Religious Liberty and Covid-19
Topics Discussed:
The Future of Trumpism
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Assassination
Biden-Harris Transition & Staffing
Religious Liberty and Covid-19
Outside of Politics
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Episode Resources
Machine guns and a hit squad: the killing of Iran’s nuclear mastermind (Financial Times)
Congress returns with virus aid, federal funding unresolved (AP)
Biden announces all-female White House communications team (Politico)
Biden and Harris announce all-female communications team (NBC News)
ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK v. ANDREW M. CUOMO, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK (Supreme Court)
Pope Francis: A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts (The New York Times)
Transcript
Beth: [00:00:00] And I appreciated that chief justice Roberts said, and this is another thing you don't hear just in, you know, the political telling of these things that he doesn't regard, his descending colleagues as cutting the constitution loose during a pandemic like justice Gorsuch does. He says they view the matter differently after careful study and analysis, reflecting their best efforts to fulfill their responsibilities.
I read that paragraph from to justice Roberts and was like, hallelujah, because I do think this is hard.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Pantsuit Politics. Thank you for joining us today. We are going to talk about the Supreme [00:01:00] court's action over the weekend, and the state of balancing interests around public health and religious liberty. Before that we'll catch up on all the news that developed while we were enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday.
And we'll end by reflecting on that holiday and kind of sharing what's on our minds outside of politics as we always do. But before we get started, okay, we wanted to mention that we have our Pantsuit Politics gift guide up. The link will be here in the show notes. Thanks to Alise for compiling all the ways you can support the show, you can get great t-shirts that say things like "have the best holiday available to you." You can get bonus content over on Patreon, lots of ways to show your Pantsuit Politics, spirit and help. The work that we do here
Sarah: [00:01:41] And Patreon has opened up a great way to gift a patreon subscription. You can now buy an annual subscription to our bonus content. So. If you have a friend that, you know, loves Pantsuit Politics, and you want to gift them a Patreon membership, you can do that now. So check it out.
Beth: [00:01:56] Sarah, I've been curious about your reaction to the [00:02:00] news that president Trump pardoned Michael Flynn last Wednesday. I've had to wait so long to hear your thoughts about this. So tell me, what did you think when you heard that news?
Sarah: [00:02:10] I was not surprised. I expected that. It's bold to pardon someone who pled guilty twice, but I think it will not be the last of the pardons. He's going to fully flex that muscle and the waning days of his administration. He's doing all kinds of things in the waning days of his administration, many of them from behind a teeny tiny desk.
And I don't mean to be snarky, but the disk was in fact hilarious for any of you who have not seen it, go to the Google and search Trump tiny desk. Cause it's something
Beth: [00:02:42] I had this moment chopping parsley, when I thought there's no point in that, Beth, he's going to do these lots of incumbents due pardons as lame ducks.
I am generally in favor of leniency and forgiveness and the criminal justice system. It's just not worth my brain power to sort out the specifics of any of these cases [00:03:00] because he has the power to do this and he's going to use it.
Sarah: [00:03:03] I'm more upset about the real focus on shutting down as much immigration as they possibly can lengthening the citizenship test, nine visas, appointing new members of the immigration policy board, just doubling down on their incredibly harmful draconian, and I would argue anti-American immigration policy, but overall, I, I agree. I'm struggling with how to think about him. There is a part of me and it's not just because the tiny desk, but that did play a role that he feels so irrelevant in so many ways.
Like I see him, I see how he's lashing out at reporters from behind his tiny desk. I'm going to stop talking about the tiny desk at the moment, but no promises and you see him, like he knows he's irrelevant. He knows his power is decreasing and is going to come to an end. He's mad about it. You hear it in the Fox news interview.
And so there's a part of me that's like, I feel his irrelevance. I want to just move on, [00:04:00] but there's another part of me that worries about the damage that he can still do that thinks we are going to have to spend time and energy as a citizenry and processing what this man has done. We cannot just say as much as I desperately want to, Joe Biden's got this. Now we can all move on. There are adults in charge. We can think about other things. I mean, I do feel like big spaces of my brain opening up because I'm not occupied with just constant anger and anxiety about the damage that he can wreak across the country.
You know, like I feel that absence. And also, I know that we're not really done with him. We're certainly not done with the damage that he's done. And I'm, I'm trying to balance those two things. How do I appropriately respond to his [00:05:00] increasing irrelevance and acknowledge that there is so much work to do with regards to his policies, with regards to his base, through regards to his continued presence in the media and therefore in our national psyche. And it's just, you know, I don't have an answer. It's just something I've been thinking about a lot.
Beth: [00:05:21] I try not to spend much time thinking about him as a person, which is why I brushed this pardon stuff aside quickly. Those immigration changes, some of the other executive branch changes are as you're alluding to manifestations of what he started, but what he started is so much bigger than he is. And I think there could be a point even where his base turns on him, if he becomes too weak or too irrelevant, it's possible that Trumpism goes on without Trump. Don't you think?
And that's what worries me more this continued denial of the election results. [00:06:00] Even though there were never legitimate arguments. There, there were legitimate people making those arguments and that number is shrinking. But within a certain world, there is a growing fervor about it. Right.
