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Some SCOTUS justices held prayer meetings with religious group that advocated before the Court?

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by gator_lawyer, Jul 6, 2022.

  1. gator_lawyer

    gator_lawyer VIP Member

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    More arguably unethical behavior from certain people appointed by a certain party, it seems.
    SCOTUS Justices 'Prayed With' Her -- Then Cited Her Bosses to End Roe
    At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said. . . . In other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments before the high court.

    Nienaber is Liberty Counsel’s executive director of DC Ministry, as well as the vice president of Faith & Liberty, whose ministry offices sit directly behind the Supreme Court. She spoke to a livestreamer who goes by Connie IRL, seemingly unaware she was being recorded. “You actually pray with the Supreme Court justices?” the livestreamer asked. “I do,” Nienaber said. “They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She did not specify which justices prayed with her, but added with a chortle, “Some of them don’t!” The livestreamer then asked if Nienaber ministered to the justices in their homes or at her office. Neither, she said. “We actually go in there.”

    Nienaber intended her comments, broadcast on YouTube, to be “totally off the record,” she says in the clip. That’s likely because such an arrangement presents a problem for the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, which not only weighed in on the Dobbs case as a friend of the court, but also litigated and won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory this May in a case centered on the public display of a religious flag.
    * * *
    But the founder of the ministry, who surrendered its operations to Liberty Counsel in 2018, tells Rolling Stone that he hosted prayer sessions with conservative justices in their chambers from the late-1990s through when he left the group in the mid-2010s. Rob Schenck, who launched the ministry under the name Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, described how the organization forged ministry relationships with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Antonin Scalia, saying he would pray with them inside the high court. Nienaber was Schenk’s close associate in that era, and continued with the ministry after it came under the umbrella of Liberty Counsel.
     
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  2. Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    God obviously doesn't hear them else she would smite them.
     
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  3. tilly

    tilly Superhero Mod. Fast witted. Bulletproof posts. Moderator VIP Member

    I'll sleep fine tonight knowing SCOTUS justices are protected under the free exercise portion of the constitution they are sworn to defend.

    You guys dont believe in prayer anyway.
     
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  4. tjenkins78

    tjenkins78 Junior

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    Supreme Court=Judiciary Bible Study Group

    Abhorrent. They'll be a snapback...there always is...they've already gone too far.

    The GOP had the midterms wrapped up.

    They've activated so many voters. Should have made these controversial decisions in an off election year. Pubs are going to be surprised. Reproductive rights>gas prices

    They did the democrats a favor.
     
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  5. tilly

    tilly Superhero Mod. Fast witted. Bulletproof posts. Moderator VIP Member

    I think you would surprised at how many more people are losing sleep over gas prices than abortion. Maybe 3-5% of the population will be effected by Roe, EVERYONE is impacted by gas.

    I work in a pretty moderate to left leaning building and havent heard RvW brought up. EVERYONE complains about the gas.
     
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  6. gator_lawyer

    gator_lawyer VIP Member

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    One, that's an extraordinarily dishonest reading of the Free Exercise Clause. Two, that's not actually true. What they are protected by is an ineffective and polarized Congress.
     
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  7. tjenkins78

    tjenkins78 Junior

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    It's a cumulative effect...Roe plus Uvalde plus highland plus don't say gay plus the attack on Obergefell, Lawrence and Griswold next. I was promised they would never overturn Roe. Obergefell is next. I would rather pay more in gas than have my morals twisted by the Handmaid's Court. You may not see it. I do. Everywhere. Pubs crossing party lines. Moderates do not want a Christian Taliban.

    You will be surprised.
     
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  8. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    Agreed they are protected to conduct their religious freedoms.

    But let’s discuss the far reaching implications of what she said. Does it make sense that any group that is advocating certain positions to have access to the SCOTUS judges?

    Well, this doesn’t feel right. Why should the Judicial Branch be influenced by outside parities? Should lobbyists be pounding on the doors of appointed judges? What about all those Amicus briefs — “friends of the court” — and dark money flowing to influence judges?

    I suspect the courts are full of judges who have conflicts of interest and simply don’t recuse themselves in cases. The Liberty Counsel is just playing the game better, right? The problem is the game is rigged for the special interests.
     
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  9. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

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    I posted on this in the Roe thread. This has nothing to do with prayer. At all. I'd be upset and saying it's inappropriate if she was in their offices playing chess. Her bosses were party to the Dobbs case. People who are or speak for folks in cases brought before the court have no business spending private time IN the court with the judges presiding over their case.

    If it had gone the other way, and people found out the judges spent time in their chambers privately with people involved, prolifers would be screaming about "conflict of interest", "undue influence", "should've recused themselves", etc.

    That it's "prayer" (because prayer can mean more than just reading Bible passages) is what is making you defend it.

