#religious-liberties

#religious-liberties

The law says consent cannot truly be given in those circumstances due to the power imbalance, and it also applies to a professor and a student, or a boss and an employee, or a therapist and a client.

In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law. That's partly because it's not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, if teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes or if other texts like the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.

But inside the courtroom, the argument barely touched speech or religion. Instead, the justices together gravitated toward something else entirely: a problem about time, causation, and whether constitutional authority can be temporally partitioned. Does the Constitution operate only forward? Can a law be unconstitutional tomorrow yet legally untouchable yesterday? And can a single conviction permanently close the courthouse doors to the people most harmed by an unconstitutional rule?

And a ruling is very likely to break on predictable, ideological lines, 6-3, unless the case is handed back to a lower court. The Supreme Court gave a win to trans rights back in 2020, with the help of new conservative justice Neil Gorsuch, in the case which correlated employment discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity with discrimiation "on the basis of sex," which is a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas received formal approval from the city's Landmark Commission last week after officials, members, and volunteers painted the Late Gothic Revival building's staircase the colors of the rainbow in October. The building has local landmark status, and it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.