So, a story on this is here, and the full opinions are here. There's been a long-running series of lawsuits coming out of NY (and probably other places too, I'm just more focused on NY cause I live there) over the fact that Cuomo decided to limit the number of people who could attend religious services due to the virus. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court shut down the rule yesterday.

But, the reason I'm posting this here is not so much the ruling itself (though I think its a huge win for freedom overall), but because of the rationales. I can't help but think that only one of them is actually caring about the law.

For the majority opinion, written by Gorsech, had the following opening and closing lines.

Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis.... It is time—past time—to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques

From Breyer's minority opinion

The Nation is now experiencing a second surge of infections....The nature of the epidemic, the spikes, the uncertainties, and the need for quick action, taken together, mean that the State has countervailing arguments based upon health, safety, and administrative considerations that must be balanced against the applicants’ First Amendment challenges.

I'm sorry, what? Since when does the Supreme Court rule on health arguments? The text is very clear, "Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It doesn't say "Congress shall make no law unless there's a virus which has a <2% fatality rate across the whole population." This is an attempt at an insane new level of judicial activism. This isn't twisting the law to fit, this is saying "well, the law is nice and all but doesn't matter here"