And I think that that is what I spend most of my time right now, considering what happens if he loses relevance, but. This group and this kind of way of being an orienting yourself to the world, just intensifies with that loss of relevance.
Sarah: [00:06:35] I don't know if there is Trumpism without Trump. I think the chaos as strategy is so particular to him. I'm not sure specifically in the way he dominates the media cycles, if that is available to someone else. If [00:07:00] no, for no other reason than I think part of his success was that he was the first and was uniquely suited to it. Now I don't think populism or Christian nationalism or the politics of grievance is going anywhere for sure.
But I think instead of worrying about, you know, how to convince those people. I, I think the smarter strategy is to, to reduce need for that particular politics. Right? Like I think so much of that politics is based on fear and precarity and racial resentment. And I think that there are answers to that. I think there are ways we can work inside our own communities and influencing each other and, and get it [00:08:00] that it's slow work.
It's hard work, but I think it's available. And I think that's a better strategy than convincing his base. To try another way. I think I was reading Axios this morning and they were talking about how everyone's coming on board with the fact that Facebook and other forms of social media are addictive.
And I thought the smartest thing they said was, you know, maybe the best strategy is to just reduce the need to numb. Right. We go to addictive social media because we want to numb out. Well, if we have financial security and happily family lives and thriving communities, then we don't need to numb out.
And I think that's the same way for his base, whether he's the head of it or not, that politics is responding to a need. And to me, the best way, instead of trying to shame or, you know, criticize or you know, whatever response you want to take or, [00:09:00] you know, just push all conservatives to the ends of the earth.
I mean, I don't think that's a likely scenario either. I think the best way to think about it is, okay, well, what are they responding to? It's not, if it's not him and if it, if it does end up settling somewhere else, what is that need? And how can we, as a country that doesn't want our politics to be driven by grievance or white supremacy or racial resentment, how do we get it that need so that they're not either looking to him or looking to someone else?
I'm
Beth: [00:09:36] not sure if that's possible, I think it can be improved, but I'm not sure if it's possible, because I do think that throughout human history, that kind of need has existed. I really reacted negatively to that Axios thought bubble on Facebook, because I think it ignores that there has always been a need to numb out. Throughout human history, a certain percentage of people have [00:10:00] found the experience of being human really hard and really painful. And it felt really dismissive to me to read well, God, like get a better life and you won't want to scroll. I mean, it ignores the fact that the tool does have a certain draw. And I think that's true about this brand of politics.
The tool has a certain draw. That sense of we're all in on something that everybody else is too dumb to see. That's going to have a pull, even when policies create greater stability than we experience right now, I think. And I'm not saying that that's doom and gloom. I think that's what I'm really getting at.
What's the way that I just come to live with some of these differences? Especially if you have a sense that adults are in charge. Washington is returning to some kind of sense that people who at least care about the government and see the government as something bigger than they personally are with [00:11:00] folks like that leading the charge again.
How can I relax a little bit around this group of people who I do think are going to continue to feel each other's fires and just understand that, like, it could just be that way. It's not something to be eradicated as much as it's something to figure out how to contain and to keep from blocking the really good work that needs to happen in our country and shrinking it, right.
It can be lessened and its influence, but I think I've had in my mind, like, well, he needs to be gone and everybody who supported him needs to be like, Oh, mistake. Not going to do that again. And that just, I don't think that's going to come to be.
Sarah: [00:11:44] Well, I think that there will always be human suffering and I think there will always be fear of change, but I don't think there always has to be a response in which that is channeled into a hatred and distrust for your [00:12:00] fellow citizens. And I think that is the thread to me that I'm not willing to accept that as just part and parcel of our political environment.
I think that we could get to a space where with leadership on both sides, because I don't think there is always good faith on the side of the Republican party often. I don't think there's good faith, but I think we could get back there, to a place where we have leadership that says, I hear your fears and I see your suffering and we might have different answers.
This is very idealistic. I understand that. But I don't, I don't think that the. The idea that there is fear there is suffering and so the answer is to turn on each other. That to blame other people, instead of, because I think where you really, where people stopped numbing is when you give them the opportunity to take ownership.
[00:13:00] And I don't mean like individual ownership. I mean, ownership within a community like this is, this is a problem for everybody. And that means we can all be a part of the solution. You know what I'm saying? Like I just, the reason I didn't act react negatively to the Axios thing is I don't think it was just get a better life.
It was saying like, we have problems that are deeper than this. And even getting at the addictive nature of Facebook is not going to get it. The problem, that income inequality and the cost of living and healthcare and the suffering currently from the pandemic and the cratering of public education, like all these things are still going to be there. And that's what we need to get at if we want people to not suffer from the need to numb.
Beth: [00:13:47] I think what I'm reckoning with is that there is a layer underneath those policy problems that is always there too. That even if we had funded public education adequately, [00:14:00] somehow fixed income inequality, right. Lived in a much more equitable society. Lots of things are going better. I do think there's still some kind of human psychology underneath that. And I think that, that I'm not trying to be super negative today. BT dubs.
