The 3 - January 30, 2022

This week's edition of The 3, focusing on three stories of relevance to the Christian community, includes the announcement by a U.S. Supreme Court justice that he will be stepping down at the end of the current term.  Also, two sets of families who have been involved in operating bakeries received positive court rulings recently.  Plus, a Texas city has successfully resisted an attempt by the nation's largest provider of abortion to overrule the decisions of the voters to make their city abortion-free.

Justice resigns from high court, leaving dismal track record on life, marriage, better on religious freedom

The U.S. Supreme Court will have a vacancy later this year, as Justice Stephen Breyer announced his intent to resign last week. Breyer had been described as a "pragmatist," but his rulings and opinions show a justice who was not favorable toward the sanctity of life and marriage.  He was solidly regarded as one of the "liberals" on the high court. CBN News puts it like this:

Breyer, who was appointed to the high court by President Clinton, has been one of the more liberal justices on the bench, a staunch supporter of abortion.

The SCOTUS Blog highlighted Breyer's record, and while it did not include the Obergefell ruling on gay marriage, which Breyer supported, it did include a number of cases, stating that Breyer "...wrote for a five-justice majority in Stenberg v. Carhart, striking down Nebraska’s ban on a procedure the state referred to as 'partial birth' abortion."  When partial birth abortion came to the high court again seven years later, he was in the minority as the court banned the procedure.

The blog also noted, "in 2016, he wrote for the majority in another major ruling on abortion, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, that struck down two provisions in a Texas law that sought to regulate abortion providers in the state."  He was also in the majority for a ruling in a similar case out of Louisiana in 2020.

Regarding religious freedom, his record was mixed.  As the SCOTUS Blog points out: "On a single day in 2005, Breyer provided the pivotal vote in a pair of cases challenging public displays of the Ten Commandments. In one case, Breyer agreed with the court’s conservative wing to uphold the display; in the other, he sided with the court’s liberals to strike down the display." The blog also reported that:

Fourteen years later, Breyer joined Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the majority in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, allowing a 40-foot-tall cross, erected in a Washington, D.C., suburb shortly after World War I to honor soldiers killed in battle, to remain in a traffic circle. Breyer wrote a brief concurring opinion, this time joined by Kagan, in which he reiterated his view that “there is no single formula for resolving Establishment Clause challenges.”

Breyer was also an opponent of what is called, "court packing," designed to add justices to produce a certain ideological makeup.  

Bakers in U.K., U.S. receive court victories

Within the past month, two families in the same profession involved in similar court cases have received positive results.  One of those cases involves Ashers Bakery; the Christian Institute reported on the origins of the case, which began in 2014, when "Ashers Baking Co, a small bakery in Northern Ireland run by the McArthur family, declines an order by LGBT activist Gareth Lee for a cake iced with the slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’ due to the owners’ sincere Christian beliefs."

The Institute's website reported: "The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has thrown out Gareth Lee’s challenge to the UK Supreme Court’s unanimous 2018 ruling in favour of Ashers Baking Company."  The site goes on to say:

Let no one be in any doubt, this case was never about Christians versus gays. It was about freedom of conscience and freedom of expression.

Can equality law be used to compel people to say something with which they profoundly disagree? The answer from the highest court in the land remains clear – unanimously so – ‘No, it can’t’.

To a lesser extent, some court relief was rewarded to the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon - according to First Liberty: 

The Oregon Court of Appeals issued a ruling involving our clients, Christian bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein. It reversed a decision that forced the Kleins’ family bakery, Sweet Cakes by Melissa, out of business by penalizing them $135,000 for declining to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding. The court also admitted that an Oregon bureaucratic agency acted with hostility against the Kleins’ religious beliefs.

But, the court apparently did not back down regarding its belief that the Kleins acted illegally. The legal organization's website quotes Senior Counsel Stephanie Taub, who said, “Oregon is trying to have its cake and eat it, too,” adding, “The Court admits the state agency that acted as both prosecutor and judge in this case was biased against the Kleins’ faith. Yet, despite this anti-Christian bias that infected the whole case, the court is sending the case back to the very same agency for a do-over. Today’s opinion should have been the end of this ten year long saga. It’s time for the state of Oregon’s hostility toward Aaron and Melissa to end.”  

The Kleins are planning to appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court and perhaps even to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had sent the case back to the Oregon court system for reconsideration in light of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision.

Nation's largest abortion provider drops lawsuit against nation's largest sanctuary city for the unborn

Since 2019, over 40 cities across America have decided to designate themselves as a "sanctuary city for the unborn," where abortion is illegal, according to The Daily Citizen, a website of Focus on the Family. The largest such city is Lubbock, Texas, with "with a population of just over a quarter million," according to the website.

After being enacted, as the result of the approval of over 6-in-10 voters, the site reports, "Planned Parenthood immediately challenged the law in court, asking a federal court to issue an injunction blocking the law from enforcement. The federal court declined to issue an injunction because Planned Parenthood didn’t have the right to bring the case." Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, has decided not to appeal the decision.

The Daily Citizen notes:

Regarding the proposal’s legality, Right to Life East Texas explained, “The ordinance is structured in a manner similar to the Texas Heartbeat Act, which outlaws abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable but prohibits state officials from enforcing the law, instead authorizing private citizens to sue those who perform or aid or abet illegal abortions. By adopting this unique private-enforcement scheme, the city of Lubbock made its ordinance immune from pre-enforcement lawsuits because neither the city nor its officials have any role in enforcing the law, so they cannot be subjected to lawsuits that challenge the constitutionality of the ordinance.”