By Emily Cousins | Staff Writer
Expanding the Supreme Court is pivotal to protecting the rights and safety of minorities and women.
A concerning trend has been happening in Supreme Court rulings, and that is favoritism of religious groups, especially cases involving Christianity and other Abrahamic religions.
Upon hearing this, it probably sounds positive that we are protecting religious liberty because it falls under the First Amendment. However, the court has clearly been ignoring precedent on previous cases and have rewarded religious groups inappropriately.
This is partly because former President Donald Trump rushed through a Supreme Court justice nominee just before losing the presidential election to Joe Biden. The Supreme Court is now highly unbalanced, with six justices that are more conservative and 3 justices that are more liberal.
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. told the Federalist Society there are “certain quarters” where “religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.”
Does Alito specify what quarters he’s referring to? No. Because Christianity has a huge majority in the United States, and it is not under attack. Are more business and laws expecting Christians and Christian organizations to be accepting and loving to all people? Yes. But this is not an attack on Christianity. Perhaps this is what Christians should be doing in the first place.
Favoring a majority instead of granting minorities their inalienable rights or allowing religious groups to ignore laws meant for public safety purposes is not productive, and it threatens democracy and our principle of separation of church and state.
Throughout time, the Supreme Court has expanded and shrunk based on the political climate. This change would not be unheard of or out of the norm.
Now that the Supreme Court is unbalanced, it is no longer the bipartisan entity it is meant to be. Furthermore, the people of America came out in droves for elections and elected a Democratic president, House of Representatives and Senate. The fact that Republicans stole a Supreme Court justice position from former President Barack Obama and rushed Trump’s choice through shows that Republicans in Washington D.C. have little care for what the majority of Americans want and need to have a positive quality of life.
House and Senate Democrats have introduced legislation that would expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices. Of course, this would likely pass through the House, but get easily shut down in the Senate through the filibuster.
Biden has created a commission to research the possibility of expanding the Supreme Court. While this may seem like a cautious and logical step, it’s really a way to appease the Democrats pushing for the expansion, and then he will likely say no after the commission reports its findings.
Biden has done nothing to stop the atrocious policy of separating children from their parents at the border and continues to stick to the status quo instead of making meaningful change, which he could easily do because he has the Senate and the House to back him. Democrats in power suddenly act like there’s nothing they can do to make change.
Biden needs to push for the expansion of the Supreme Court so it can become balanced again and protect the rights of Americans.
Biden did promise he would be a president for all Americans, and he needs to act like it. Being a president for the whole country doesn’t mean constantly meeting people in the middle. It means doing what’s best for Americans in general. That includes supporting the expansion of the Supreme Court, and doing it before the current Justices issue any more misguided rulings.
Emily is a senior vocal performance and journalism major from Houston.
