This morning the Supreme Court gave conservatives (and other sensible Americans) three victories and the truly remarkable element is that these decisions were unanimous. Since this is a breaking news story, we won’t go very deep into any of them but the short version is that they said that civil rights law protects straight people from discrimination, that the First Amendment protects Catholic Charities’ religious freedom and that Federal law protects a gun manufacturer from anti-Second-Amendment lawfare.
So, let’s get through this, shall we?
...Significant ruling that a member of a majority group does not have the added burden of showing "background circumstances." Remand for further consideration...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 5, 2025
...Justice Thomas has a biting concurrence: "I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write separately to highlight the problems that arise when judges create atextual legal rules and frameworks. Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 5, 2025
The cut off text:
Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose unnecessary burdens on litigants, and cause confusion for courts. The ‘background circumstances’ rule—correctly rejected by the Court today—is one example of this phenomenon.’
So that is the case where they ruled in favor of straight people being protected from discrimination and while we won’t be doing any deep analysis, this also holds implications for anyone in so called ‘reverse discrimination’ cases. Basically, it means white people are as protected as anyone else from racial discrimination, men are as protected as women from sex discrimination and so on.
On to the next haymaker:
...We have the next opinion and it is one that many of us have been waiting for. Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico, where gun manufacturers were sued for gun violence in Mexico. This is authored by Justice Kagan and it is unanimous. As many of us argued, the lawsuit should have…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 5, 2025
The cut off text:
As many of us argued, the lawsuit should have been barred under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Big win for gun manufacturers and, by extension, gun rights advocates.
What was happening there was that the government of Mexico was suing Smith & Wesson because their guns were showing up in Mexico. You know, rather than just controlling the border like a normal country. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was Federal legislation designed to protect gun manufacturers from being sued out of oblivion through lawfare. The Supreme Court ruled that this law protects Smith & Wesson. SCOTUSblog, which famously quit Twitter/X and then quietly came crawling back to it, has more information:
The decision in Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos is by Justice Kagan and is unanimous. https://t.co/XR1sR1V5lQ
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 5, 2025
That means that Mexico didn't even properly allege, let alone prove, that Smith & Wesson had any responsibility for any of their guns going down to Mexico.
Finally, we have the Catholic Charities case:
...Wisconsin law exempts certain religious organizations from paying unemployment compensation taxes, but the state supreme court denied the exemption to Catholic Charities...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 5, 2025
...Catholic Charities is a major reinforcement of religious freedom and a bright-line rule against the government choosing between religions: "A law that differentiates between religions along theological lines is textbook denominational discrimination."...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 5, 2025
That line about neutrality is talking about neutrality among religions, and is quoting from a case that also says there has to be neutrality between religion and non-religion.
There are other opinions—five in total this morning—but these appear to be the big ticket items. We might do more analysis or reactions later, but we wanted to get this information to you quickly.
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