    They're entitled to pray. If they want to go to church & have Bible studies great. Good for them. If they want their preachers to come to court and pray over them daily, go ahead.

    But these were parties in a case before the court. In lower courts that'd be grounds for appeal.

    This isn't okay.
     
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  10. tilly

    tilly Superhero Mod. Fast witted. Bulletproof posts. Moderator VIP Member

    Dishonest?
     
  11. tilly

    tilly Superhero Mod. Fast witted. Bulletproof posts. Moderator VIP Member

    I have no idea how things work in the dark corners of justice chambers and lower courts. I just believe they have every right to freely exercise their faith in this way.
     
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  12. tampagtr

    tampagtr VIP Member

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    This fits here

     
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  13. tilly

    tilly Superhero Mod. Fast witted. Bulletproof posts. Moderator VIP Member

    You say their pastors can come and pray, but their pastors likely have the same position. Lets be honest. This prayer had nothing yo do with influencing the case. This court was going to shoot down Roe even had they been sequestered on a deserted island.

    This os just sour grapes. It doesnt have the earth shattering ramifications that the left wants us to believe. This is far down the list of most American talking points regardless of what the media makes of it.

    Covid. Gas. Ukraine. Heck ...sports, are all higher on most peoples priority list.

    Again Abortion impacts roughly 3-5% of the population annually. (And thats including the man and family.)

    Conservative areas like the ruling. Liberal areas were already voting liberal and moderates arent losing sleep over it.

    That is an opinion. i could be wrong, but I dont see any outrage from the general voter or mass movements based on Roe.

    The people protesting and losing sleep were already voting democratic anyway.
     
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  14. tampagtr

    tampagtr VIP Member

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    Her boss seems to think that praying with justices about legal cases before them when you represent a side is not just free exercise- that it’s an admission of wrongdoing

    The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Liberty Counsel’s founder, Mat Staver, strenuously denied that the in-person ministering to justices that Nienaber bragged about exists. “It’s entirely untrue,” Staver tells Rolling Stone. “There is just no way that has happened.” He adds: “She has prayer meetings for them, not with them.” Asked if he had an explanation for Nienaber’s direct comments to the contrary, Staver says, “I don’t.”
     
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  15. swampbabe

    swampbabe GC Hall of Fame

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    You think that women of reproductive age only represent 3% of the population? Trust me, far more people are upset about Dodd than you think. Perhaps not in your conservative Christian circles but it’s out here.

    BTW, the price of gas is down :D
     
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  16. duchen

    duchen VIP Member

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    As the expression goes, “there is no part-ay like an ex parte.”
     
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  17. littlebluelw

    littlebluelw GC Hall of Fame

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    So there is a problem with prayer? From the people here who dont even believe in God and openly mock Christians? Interesting dichotomy.
     
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  18. tampagtr

    tampagtr VIP Member

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    It is amazing how few people understand how the court really works. I don't mean that to criticize those that don't. It's a very specialized area.

    But I think they believe that the Supreme Court operates like a local Court, with randomly filed cases just appearing on the docket and the strict wall of separation between the litigants, or those they represent, and the judges. In reality, there is an insular community that is manufacturing cases and arguments and plaintiffs to get before the court to achieve discreet long sought policy gains that they cannot obtain through Congress or the White House. They coordinate well in advance and plan strategy.

    Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has covered these dark money machinations for years. But very few people listen, other than the actual participants who scream about getting called out.

    This should surprise absolutely no one
     
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  19. gator_lawyer

    gator_lawyer VIP Member

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    Conflict of interest restrictions are neutral rules of general applicability. Employment Division v. Smith is quite clear that the Free Exercise Clause isn't a get out of jail free card for the religious to not have follow valid and neutral laws and regulations. Of course, the Supreme Court isn't bound by conflict of interest rules or any ethical rules because Congress refuses to do its job. But if Congress wanted to impeach a justice for it, they could.

    If this was a trial court judge who was subject to conflict of interest rules, he would get in trouble for bringing an employee of a lawyer appearing before him in a bench trial back into chambers and having that attorney minister to him and pray with him. He could not use the Free Exercise Clause as a get out of jail free card there. The Free Exercise Clause is not a trump card to free religious people from the laws and rules the rest of us in society are bound by.

    As Justice Scalia said, "To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is 'compelling'—permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, 'to become a law unto himself,' Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S., at 167—contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense."
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  20. pkaib01

    pkaib01 GC Hall of Fame

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    This is not a prayer issue, per se. I'd have the same concerns if the justices got drunk watching a Gator game with a Gator club prior to hearing a case involving said Gator club.

    The justices should not be interacting with plaintiffs socially, professionally or religiously while there is an ongoing issue before the court.
     
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