I just like, I think the pandemic has me dealing with the fact that even when from a policy angle, there are certain easy obvious things that will reduce human suffering on a level of security. There are some drive in people beneath that level of security that still has a push against being told what to do or how to do it, or how to feel about other people. And again, I'm not saying that to be a downer. It's almost helpful to me to [00:15:00] just get that because otherwise I've really been struggling with the reaction to the pandemic as a giant mirror of where we are as human beings in our evolution. Do you know what I mean?
Sarah: [00:15:15] I struggled with that too. And I think where I really pushed myself is I get in this space where I think human nature is this way or human nature is that way. And that is what we're seeing, but it's never one thing. And human nature responds to a bunch of different stimuluses.
And one of those is leadership. And I think the anger at being told what to do, anger is a secondary emotion, is a reflection of fear and distrust. And with good leadership, not just good policy, good leadership. And I don't just mean political leadership. I mean, community leadership. I mean, religious leadership.
I mean, artistic leadership. [00:16:00] With you have people saying, I see that you're afraid, this is what is happening. This is what I'm going to do. Do you trust my voice? And I don't really care where that voice is coming from. I don't care if it's your grandma or the mayor or lady Gaga, but like, It does. And certain to a certain extent, the United States with a federal sponsor necessarily need to come from the top and hopefully, you know, propped up and buoyed by all these other voices that you know, can scrape off that first reaction.
And support people and a fuller response, but we could never get to the response because we had a president that was saying, Hey, you know what lean all the way into that ugly reaction. That's good. That's the, that's the proper and right way to be is reactive. And, you know, I think that instead of thinking like, yes, there is, there is a certain amount of human reaction that's just baked in. There are ways to [00:17:00] lead people pass that reactive reaction to a response.
Beth: [00:17:04] Yeah. I don't disagree with that.
Sarah: [00:17:06] And now we just never got it with him. We're never going to, and it's like even the, even the governors and people trying so desperately hard to get people to that responsive posture. And there are lots and lots of people there, lots and lots of Americans in that responsive posture doing the right thing.
You know, even the Republican numbers on mask wearing and social gatherings. I mean, those are shifting to like, you know, I think it's, it's just so hard because of the total and complete absence of leadership and the, and the just fueling that reaction. It's hard to think. It's hard for me not to think like, well, that's just how people are now.
That's just how people are when there's no leadership. I don't, I think I have underestimated. You know, because he's shredded so many things. And we saw like, Oh, so [00:18:00] much of what our processes and our country and our values was propped up just by executive leadership, the choice to do the right thing. And you would think after the Vietnam war and Watergate, like we would understand like how badly that could go, but man, he just took it to a whole new level.
Beth: [00:18:19] Well, we're going to come back around to some of this and talk more about COVID and different responses to it in the main segment. So why don't we move on for now to a little bit of international affairs, which I think is really connected to talking about the president in this period of time before he leaves office, because the need for a president does not expire after the election.
And I think the assassination of the Iranian scientists demonstrates that we do need an active, engaged president because this situation is very fraught and could become more so quickly. Hopefully it will not. [00:19:00] There are lots of good reasons to believe that it could remain somewhat stable for a while. I would feel up better if we had a commander in chief who was interested in that role and really occupying that role right now. So
Sarah: [00:19:13] for those of you who don't know, Iranians top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated in a pretty dramatic attack from all accounts. It's widely believed that Israel was behind the attack, but Iran is in a very difficult position.
They will feel the need to retaliate, but they also desperately need out from underneath the economic sanctions, put on them from the Trump administration, after we withdrew from a nuclear deal. And so they're counting the minutes, I'm sure until the Biden administration in the belief that they will be able to exit or get out from under some of those sanctions, but that likelihood decreases particularly if there is any retaliatory attack on the United States.
I [00:20:00] think we'll see something much like we saw with Soleimani where they will give a good, fair warning, blow up some stuff, not hurt anyone. And you know, you're right. I've been thinking so much about the Trump administrations chaotic approach to foreign policy. You know, Jared Kushner is going back to Western Asia to work on resolving the riff between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
We've seen normalization of relationships between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE, just a total backbreaking approach to the Palestinians as far as the peace process between them and Israel. And I even think about this with China and with North Korea there, the Trump administration's willingness to walk into these situations and just shred the rules. We don't care. We're going to do what we want. We're going to take a totally different approach.
And I do think that for better or for worse, we learned some things. I think that, you know, their approach in [00:21:00] China made many in the foreign policy establishment, and maybe even Americans face what we'd been learning for a long time, which is the idea that inviting China to the economic table would also invite them to abandon some of their authoritarian ways.
And that was not true. And the Trump administration accelerated our realization of that if nothing else. And, you know, I think if you're Iran or. The Palestinian people like their entrance into this space, maybe revealed some weaknesses and your bargaining position that perhaps you were not acknowledging and that the cruelest and I think least productive ways possible, but the reality is still there.
