The Morning: A pro-religion court

What the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority's latest ruling means.

Good morning. The Roberts court has ruled in favor of religious groups in more than eight in 10 cases it has heard.

The Supreme Court rejected a ban on aid for religious schools in Maine.Samuel Corum for The New York Times

Religious rights

The Supreme Court has become the most pro-religion it's been since at least the 1950s, and it appears to include the six most pro-religion justices since at least World War II.

Yesterday's ruling striking down a Maine law that blocked taxpayer dollars from funding religious school tuition furthered a transformation decades in the making. Since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has ruled in favor of religious organizations in orally argued cases 83 percent of the time. That is far more than any court in the past seven decades — all of which were led by chief justices who, like Roberts, were appointed by Republican presidents.

Sources: Lee Epstein, Washington University in St. Louis; Eric Posner, University of Chicago

Yesterday's ruling pushed the win rate for religious groups even higher, to 85 percent, said Lee Epstein, a law professor and political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis who uncovered the trend for a forthcoming Supreme Court Review study she co-wrote with Eric Posner, a University of Chicago law professor.

Today's newsletter explains how the court has come to prioritize religious liberty and what the Maine ruling suggests about the court's future.

How we got here

How did the court end up with such a robust pro-religion majority? It's a story of selection and succession.

Over the past few decades, the rise of the religious right has made religious freedom a political priority for Republicans. That shift has corresponded with nominations by Republican presidents of justices who favor religious groups even more frequently than previous conservative justices.

Republican-appointed justices also have a better track record of timing their retirements to ensure that a Republican president will name their successor, as David Leonhardt has written in this newsletter. The Roberts court includes justices who are more apt than their Republican-appointed predecessors to favor religious groups, according to Epstein and Posner: Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh — who benefited from well-timed departures — as well as Neil Gorsuch and Roberts himself.

Another pattern has contributed: Republican presidents choosing successors to justices appointed by Democrats. Clarence Thomas, one of the court's staunchest advocates of religious liberty, replaced a liberal icon in Thurgood Marshall, as did Amy Coney Barrett, who took over Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat in 2020. If Barrett shares her conservative colleagues' outlook on religious freedom — and yesterday's ruling is the latest evidence that she does — it will further cement the Roberts court's pro-religion turn.

"The Roberts court was pretty pro-religion even before the Trump administration," Epstein told me. "The trend will continue, if not accelerate."

The Maine case

When the interests of governments and religious groups clash, the Roberts court tends to side with the religious groups. Yesterday's ruling fits that pattern.

The case, Carson v. Makin, concerned a Maine program that let rural residents who lived far from a public school attend a private school using taxpayer dollars, so long as that school was "nonsectarian." Families who wanted to send their children to Christian schools challenged the program, arguing that excluding religious schools violated their right to exercise their faith.

Olivia Carson, left, and her mother, Amy, were among the families that challenged Maine's law.Gabor Degre/The Bangor Daily News, via Associated Press

The court sided with them, saying the Maine program amounted to unconstitutional "discrimination against religion." Roberts wrote for the majority, which included every Republican-appointed justice.

The court's three Democratic appointees dissented. "This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

Other recent cases suggest that the Roberts court is growing bolder in defense of religious freedom — especially in benefiting Christian groups. Last year, it allowed a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia to refuse to work with same-sex couples. And while the court has repeatedly rejected plaintiffs who challenged state Covid vaccination mandates on religious grounds, it sided with those who sought to lift virus restrictions on religious services after Barrett joined its ranks.

What's next?

Broadly, these rulings have allowed for a much larger role for religion in public life, my colleague Adam Liptak, who covers the court, wrote yesterday.

The court is considering a second religion case that deals with a former high school football coach who lost his job for praying at the 50-yard line after games. A ruling is likely in the coming days.

"The court led by Chief Justice Roberts has been and will continue to be exceptionally receptive to claims of religious freedom," Adam says.

