Fulton versus city of philadelphia. The honorable chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oye, oye, oye. All persons having business honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to get their attention for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court. Roberts we will hear argument this morning in case number 19120 three, fulton versus city of philadelphia. Ms. Windham . Mr. Chief justice and may it please the court. The courts below made a civil error. They fail to understand where smith controls and where does not. Smith does not control where a government uses individual exemptions or makes other exceptions that undermine rules or when it changes rules to prohibit a religious practice. Philadelphia made all three errors here. The city cannot identify a neutral, generally applicable law after six attempt. Attempts. It now acknowledges its decisions are subjective and individualized. Yet the cou
Morning and case number 19123, fulton v. The city of philadelphia. Ms. Windham. Mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court. The courts below made a simple error. They failed to understand where Employment Division versus smith controls and what doesnt. Smith doesnt control when the government uses a system of individualized exemptions or when it makes other exceptions that undermined its rules or when it changes the rules to prohibit a religious practice. Philadelphia made all three of those errors here. The city still cant identify a neutral, generally applicable attempts. Fter six it now acknowledges its decisions are subjective and individualized. Yet the courts below still applied smith. Even set Smith Wouldve be a dead letter if petitioners prevail. That. That demonstrates the confusion and instability smith has caused. Respondents, rather than defend smith, asked the court for new limited constitutional standard thats even less protective of religious exercise. That approach
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 to peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The two, establishment of religion and free exercise come first which is why religious freedom is often called americas first freedom. And establishment actually comes even before religious freedom. It often people understand what establishment is. Now, in 1833, massachusetts disestablished, and what that means is people no longer had to pay taxes to support my own religious ancestors, the congregationalists. Former religion come everybody sitting like this. There is a liturgy, when you rather go to a camp meeting and sang . So that is the end of establishment in that sense. It is not, as we will see this evening, the end of issues about establishment. Similarly, free exercise of religion is difficult for people to unde
Kind of a quiet interlude to what might come . And then maybe talk about very much your area of expertise, the gerrymandering case. And does it portend other future decisions that we should be aware of . So i can but else i just want to say like mickey rooney, im just happy to be in the show. I think kannon is right, that the term mischaracterized in part by the cases the court took them by the case the court postponed taking. To make very high cases that were key to pry the beginning of the term and i think one set of them were actually on the summer from last year were cases about the scope of title vii, whether it covers discrimination based on Sexual Orientation or an gender identity. The court could have taken those cases last september and it didnt. It held off on those until april. It once again dodged a question that it had up in front of it in Masterpiece Cakeshop by sending the flowers case back in light of Masterpiece Cake shop which i think it of interest because Masterpiec
tonight. and breaking america is now responding to the attacksed thr that killed three us soldiers in jordan. so far, the u.s. militareen y launching 85 retaliatory airstrikes against iranian and e in iraq and syria. and there could be many more rounds ahead. but iran is responding now with defiance, saying they knew the u.s. would not dare attackat insidetack iran. the senior correspondent mike tobin is live in tel aviv with breaking in reactiono the to the first round of airstrikes. miked of , what are you hearing? well, trish, we re hearing dhat an iran backe paramilitary group inside of iraq is now claimingaimi that they launched a barrage of rockets at a u.s.ng t airbash west of ramadi in iraq. this in response to us strikeeae earlier today. this is we rr y. e getting the first images out of western iraq verys near o the syrian border, out of iraq, as the u.s. has battled damage assessment is currently underway. we know that iraq is not happy with the strikes inside of