The Iranians are, I think, less powerful. The Palestinians definitely have less negotiating power right now. And I, you know, I think that we just have to acknowledge that like they, for better or for worse, the Trump administration came in and shook some stuff loose and lots of parts of the world where we were telling ourselves [00:22:00] one thing and maybe not wanting to acknowledge that another thing is true.
And I think that's, that's hard. And I think they did it in the most dangerous, disruptive way possible, but there's no point in not learning from it.
Beth: [00:22:11] To me one of the lessons is that, and this has been a lesson in the United States to a personality can only go so far, even if Kim Jong-un and the president had become buddy movie type friends, Kim Jong-un is one piece of a culture.
And those cultural forces in North Korea were always going to limit what he was going to do with the president. Same thing, Mohammad bin Salman and Jared Kushner can have a great rapport. And both of them still be limited by the policies of their respective governments and by the cultures and the stories being told.
And I think it's helpful when you think of the death of a scientist in Iran to remember that Iran doesn't mean one thing, and even where a government has [00:23:00] a pretty hard grasp on its culture and people and its economy. There are political forces in Iran that that government has to contend with whereas lots of people Iran right now would prefer to do nothing and wait for a Biden administration to try to get back into the joint comprehensive plan of action and get some sanctions lifted in the economy flowing at all again in Iran.
You still have forces saying, but the dignity of this country needs to be upheld in light of this kind of attack. And so. I wish that we had not had some of these very tumultuous and scary events as this reminder, but I definitely have learned observing the Trump administration's foreign policy not to get so tied up in that leadership personality and forget the many factions and cultures that every global leader is navigating.
And as we think about all of those factions and cultures, I think it's another way to understand [00:24:00] our own government because I continue to be so frustrated that we don't have additional COVID relief coming out of Congress. And so it helps me to step back and think about the big picture in all of the different concerns people are juggling, including the concern for our members of Congress and their staffs about just being in Washington DC together.
Sarah: [00:24:24] Yes, there are concerns because we only have one full week with both the house and Senate in DC and 11 days to put together some sort of spending bill so our government is funded.
They still have to do that, no matter how much they want to get out of there. And no matter how much we have a lame duck president who shows less than zero interest in any sort of legislative action at this point in the closing out of his administration. We're seeing some skirmishes over the national defense authorization act.
That's been passed every year because they're fighting about Trump's opposition to renaming bases named after Confederate leaders. And again, [00:25:00] no COVID relief. So I think the spending bill will get passed. And I think that there's better than no chance that that spending deal contains some relief. But we have such a long list of programs with regards to COVID relief, expiring much less than the additional relief coming and I don't know. I don't know what they're going to get done.
Beth: [00:25:24] You think about something hopeful in the midst of all of this, we've heard more announcements from the Biden Harris administration about who we'll be working with and for them. And I'm really excited that the major communications roles have all gone to women and to a very diverse group of women.
And this is for not only the white house. Um, but also the vice president's office. And it's just nice to see that both vice president elect Harris and president elect Biden are prioritizing a diverse group of voices and the [00:26:00] administration looking more like America, as they promised
Sarah: [00:26:03] Jen Psaki, who's going to be the press secretary is the mother of young kids. I think the communications director is also the mother of nine kids. That to me is like, so awesome. And so exciting. And let me just, you know, in a throwback to the olden days of complimenting both sides, I was encouraged by the fact that the house Republicans have doubled the number of women and their caucus and the chambers.
That's awesome. They also elected Stephanie Bice, the first Iranian American elected to Congress and the first female class president representing the 42 incoming Republicans. That's great. I think that's awesome. I think more women in the Republican party is a good thing. That does not mean I endorse every action of Republican women, but I think that watching their numbers well, the evidence shows that women take a different approach to legislating overall on average.
And I'm [00:27:00] excited to see that. So, you know, more women in our government across the board is always good. And a thing to be hopeful about.
Beth: [00:27:05] That particular interview was encouraging too, because you didn't have this kind of mealy mouth avoidance of identity politics. I mean, you heard clearly from the Republican side of the aisle, representation matters and diversity within our party matters.
I mean, you had one of the new representative saying very clearly, if we want to have a meaningful role in governing for the future of our country, we must elect people of different backgrounds consistently and it was really refreshing to hear that. Next step we are going to talk about the Supreme court and the state of New York's restrictions concerning houses of worship.
Sarah: [00:27:54] Now religious Liberty is not a new topic before the Supreme court or [00:28:00] around the American dinner table, but it takes on particular importance within the confines of the current global pandemic. So let's review the state of things. The current death toll in America is now 266,000 Americans. Over 93,000 Americans are currently hospitalized.
Dr. Fowchee is predicting a surge within a surge due to Thanksgiving travel. And while vaccines are making a mayor amazing progress, they're holding an emergency meeting today, Tuesday to talk about the prioritization of which vaccines and how to distribute those. We are still in the middle of a very difficult time in American history and not just because of the pandemic, but particularly within the confines of religious Liberty, because we know as we're going to talk about as we go through the decisions that churches a particularly dangerous place when it comes to COVID.