For more

THE LATEST NEWS

Jan. 6 Hearings
Witnesses were sworn in during the hearing yesterday.Doug Mills/The New York Times
  • The Jan. 6 committee presented evidence that Donald Trump had been closely involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election using fake electors.
  • Republican lawmakers were also linked: Representative Andy Biggs asked Arizona's House speaker to overturn results, and an aide to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sought to deliver a list of fake electors to Mike Pence.
  • The Arizona speaker, Rusty Bowers, said that Trump's allies had produced no evidence of a stolen election but urged him to go along with the claims anyway.
  • Officials testified about the harassment they had received from Trump's supporters. One Georgia election worker said that she was still afraid to visit the grocery store.
Gun Violence
Election Night
  • Katie Britt, whom Donald Trump endorsed after un-endorsing Representative Mo Brooks, trounced Brooks in the Alabama Senate primary runoff.
  • Vernon Jones and Jake Evans, two Trump-backed House candidates in Georgia, lost their runoffs.
  • Bee Nguyen won the Democratic nomination for Georgia's secretary of state. She will face the incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, who yesterday debunked Trump's voter-fraud claims to the Jan. 6 committee.
  • Here are more takeaways and results.
War in Ukraine
Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region yesterday.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Other Big Stories
Opinions

China and the U.S. must work together to avert climate disaster on Mount Everest, says Freddie Wilkinson.

Bret Stephens interviewed Naftali Bennett, Israel's prime minister, about his government's collapse.

Your support makes our reporting possible.

Help 1,700 journalists continue their mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

DiscOasis: Central Park's throwback roller-skating extravaganza.

Nature: This 661-pound stingray may be the world's largest freshwater fish.

Tip: A duckling will imprint soon after hatching — ideally on its mother, but possibly on you.

Bacteria: How bad are the germs in public restrooms?

Advice from Wirecutter: How to block spam calls.

A Times classic: Why soap works.

Lives Lived: Clela Rorex issued a marriage license to a same-sex Colorado couple in 1975, becoming a target for hate mail and a hero in the gay-rights movement. She died at 78.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Angel Jimenez in La Piraña Lechonera, his Bronx food trailer.Lanna Apisukh for The New York Times

Return to the stars

When the Times restaurant critic Pete Wells brought back his reviews in fall 2020 after a pandemic pause, he omitted a key element: the star ratings. "The time just wasn't right for the stars," Emily Weinstein, The Times's Food and Cooking editor, told The Morning.

But as New Yorkers return to restaurants with some regularity, the stars are resuming, too.

"As someone who always wants to know where to eat, I started to feel as though a punctuation mark was missing from the end of Pete's reviews, no matter how beautifully written or brilliantly argued they were," Emily said. "The stars are a service for our readers."

The first starred review of the new era is for La Piraña Lechonera, a trailer in the South Bronx that serves Puerto Rican classics. The main attraction is the lechón, a heap of roast pork, dripping with fat and coated in crackling skin. Angel Jimenez runs the whole operation, shuttling between taking orders, frying tostones and whacking a machete onto the cutting board. Jimenez, Wells writes, is "the host of the best picnic in New York."

Wells gave La Piraña three stars. Read his full review here.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Top this vegetarian burger with tangy yogurt, mangoes and salsa.

What to Read

"Legends of Drag: Queens of a Certain Age" spotlights drag elders.

Night at the Movies

For horror fans, scary movie series from three of New York's highbrow cinema presenters.

Late Night
Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was bigoted. Here is today's puzzle.

Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Apple cider containers (four letters).

And here's today's Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. A hidden haiku from a Times story about Wasabi, a former dog show champion: "Once a dog reaches / the pinnacle of success, / what does he do next?"

"The Daily" is about Biden's approval rating. On "The Argument," how should liberals respond to crime?

Natasha Frost, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance.

You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account.

To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences.

Subscribe to The Times

Connect with us on:

facebooktwitterinstagram

Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices

The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

No comments: