people or issues in a manner that is "not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate."
Read 7 tweets

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