I guess not surprising but distressing anyway:
https://nytimes.com/2022/06/22/briefing/supreme-court-religion.html
The Supreme Court has become the most pro-religion it’s been since at least the 1950s, and it appears to include the six most pro-religion justices since at least World War II.
Yesterday’s ruling striking down a Maine law that blocked taxpayer dollars from funding religious school tuition furthered a transformation decades in the making. Since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has ruled in favor of religious organizations in orally argued cases 83 percent of the time. That is far more than any court in the past seven decades — all of which were led by chief justices who, like Roberts, were appointed by Republican presidents.
Yesterday’s ruling pushed the win rate for religious groups even higher, to 85 percent, said Lee Epstein, a law professor and political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis who uncovered the trend for a forthcoming Supreme Court Review study she co-wrote with Eric Posner, a University of Chicago law professor....
....The court’s three Democratic appointees dissented. “This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.
Other recent cases suggest that the Roberts court is growing bolder in defense of religious freedom — especially in benefiting Christian groups. Last year, it allowed a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia to refuse to work with same-sex couples. And while the court has repeatedly rejected plaintiffs who challenged state Covid vaccination mandates on religious grounds, it sided with those who sought to lift virus restrictions on religious services after Barrett joined its ranks.
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