{"id":3551,"date":"2020-12-23T23:37:25","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=142960"},"modified":"2020-12-23T23:37:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:37:25","slug":"trumps-judge-picks-will-cause-lasting-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/23\/trumps-judge-picks-will-cause-lasting-harm\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Judge Picks Will Cause Lasting Harm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Long after he leaves office, Donald Trump\u2019s religious rightwing takeover of the federal courts will continue to damage our Constitution.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s lower federal court appointees have also been busy using their power to weaken the Establishment Clause and weaponize \u201creligious liberty\u201d to expand the rights of Christians while limiting the rights of others. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Over the past four years, the president has stacked the federal courts with ultraconservative judges. According to a new report<\/a> by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, where I work, these include three Supreme Court appointments (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), 53 appellate court appointments and 170 district court appointments, drastically outpacing his predecessors.<\/p>\n

In fact, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell has vowed<\/a> to continue packing the federal judiciary through the end of the lame-duck 116th congressional session.<\/p>\n

This capture of the federal courts is alarming, given the power these courts hold over the interpretation of the Constitution and its impact on our rights. Judges on the federal bench are appointed for life, which may be four or five decades. Their influence often lasts even longer.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Trump got 81% of the vote<\/a> from white evangelical Christians; in the 2020 election, it was 75%. In return, white evangelical Christians have been rewarded with a federal judiciary willing to codify majoritarian religious privilege while stripping the rights of minorities. <\/p>\n

For instance, when Gorsuch was on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he argued<\/a> that Ten Commandments and cross displays on public property did not violate the Constitution. Since his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2017, Gorsuch has consistently voted to expand \u201creligious values.\u201d He has voted<\/a> to allow crosses on government property, to require<\/a> taxpayers to fund religious schools, to uphold<\/a> the Muslim travel ban and to allow<\/a> religious organizations to fire so-called \u201cministerial\u201d employees for any reason \u2014 even because of their race, sex, religion, age or national origin.<\/p>\n

In a 5-4 decision in July, the Supreme Court allowed<\/a> state-level public health pandemic restrictions on religious services to stand. Just four months later, thanks to newly appointed Barrett, the court flipped on this issue. The Constitution did not change \u2014 just the court\u2019s personnel. The court ignored legitimate public health reasons for state and local governments to place restrictions on religious gatherings, instead insisting religion must occupy a place of privilege. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lower federal court appointees have also been busy using their power to weaken the Establishment Clause and weaponize \u201creligious liberty\u201d to expand the rights of Christians while limiting the rights of others. <\/p>\n

For example, Judges Barbara Lagoa and Britt Grant, both appointed by Trump to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, formed the majority of a three-judge panel that voted<\/a> in November to stop the enforcement of an ordinance that bans conversion therapy of minors. They gave little weight to the evidence of the harm conversion therapy causes to children, instead prioritizing the \u201cfree speech\u201d rights of therapists. <\/p>\n

Rulings like these signal that the new ultraconservative federal judiciary is ready to move full steam ahead to weaponize and redefine religious liberty \u2014 with dangerous ramifications for our civil rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only seeing the early stages of the coming radical changes to how religious liberty is defined in America,\u201d the report warns. \u201cAs Trump appointees continue to decide cases in the decades to come, we will continue to see \u2018religious liberty\u2019 used to undermine the laws that keep us all safe and protect us from discrimination. We will continue to see courts give their \u2018blessings\u2019 to government favoritism of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be bearing the consequences of this for quite some time to come.<\/p>\n

This column was produced for the Progressive Media Project<\/a><\/em>, which is run by <\/em>The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long after he leaves office, Donald Trump\u2019s religious rightwing takeover of the federal courts will continue to damage our Constitution. Trump\u2019s lower federal court appointees have also been\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3552,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions\/3552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}