Balkinization  

Monday, April 19, 2021

The Supreme Court creates a new religious aristocracy

Andrew Koppelman

Tandon v. Newsom was a 5-4 decision against California's COVID-19 order limiting more than three households from gathering in homes.  The Court declared that laws can’t be applied to religious objectors so long as the state “treats some comparable secular activities more favorably.”  Some regard this as a de facto return to the old rule, in effect from 1963 to 1990, that religious conscientious objectors have a right to accommodation where that’s reasonably possible.  What the Court has announced, however, is far more extravagant: a right to nullify even the most urgent laws.

I explain in a new column at The Hill, here.


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