Because it spreads through [00:29:00] the, the aerosols we project when we sing, talk, speak, and over a prolonged period of times as church services are usually pretty long, that's a problem. So you saw States across the country issue regulations with regards to places of worship limitations on how many people could gather guidelines for how they could safely gather. And you saw thousands and thousands of churches, including my own suspend services because of the likelihood of COVID spreading within a church service.
So you had governor Cuomo in New York issue regulations. You had the Roman Catholic diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America challenged these restrictions. And that's how we ended up before the Supreme court.
Beth: [00:29:46] So we have a majority opinion coming out of the Supreme court that was issued per curiam. All of our nightly nuanced listeners know well that per curiam means no one signed it. They just made a pronouncement, [00:30:00] but we do not know which justice actually wrote the appeal.
Sarah: [00:30:03] I mean, we kind of do whatever
Beth: [00:30:06] you want to share more about that, Sarah.
Sarah: [00:30:08] Yeah, I'll be nasty because Beth is more professional and I think it's sucky, but the most people believe that decision to be written by Amy Coney Barrett based on the language and based on comparing it to her previous decisions. But she just didn't say her name, or do you think they made the decision to issue at procurement, but why would they do that if everybody's going to go off in the concurring opinions? Anyway, sorry. I thought it was crappy.
Beth: [00:30:31] There are a bunch of interesting things about this and the reason that I am hesitant to just say that Amy Coney Barrett wrote it, even though, I think she was a major factor in it, is that a lot of the language in this decision mirrors what we heard from justice Alito at the Federalist society event, where he delivered a keynote. You can tell from his concurrence, which no one joined that justice Gorsuch is mightily worked up about the state of things.
And there's a lot in this [00:31:00] opinion that, you know, like justice Thomas could write in his pajamas while brushing his teeth, because it's just so connected to how he views the world. So I don't know who wrote it. Yeah. But I think it is significant to explain that this decision rested on the votes of Barrett, Kavanaugh, Thomas Gorsuch, and Alito.
And you had justice, chief justice Roberts in the dissent with justices, Briar, Sotomayor, and Kagan, although diverging in their reasons for dissenting. So the posture of the case also matters. This is a case in front of the Supreme court for injunctive relief, meaning we want a decision made before this goes through the entire normal legal process.
We want a snap decision that we are probably going to win. And so we should stop the harm from happening right now. And I think the harm is really interesting in religious Liberty cases [00:32:00] and the majority opinion here does no analysis of what the harm is other than saying that any time you're first amendment free exercise rights are violated. It's automatically irreparable harm. The inability to attend a single worship service could be irreparable harm.
Sarah: [00:32:21] I understand the legal standard, but I don't think that's reflective of how majority Americans would ask. If you would answer, if you ask them that question.
Beth: [00:32:28] I agree. And that's part of what I think is so interesting about it and the way that the opinion just gives such short shrift, as all, as though that's an obvious proposition.
So they talk about in the likelihood of success, prong, which is where the court is saying, would you win this if we heard the whole case? Let's just kind of speed up and see. They say what governor Cuomo has done here is single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment, because when they are in a red zone, which is a geographic zone and the, the [00:33:00] color designation is based on the case levels in that zone, when you're in the red zone in a church, you can only have 10 people attending a worship service regardless of the capacity of the church.
Yeah. And essential businesses, which are very broadly defined, can have as many people inside them as they want within those zones. In orange zones, church is capped at 25 people and essential and non-essential businesses have greater freedom in deciding who to admit. Now, the majority doesn't go into the fact that that's not true of all businesses, movie theaters, for example, still have to be closed in these zones.
So again, the majority is playing a little bit fast and loose here by saying that houses of worship have been singled out because as the dissent points out public lectures and other settings that are similar to churches, but are secular have also been limited. Because of the science of
Sarah: [00:33:59] transmission, [00:34:00] right?
Because there are places where you spend a significant amount of time. You're not spending over the 15 minutes. If you're going in and out of a liquor store, you're not spending over the 15 minutes. If you're going in and out of a grocery store, you are spending over the 15 minutes. If you're at it, Going to the movies you're going to church or you're going to a lecture.
Beth: [00:34:18] And so I think that matters when you start to think about the analysis here, because part of the irreparable harm of not attending worship, that the majority points to is that there are certain rituals in church that require your. Your physical presence that it's not the same watching church over Facebook live or something.
And I totally agree with that. I have very hard time watching church online because for me, the experience is very much about being in this space, but those rituals such as communion, which is something that the majority mentions are also reasons that transmission risks are quite high in these spaces.
[00:35:00] Sarah: [00:35:00] I think it's very difficult. Do I think that this was the absolute best exercise of governor Cuomo's public health authority? Probably not. Do I think it's the best example of houses of worship and the way to give them guidelines in order to prevent transmission? Probably not, but the point isn't that the court needs to step in and act as a public health expert to judge whether or not these regulations are doing a good enough job of balancing these interests, right?
Because that's not what they do in other cases, particularly when it comes to the presidency. You know, we saw chief justice Roberts write a majority opinion that said the Muslim ban was perfectly okay because the president had so much authority with regards to immigration.
