{"id":61768,"date":"2020-11-13T17:16:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=61768"},"modified":"2020-11-13T17:16:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:16:19","slug":"61768","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=61768","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice Alito: Pandemic Has \u2018Resulted in Previously Unimaginable Restrictions on Individual Liberty\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday said the coronavirus pandemic has \u201cresulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty\u201d and warned that religious liberty is \u201cin danger of becoming a second class right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alito\u2019s comments came during his\u00a0virtual keynote speech<\/a>\u00a0to a conference of the conservative Federalist Society, in which the 70-year-old justice warned that the U.S. can\u2019t allow the restrictions on personal liberty to continue after the pandemic has ended, noting that houses of worship have been treated particularly unfairly.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNevada was unable to provide any justification for treating casinos more favorably than other houses of worship,\u201d he said, referring to a recent Supreme Court case in which the court rejected a request by a church to block state restrictions that subjected houses of worship to a 50-person limit, while allowing casinos to operate at 50 percent of their fire-code capacities.<\/p>\n

\u201cReligious liberty is in danger of becoming a second-class right,\u201d he said, expressing concern about free speech and the Second Amendment as well.<\/p>\n

Alito, a nominee of former President George W. Bush who was confirmed by the Senate in 2006, said that while there was \u201chostility\u201d\u00a0toward \u201cunfashionable views\u201d before the pandemic, free speech is now particularly endangered on campuses and at some corporations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,\u201d Alito said. \u201cUntil very recently that\u2019s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it\u2019s considered bigotry<\/p>\n

\u201cTolerance for opposing views is now in short supply,\u201d Alito said, particularly in law schools and the \u201cbroader academic community\u201d<\/p>\n

He said a number of recent law school graduates have claimed they\u00a0face \u201charassment\u201d and \u201cretaliation\u201d for any views that go against \u201claw school orthodoxy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn certain quarters religious liberty has fast become a disfavored right,\u201d he said. \u201cFor many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It\u2019s often just an excuse for bigotry and it can\u2019t be tolerated even when there\u2019s no evidence that anybody has been harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke about\u00a0the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns who were exempted from a requirement to provide birth control coverage to employees. Their case came before the Supreme Court though none of the employees had asked for birth control coverage. He also cited the case of a Colorado baker who was allowed to refuse service to a gay couple for their wedding. The couple in question was given a free cake by another shop and was defended by celebrity chefs.<\/p>\n