The latest anti-gay ruling proves the GOP's judges aren't even pretending anymore
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It’s now indisputable: There’s a Trump effect. Judges Alice Batchelder, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Joan Larsen, a Trump appointee who appeared on his Supreme Court shortlist, just ruled for anti-gay protestors and against the city of Nashville. ThThe latest anti-gay ruling proves the GOP's judges aren't even pretending anymore
It’s now indisputable: There’s a Trump effect. Judges Alice Batchelder, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Joan Larsen, a Trump appointee who appeared on his Supreme Court shortlist, just ruled for anti-gay protestors and against the city of Nashville. The decision, as dissenter Judge Karen Nelson Moore, a Clinton appointee, politely points out, should have been an open-and-shut First Amendment win for Nashville based on, well, everything. Two men and a group of followers were disrupting an LGBTQ pride event from the sidewalk directly in front of the event venue, a park, using bullhorns. They’d been warned in advance by the police department that they’d have to stay on the other side of the road, but ignored that instruction. (The majority omitted the prior communication, strangely.) When told to relocate, they objected but ultimately complied. Afterwards they sued, claiming they were discriminated against based on the content of their speech under the First Amendment, a big no-no. There’s a well-established framework for tackling First Amendment claims like these. Here, the big issue became whether the city was acting based on the content of speech versus enforcing a content-neutral regulation. The first is almost impossible to justify; the second is ubiquitous. Read more