Amy Coney Barrett

[Huntn]

It also COMPLETELY ignores the reason there is a favored class. Businesses such as grocery stores involve people entering for a short period of time to obtain the necessities of life, with a fairly low risk of spreading the disease if people follow the mask mandates and maximum occupancy rules.

A church involves sitting in one spot for up to 2 hours with communal speaking and singing that is a super-spreader event! It fits into the same category as a bar - people in close quarters speaking loudly.

It seems to me that there are some wildly unqualified members on the “supreme” court now. What a travesty.

Indeed. When your religious fantasies take precedence over day to day reality, hospitals strained, 250000 dead, this is a huge fail, a life ending fail for some of them.

If you took precautions and got sick, it’s a tragedy but if you killed yourself going to church, let the Lord deal with you and good riddance. I know that sounds harsh, but frankly we as a species just can’t afford STUPID at this point in our development. It‘s time to smarten up or just go the way of the Dinos, not that it was the Dinos fault, it will be our fault and not because of just COVID. There is a wide spectrum of challenges we must face and make the right decisions to keep marching forward and so far our track record is not very good.

 

[lizkat]

It also COMPLETELY ignores the reason there is a favored class. Businesses such as grocery stores involve people entering for a short period of time to obtain the necessities of life, with a fairly low risk of spreading the disease if people follow the mask mandates and maximum occupancy rules.

A church involves sitting in one spot for up to 2 hours with communal speaking and singing that is a super-spreader event! It fits into the same category as a bar - people in close quarters speaking loudly.

It seems to me that there are some wildly unqualified members on the “supreme” court now. What a travesty.

This ruling was all about Republican politics in the waning moments of the Trump administration and in the time of the coronavirus, response to which Trump personally botched at the outset.

It was not about religious observance versus public health. All major religions have "loopholes" on assorted required observance in order to save a life. This was gotcha politics all the way.

The Supreme Court didn't have to take this route on this case, especially because the restrictions had been modified by time the case was brought. Hint: Chief Justice Roberts, a Roman Catholic, voted in the minority in this case along with Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor, the latter also a Roman Catholic. As reported in the NY Times, Roberts had written in another covid-related case (in California) thus:

that government officials should not “be subject to second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary, which lacks the background, competence and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people."

The Times in the same piece reported about Robert's opinion in the NY case:

In a dissenting opinion on Wednesday, Chief Justice Roberts said the court had acted rashly.

“Numerical capacity limits of 10 and 25 people, depending on the applicable zone, do seem unduly restrictive,” he wrote, adding, “It is not necessary, however, for us to rule on that serious and difficult question at this time.”

“The governor might reinstate the restrictions,” he wrote. “But he also might not. And it is a significant matter to override determinations made by public health officials concerning what is necessary for public safety in the midst of a deadly pandemic. If the governor does reinstate the numerical restrictions the applicants can return to this court, and we could act quickly on their renewed applications.”

 

[JayMysteri0]

This ruling was all about Republican politics in the waning moments of the Trump administration and in the time of the coronavirus, response to which Trump personally botched at the outset.

It was not about religious observance versus public health. All major religions have "loopholes" on assorted required observance in order to save a life. This was gotcha politics all the way.

The Supreme Court didn't have to take this route on this case, especially because the restrictions had been modified by time the case was brought. Hint: Chief Justice Roberts, a Roman Catholic, voted in the minority in this case along with Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor, the latter also a Roman Catholic. As reported in the NY Times, Roberts had written in another covid-related case (in California) thus:



The Times in the same piece reported about Robert's opinion in the NY case:

You need to share that "over there", where someone was crying they were denied grieving, and trying the 'sob story' card.

No one's denying you the ability the grieve. You are just being asked to grieve in smaller numbers, or do it with social distancing via the internet or whatever. Demanding that tradition that has been followed for years during a pandemic has to be stritcly followed, is pretending there is no pandemic. You mean to tell me over the course of hundreds of years, a group of people didn't learn to adapt & make adjustments in difficult times? That sounds like no group of humans I've ever heard of. Made sadly more ironic if that tradition of grieving really is for people lost to the pandemic. It's basically creating a cycle for more grieving.

 

[lizkat]

You need to share that "over there", where someone was crying they were denied grieving, and trying the 'sob story' card.

No one's denying you the ability the grieve. You are just being asked to grieve in smaller numbers, or do it with social distancing via the internet or whatever. Demanding that tradition that has been followed for years during a pandemic has to be stritcly followed, is pretending there is no pandemic. You mean to tell me over the course of hundreds of years, a group of people didn't learn to adapt & make adjustments in difficult times? That sounds like no group of humans I've ever heard of. Made sadly more ironic if that tradition of grieving really is for people lost to the pandemic. It's basically creating a cycle for more grieving.

To me putting up concerns over "First Amendment rights" --as a fig leaf on political conflict over appropriate behavior during a pandemic-- comes down to the worst of American libertarian impulses. I'm at least as up for individual rights as the next American, but the way too many people buy into politicization of an undeniable public health crisis still shocks me, and I don't understand why more "conservatives" don't speak out about it.

The virus does not respect politics, so surely plenty of conservative leaning individuals have experienced covid-19 and could speak to the need to help tamp down the ease with which the virus spreads until vaccination takes an axe to the availability of new hosts.

Somehow I don't think the silence is from lack of media trying to find more conservatives to speak to this issue. Hopefully as the Biden transition takes hold in Washington DC, that may change. "Everybody loves a winner" or at least temporarily curries official favor to get a leg up during the changing of the guard at the White House, eh?

But it seems right now almost a knee-jerk reflex for too many of the right-leaning among us to disrespect requests or mandates to observe social distancing, to wear masks in public, to try to minimize attendance at gatherings unless required for work (medical caregivers, utility workers, grocery workers, transport operators, first responders etc).

OK, it's tribal. Tribal politics. But a glance back at history doesn't support tribal stupidity on this scale. Ancient tribes of hunter gatherers did not stand around watching tribesmen walk into quicksand one after another until no one was left on firm ground. Someone, a leader, said "Stop! This isn't working for us."

But we've gotten mixed messages about what to stop. Trump says covid is no big deal even now in the face of 250k and counting American deaths. Fauci says uh, it's not nothing, it requires a vaccine and cooperation in minimizing spread until we get one and get it distributed. Covid-19 says watch me go, baby.

Are we watching? Spikes now are everywhere across the country with more expected as a result of people believing they are exceptional in either their good luck or their need to be with people on the holiday despite entreaties from caregivers to stay home and save lives.

So much ongoing disregard for the unavoidable facts of our coexistence right now is disheartening. There can be a place and time for a lot of things but exercising rights without responsibility is almost always an antisocial, selfish and at least amoral if not immoral option. Can't think of another more compelling example than how the Republican "party line" on the coronavirus has been established... from the top down. Can't wait until the guy at the top is no longer the selfish ignoramus Donald Trump.

 

[User.45]

It's basically creating a cycle for more grieving.

There, the essence of the business model of what Kavenaugh insinuated as religious businesses.