We are meditating on justice as a spiritual virtue and we are examining a particularly stunning action of the recent Supreme Court. This court just passed a law saying it’s okay for a gay-hating religious believer who is a businessperson to deny a gay couple her service.
But it turns out that the person named in the lawsuit, Stewart, never asked the plaintiff for her services as a web-designer because he is not getting married and furthermore he is not gay. He has stepped up and said he never approached her since he himself is a web designer and would not need her services and because he has been happily married to a woman for 15 years. Says one commentator:
Smith is so motivated by hatred of LGBTQ+ people that she invented an imaginary grievance, lied about it repeatedly through the various tiers of the court system, and eventually got license to deny service to a gay couple who doesn’t, technically, exist.*
Thus the Supreme Court, all decked out in its black finery and aristocratic self-importance, bathed in its solemnity and righteous black robes, took on this case without checking on whether the party involved was real or not. Is this a Mickey Mouse supreme court or what?
Silliness, corruption, aristocracy (“let them eat cake”) and stupidity reign.
Six judges got suckered into legalizing a more-than-stupid precedent in their eagerness to support homophobia and religious prejudice. Smith’s lawyers, demonstrating no shame (fascism rarely demonstrates either shame or a sense of humor), shrugged their shoulders: “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law,” said one.
The conclusion? It’s okay to invent a grievance and make up adversaries and go to certain courts and win. Is this Supreme Court now a game, a political puppet show? And those pulling the strings of six puppets? I think we know.
What follows is neither humorous nor silly. It is a dangerous “license to hate.”
Can an atheist businessman refuse to serve Christians? Can a liberal refuse to serve republicans, a Muslim refuse to serve Jews—or vice versa? Can a gay businessman refuse to serve (homophobic) Christians? A slippery legal slope indeed.
Said one legal scholar: “This ruling blows a gaping hole in prior protections from discrimination” including race and religion and offers “a green light” to any business owners wanting to refuse service.
Where’s the justice in a court like this?
*I highly recommend this excellent article on this matter: License to hate by Gordon Bonnet on Skeptophilia.com.
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner image: Protest in front of the Supreme Court as arguments in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis on claims of religion vs.gay rights. Photo by Victoria Pickering on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Where do you see the results of a ruling on a non-existent defendant going in this recent decision of the supreme court?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
7 thoughts on “The Silliness—and Clear and Present Danger–of Today’s SCOTUS”
In the last US Presidential election over 70 million people who voted for D. Trump. To say that there is a swelling of disenfranchised people in the US is an understatement. What D. Trump was doing was listening to them and offering push-back to all that they, in their estimation, were being ‘forced to swallow’. In their perception and estimation, the political left was taking things too far. And through Trump and judicial and other appointees, the push was on not just to ‘center the discussion’, but to push it so far back to ‘the right’ that longstanding laws providing equity, certain freedoms and equal rights have been turned over / demolished. D. Trump may never get elected to public office again, but he has left a ‘long tail’ that continues to raise the utmost of havoc on a proud but beleaguered and divided nation. And there is no end in sight as to what the Supreme Court will rule. The executive and legislative branches of government, if they are to hold any real power at all may have to overthrow and reinvoke the top tier of the judicial system. — BB.
It is sobering to note that in 70c.e. there was a civil war between competing factions raging in Judaea at the same time as there was a civil war in Rome. Even as Roman soldiers moved in to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem their own Temple to Jupiter was being razed by warring factions. Today, there is a civil war flaring in Israel with focus on a ‘judicial coup’ at the same time as warring factions destabilize the USA, a.k.a. the ‘new Rome’, where there is also a failure of the judiciary, US ‘militias’ having already invaded the White House, their ‘Temple of Democracy’. The Rome-Jerusalem axis is repeated in the USA-Israel axis.
Divine Love~Wisdom~Truth~Peace~Justice~Healing~Creativity~Compassion… are still obviously evolving in our hearts, not only in American society, but around the world. We, along with endangered Mother Earth and all of her living creatures, are in an urgent period of spiritual purification, transition, and transformation. Maintaining our Faith and Compassion of Presence within our co~Creator~Source’s Living, Evolving, Loving Diverse Oneness continues to be very important in our daily lives with one another and beautiful Sacred Mother Earth….
Underneath all of this hate, is something much more religiously sinister going on. It seems that Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory is once again distorting the very meaning of justice. This theory is centered on the theology of sin.
Religious fanatics view 2SLGBT+ as sin-filled people who deserve to suffer and endure injustice, without resistance; resulting in forced exploitation, oppression and suppression. Submission to authority, in this case the Supreme Court, has become a religious ideal, perpetuated by Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory.
The Feudal aspects of this theory and its theology, allows for the elitism of fanatical religious white supremecy to prosper, while multitudes endure the grinding poverty and violence necessary for these one’s to gain ever more control over all others they deem inferior. This kind of theology has infiltrated not only the judicial institution, but also the political and the educational institutions as well; which is proving to be intensely dangerous for all of humanity on many levels, regarding the moral and ethical choices of governance.
The Satisfaction Theory omits the biblical themes of Creation Spirituality, the community of creation, God’s covenant with all creatures of flesh on the Earth; rooted in unconditional love, compassion, mercy and justice; and the visionary hope of the resurrection of this, through the incarnation of the Holy Spirit and the essence of this unfolding, evolving and emerging from within all people.
Since this fake case had to make its way through other courts, it is amazing to me that neither attorneys and organizations opposing it nor investigative journalists did even the most basic of fact-checking. It is all after the fact, evidently, after the fait accompli, that the truth comes out! As the bent of the Supreme Court had already been clearly documented, it seems to me that due diligence failed, or, if the truth were known before, the media failed to publicize it. We need to get smarter and more pro-active in these matters. The recent law passed in Florida is even worse because it allows all health care providers and insurance companies to deny treatment if it violates their conscience. https://newrepublic.com/post/172667/its-now-legal-florida-doctors-deny-health-care-anyone-feel-like
If this is not a license to hate, I don’t know what is. While there are supposedly some protections in this law for certain classes of people, it is so vague that it will be universally applied, and people will die before they get any ruling in their favor. The courts are already clogged with lawsuits against all the unconstitutional bills that have been passed, and the Supreme Court in the state is packed, just like the SC in Washington.
This is the (re)emergence of wealthy White Male Christians, taking back everything they feel they’ve lost since their “glory days” of 1789, when colonialism triumphed, and slaves , non-whites, the poor and women had no legal representation. In their eyes, any laws created since then, and all expansions of rights and precedent, are not morally, and therefore legally, binding. They will take back their elite male Christian supremacy any way that presents itself to them, and if that means twisting the law into Orwellian pretzels, then so be it. The country being shaped in their image makes “laws” to be whatever they “feel is right,” regardless of what’s on the books.
We’ve seen where this is headed. If a conservative anti-gay-marriage Christian wants to create a public business that can legally deny service to anyone celebrating gay marriage, that Christian must be sheltered from her state CONSTITUTION’S laws. If a state has enacted gun control legislation for 150 years, that’s not “long enough” to qualify as “original founders’ beliefs.” The Constitution protects arms only for militia use, but never mind all that: the founders “believed” whatever our Supreme Court rulers SAY they believed. Who needs historians? (Certainly not Florida).
Now, who needs “rights”?
Sadly, you are right, I think. At first, a few years ago, I thought that these forces wanted to go back to the 50’s with all the noise about abortion, and then, with the roll back of all rights and consumer protections, I thought the aim was to return to the 19th century, but now I agree that nothing will do for them but a return to the 18th century.