And so I think the idea here that there's no consideration of how important the public health authority exercise [00:36:00] by governor is especially in the middle of a national emergency and a global pandemic. Like there's no, I feel like there was just like almost no discussion of that authority and how important that is and how we don't want to, you know, we fought over ourselves, these particular conservative members of the Supreme court, not to step on the president's authority.
And I thought that they were supposed to be really good Federalists that wanted to, you know, Protect state power and the power of the States and governors within that state to do what's right with when it comes to public health. I want, I just don't, I don't see that they struggled with that at all because they decided he was picking on churches.
Well, why? why? You know, if you follow the news and particularly if you live in New York city, I think there is a fair and important conversation to have around certain religious communities. There's been a huge struggle with the Hasidic Jewish community. I mean, they, they recently find, I think one community, it was like $15,000 [00:37:00] because they had like 2000 people at a wedding in direct violation of the governor's orders.
And that's hard look at that's there's no, there's no way around that. You know, when we struggled this at different parts in American history, what do we do? What do we do when your religious convictions are in direct conflict with the law? Be it serving in the military paying taxes, like that's difficult, but it, to me, especially with Gorsuch's opinion, it was just, well, he likes liquor stores better than churches.
He didn't, he didn't battle with any of this. He didn't acknowledge that maybe the court isn't the best judge of trying to figure out public health regulations and whether they're great or not. Listen, you know, I believe in public health, but let's not kid ourselves at every public health regulation that's rolled out of a governor's office across the United States of America has been perfect.
And I'm not just talking about the ones that we're ignoring mask mandates. I'm talking about the ones that were doing the best they could. We made mistakes. It's inevitable, but [00:38:00] their unwillingness to even look at the science or think maybe we're not the best ones to be making that call or that there are real issues to struggle with here. Instead of you like liquor stores, more than churches.
Beth: [00:38:14] Well, the court did acknowledge that they are not public health experts and that they should respect the judgment of people with expertise in that area. What I think comes through in the majority opinion, and especially in justice, Gorsuch's concurring opinion is that religious Liberty has come to mean religious prioritization.
It is not simply that you are free to exercise your religion. It is that we prioritize this specific act of gathering for worship in this country. And I don't know how the majority of Americans would respond to that question. I think the way the court in this per curiam opinion analyzes it is going to be viewed.
In 20, 30 [00:39:00] years as something really dated. Hmm. We have such an enormous and growing atheist and agnostic population in this country. And the way the court talks about all of this as though it's just a given and so obvious, I don't think that's where American society is on the whole today. And I definitely don't think it's where American society is going to be in the future.
My chair may fall through the floor when I say this, I tend to agree with justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion in this case. These are words I've never uttered before. What I appreciated about where justice Kavanaugh ended up on this is he said, these restrictions in New York are more severe than the restrictions that we've seen in other cases that have come before us in this context.
And that is true. The restrictions out of California and Nevada, that the court has previously analyzed and allowed to stand or not as limiting as these restrictions from New York. And I don't think that it [00:40:00] survives the level of scrutiny that the court is applying here to have restrictions on the number of people that can be in a space that are unrelated to the capacity of that space.
And I think that, that that's where I'm agreeing with you that I think these probably weren't the best ideas, but I also think that they are probably something beyond not the best ideas and do become constitutionally problematic.
I want to be careful in the way we talk about this though, because I think the way this gets reported and certainly the way it is politically discussed is like, is in those justice Gorsuch, extreme terms, we either care about worship or we'd rather everybody be able to go to the marijuana dispensary whenever they want.
And that's really not what I think the majority of the court was doing here. I do think there was some carefulness in thinking through, have these particular restrictions gone too far, a [00:41:00] big issue in the case that we're not even talking about is whether the court should have decided it right now, because granting an injunction is a very big deal.
And between the time that this application was filed with the court and when the court issued its decision, the particular. Houses of worship challenging. These restrictions were moved into the yellow zone. And so the restrictions were lessened. And so you have chief justice Roberts saying, we just shouldn't be deciding this right now.
If they get back in orange and red, they're welcome to come back here, but this is a big deal. And we shouldn't issue this decision. If we don't have to the liberal justices in dissent, particularly justice Briar. Also make that argument, maybe we would ultimately find it to be problematic, but we don't have to do that today.
Now justice Sotomayor has a con has a dissenting opinion as well, joined by justice Kagan and. And she is comfortable with these restrictions. That's how I read it. Anyway. I think she would uphold these [00:42:00] on, on final disposition too, because she thinks that the science of transmission supports the calls.
And I appreciated that chief justice Roberts said, and this is another thing you don't hear just in. You know, the political telling of these things that he doesn't regard, his descending colleagues as cutting the constitution loose steering a pandemic like justice Gorsuch does. He says they view the matter differently after careful study and analysis, reflecting their best efforts to fulfill their responsibilities.
I read that paragraph from to justice Roberts and was like, hallelujah, because I do think this is hard.
Sarah: [00:42:33] It is difficult to stomach from people who rail against judicial activism. A judicial activist approach to exactly what you were articulating, which is basically losing the culture war over religion.
