Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly pays attention to the U.S. Supreme Court so that I can get work done. Usually, if I pay more than cursory attention to the what the conservative bloc on the court does on a daily basis, my productivity goes completely south.
Today, as you might want to read in the more staid and conservative New York Times, the aristocratic fnckweasels in the minority got pwned by a thankfully united majority of reasonability, for once.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group's "discriminatory practices."
[...]
What we have here is yet another illustration of what your modern conservative tea-partying movement— which is well represented on the court by the right-wing bloc of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas— really hopes to accomplish over the moderately near term once they retake control of the government.
As Steve notes, the dissenting opinion in this case complained bitterly about "freedom of expression" being overridden by "prevailing standards of political correctness in our country's institutions of higher learning." What they were really saying is this: they're absolutely livid that the Constitution doesn't prevent public universities from withholding funds from social organizations devoted primarily to the promotion of bigotry, ignorance and unreason— i.e. the very things universities are established explicitly to stamp out.
Alas, the wingnut bloc on the court is young and vigorous. It will be around for a long time to come, and when the next President is a tea-partying nutjob with a friendly majority in the Senate, you can expect the bloc to grow into the majority.
Look upon that dissenting opinion now and study it well, because that's the voice of the coming majority.