We are becoming an increasingly secular society. And so their approach conscious or otherwise is to prioritize religious exercise because they [00:43:00] see it waning in everyday American life and to those justices who against religious upbringings and. You know, denominations and choices are not reflective of America at all.
You have what, six justices that are Catholics on the Supreme court. That's obviously not reflective of the population of America. And what I would say is, you know, the Pope wrote a beautiful editorial in the New York times, I think articulating much of what I was working with, which is, the free exercise of religion and it's equal and important partner of separation of church and state is not just meant to protect the state from religion.
It's meant to reflect, protect religion from the state [00:44:00] and you are not going to win the religious culture Wars this way. This is not how you convey to people, the importance of religion. And I don't think you even need to sort of tell the future or, you know, Look to the Handmaid's tale and try to think, well, how could this play out badly? We know how it's played out badly. We see it in our own history.
We see it in American exceptionalism that said we can do whatever we want because God is on our side. We see it in the way that we treated indigenous communities, ripping their children away from them, putting them in religious schools and erasing their language and culture. We know what happens to religion when it is backed by the power of the state.
And it's not good and it doesn't convince more people to become people of [00:45:00] faith. It's harmful. And that's what I wish they would see. Like, I think that you, they see themselves as protecting it, but as a person of faith, I just want to scream. No, you're making it worse. You're making it worse. You are not in any way, shape or form inviting people to see the value of exercising religion, because you're pro you're not just prioritizing exercise.
You're prioritizing a particular type of exercise because you weren't particularly concerned with the exercise of Muslims coming to our country as refugees or under religious persecution with a Muslim ban. Where are you? So to me, it's just, it's this incredibly dangerous undercurrent of white Christian nationalism, that we're a Christian nation and that's what we're trying to protect.
It's just a current running all the way through at Gorsuch's opinion. And it's so distasteful [00:46:00] to me, not just as an American, that believes in freedom of thought, but as a person of faith who does not want the power of the state propping up my religion or the exercise of it, I
Beth: [00:46:10] want to make sure that we don't lose that one of the applicants here is a synagogue. So we're not just talking about Christianity, but I take all your points. It's hard for me to separate the many different layers of emotion that I have around these cases. As a person of faith who believes right now that the most faithful act we can do as Christians is not gather and who believes that our churches ought not be holding worship services.
And I think there's a big difference again, this is particular to my faith, but I think there's a big difference between a church being closed versus not holding worship services. Part of the reason I attend my church is because I think the worship services are one of the least important things we do there.
I think they're great. And I, and I miss them, but there are acts of community service, especially around food security that my church provides that I think [00:47:00] should be ongoing and should not be closed just because they're a house of worship. Right. So I have this layer of my personal feelings about how, when and why I attend worship and what that means for my participation in church, going on, I have my experiences with COVID-19, which include over the weekend, my parents losing a friend to COVID-19. Both she and her husband were hospitalized. Her husband is still hospitalized.
And he called my parents from the hospital to tell them that she did not survive. She's younger than my parents. And so as my mom still sits on oxygen and is dealing with physical therapy and the fallout from COVID to know how close we came to losing her to be so sad for the adult daughters who are younger than I am of this friend who's just passed away.
You know, you bring all that baggage to the analysis. And then on the other side, you have the legal. Posture [00:48:00] and justices having those same things going on, right? Those are just nine people who also have feelings about worship and church and faith who also have feelings about COVID-19 have family and friends affected by it. Who've also had to change their lives because of it.
And have all this pressure to pretend that those factors aren't operating in the background. And so there's a part of me that thinks, well, justice Gorsuch is just not going to pretend. And justice Alito has decided publicly not to pretend either this is personal and they're writing about it in very personal terms.
And I don't know where we go from there when. The personal is so obvious on the Supreme court. This is something we've talked about before you even see it. This is an unusually testy descent from chief justice Roberts. You can tell that justice Gorsuch made him angry and made him personally angry and that's very strange for the chief justice.
So [00:49:00] I don't know where this takes us. I think there's probably something important about all of that being revealed so plainly and because it's always been there. But I again think that at least in the court, there are still layers of nuance. There still the acknowledgement that we're not public health experts, they're still the acknowledgement that stemming the tide of COVID-19 is really important.
That religious Liberty is important from the dissenting justices there. They're not saying no, we don't care about churches, right? They're saying the state of New York should be working on how do we minimize the harm to churches, but also we should defer to the experts and, and those are all pretty reasonable positions to take and I hope that we can like mirror some of that dialogue as a public.
Sarah: [00:49:50] I wonder if chief justice Roberts is struggling with what so many of you are struggling with, which is the feeling that. If you are a deep person of faith, you feel one [00:50:00] way about things. And if you do not feel that way, then something is wrong with your faith.
I don't know when you said that. I wonder, I thought, well, I wonder if that's why he was testy because it becomes, you know, I have so many friends struggling with particularly parents in the Catholic church and other denominations that no, this is how a good person of faith. Feels about this. And if you don't, then there's something wrong with your faith, because I think we know chief justice Roberts would be a person of faith and to have prioritized religious Liberty issues in the past.
And I don't know, I've got to feel like he's probably really struggling with some of that right now as the courts chemistry definitely shifts.
Beth: [00:50:42] I think that's why, what the Pope did was so important. I think that op-ed from the Pope, which we'll link in the show notes if you've not seen it, it's so good.
It's so good. And I think that kind of circles back to the conversation we were having with at the beginning about leadership. Because I think the Pope offered a [00:51:00] lot of relief to many people who were struggling. And I also think there's this, this little fraction of people who then decided, well, the Pope doesn't know what he's talking about, you know?
Um, because it doesn't comport with their worldview right now. And so I guess everything is a microcosm. Is that the summary? But this is a really important, I think, view of where America is right now. And. I'm glad that we spent some time talking about this case because these issues are going to continue to surface.
And I think they're going to surface in increasingly high stakes context because of the pandemic
Sarah: [00:51:46] Beth what's on your mind outside politics. Well,
Beth: [00:51:48] I just want to know how your Thanksgiving went? Strange year, but we are both Americans who celebrate Thanksgiving with a lot of intensity. And I know you've always loved this holiday, so how'd it go?
[00:52:00] Sarah: [00:52:00] Um, it went really well. For those of you don't follow us on Instagram, we had a little Nicholas Hollan cooking show. He cooked the whole all, he goes, all the things except for the sweet potato casserole that my mom makes every year, but it was great. The weather was very participatory, so we were able to eat outside safely with my grandmother and the food was, I mean, it was the best Thanksgiving meal I've ever had.
He did such a good job, but what I really loved, I mean, I loved all of that and it was incredibly important and I was so sad when the food was gone, but I also really in love the parade. I was so afraid we might not get the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. I love it so much. We were actually planning to go and see it in person in New York city this year.
Obviously that didn't work out, but they did such a good job of adapting. You know, we saw the floats, we saw the balloons, we saw the Broadway performances. Some of them were prerecorded, but you know, there was no crowd, um, on those famous sort of band stands right at the front of Macy's or along the street, but they did a really beautiful job of bringing that sense of [00:53:00] normalcy.
Like I cried when the dang Turkey started the parade. It was so nice to say. I just love seeing Al Roker and his energy and it just, it was so deeply comforting. I really, really, really enjoyed it and wanted to say great job. Macy's.
Beth: [00:53:16] We had a nice Thanksgiving too. We spent it with the neighbors who are in our little pandemic bubble here.
And the food was really good. The company was good. We played games. It was lovely. We spent a couple hours yesterday afternoon with my family on zoom. Our listener Katie created this really fun trivia game. So we played the family trivia over zoom with my family and what was so nice about it was not only that the trivia was fun, but also it kind of loosened everybody up so that we stayed on zoom for a while after just talking the way we would in my parents' living room.
And I didn't think I understood that that's what zoom requires with family. You know, we've tried to do some family like birthday parties and things on [00:54:00] zoom, and it's always super awkward.
And I think having that structured activity then made it feel like, okay, we're together, we're in a place we've done a thing and now we can just chit chat. And so that was really nice.
Sarah: [00:54:11] Yeah, we had two families zooms, one in which we played Jackbox games, which is super fun. There's a new, um, party pack out if you're a Jackbox games person where there's some community games, which are really fun. And then we have another family zoom where it was just chatting. Now I w I have noticed with my mom's side of the family, when the family zoom is big enough, like, you don't have to have a structured activity because there's just enough people talking.
So you get enough extroverts in there, they can just keep things going. But yeah, the family's names are hard to like get the chemistry quite right,
Beth: [00:54:41] But we did. And it was lovely. And we put up our Christmas decorations finally, after Thanksgiving was over, I've been really resistant to doing it this year, as I shared on our Instagram as well.
But I'm being helped significantly by Tsh Oxenreider advent book Shadow and Light. So [00:55:00] highly recommend. You're not too late to dive into it. If you are needing some kind of practice to anchor you a little bit more this winter as I am.
Sarah: [00:55:09] Yeah, it's really beautiful. I also followed along with Tsh's book, as well as not able to Weber's Instagram live.
She's doing one every Sunday of advent, and I really, really missed our advent walk in our town. So it was so nice to listen to her and to, she had this amazing woman come on and sing. And it was just a really nice way to start the beginning of advent, which is one of my favorite seasons of the year.
Beth: [00:55:36] Yeah, it's going to be a hard winter and I'm grateful for faith traditions to help through that. And I understand that that's part of the tension around the case that we were just discussing. And I also am mindful of, um, people who already feel kind of ostracized in December because their prevailing culture doesn't reflect the way that they celebrate and what they are thinking about this time of year.
So I'm just trying to like, [00:56:00] hold some space for everybody and give lots of grace to myself in that process because nothing is going to be easy right now. We're so glad you're here with us as we try to bring a little bit of grace to politics. We'll be back in your ears this Friday, of course, follow along with the news everyday on Sarah's Instagram briefs, you can come over to patreon with me to do some deep dives on nightly nuance.
And until we speak with you again, keep it nuanced, y'all.
Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
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