Christians, Conservatives, and Unbalanced Scales

The symbol of justice is a statue of a woman known as “Lady Justice.” She is blindfolded and holding a set of scales along with a scroll and a sword. She is blindfolded because true justice is unbiased and should not be based on a person's appearance or other outside influences. Lady Justice holds scales to represent the impartiality of the court's decisions and a sword as a symbol of the power of justice.

The justice system in our country has become one of tiers. Over the last few years, on the state and local level, it has routinely leaned left at times to varying degrees. Sometimes handing down little or no punishment and at other times ignoring obvious crimes. One need not look any further than the inactivity regarding Hunter Biden to understand the political influence being exerted onto the scales of justice.

Another recent example is a case in Missouri. In this instance three jurors were removed because they admitted to being Christian.

The case in question is "Missouri Department of Corrections v. Finney," which originated from a lawsuit involving the plaintiff Jean Finney, a lesbian, who alleged that her former employer, the Missouri Department of Corrections, had discriminated against her based on her sexual orientation.

During jury selection in district court for that lawsuit, Finney’s attorney asked the prospective jurors if they were Christian and held the belief that homosexuality was a sin. Her lawyer then requested for the judge to dismiss the three jurors from the jury pool who replied affirmatively about their sincere religious beliefs concerning homosexuality.

The state appealed on the grounds that the prospective jurors had been discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

However, an appeals court upheld the dismissals based on the explanation that they were rejected for their beliefs about homosexuality and it was assumed that they couldn’t be impartial and unbiased toward the lesbian plaintiff, even though the jurors insisted they could be.

The case then moved on to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. However, as part of the denial, Samuel Alito used the opportunity to reiterate warnings that were first raised in 2015. It was then that SCOTUS ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. At the time, concerns were voiced that the decision could perversely lead to state-sanctioned discrimination against those with sincere religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality.

In his five-page statement, Alito highlighted another case where two jurors were also released because of their Christian beliefs. That case also involved a lesbian plaintiff as was reported by the Washington Examiner. He then went on to clarify his concerns about the lower court’s ruling.

He wrote:

“I agree that we should not grant certiorari in this case, which is complicated by a state-law procedural issue, but I write because I am concerned that the lower court’s reasoning may spread and may be a foretaste of things to come.

In this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be “labeled as bigots and treated as such by the government.”

The opinion of the Court in that case made it clear that the decision should not be used in that way, but I am afraid that this admonition is not being heeded by our society.

Alito then confronted the idea that these types of cases bring to light and pointed out that the attorney representing Finney asked a question that:

conflated two separate issues: Whether the prospective jurors believed that homosexual conduct is sinful and whether they believed that gays and lesbians should not enjoy the legal rights possessed by others.

Before us, the Department of Corrections argues that these for-cause dismissals were unconstitutional, and I agree that the Court of Appeals’ reasoning raises a very serious and important question that we should address in an appropriate case.

The judiciary, no less than the other branches of State and Federal Government, must respect people’s fundamental rights, and among these are the right to the free exercise of religion and the right to the equal protection of the laws.

When a court, a quintessential state actor, finds that a person is ineligible to serve on a jury because of his or her religious beliefs, that decision implicates fundamental rights.

I would vote to grant review, in this case, were it not for the fact that the Court of Appeals concluded that the Department of Corrections did not properly preserve an objection to the dismissal of the two potential jurors and, thus, that their dismissal was reviewable under state law only for plain error. Because this state-law question would complicate our review, I reluctantly concur in the denial of certiorari.

As the judge so succinctly stated, SCOTUS has been hampered by state laws in these cases and, because of those overlapping conditions, has had to refuse review of the appeals court’s decisions. However, as he wrote in his summary, it raises the “very serious and important question that we should address in an appropriate case.”

Jurors should not be dismissed simply because they answer in the affirmative when asked if they are Christians, or when they answer that they believe homosexuality or lesbianism is a sin. The real question that should be asked is if the person, despite those beliefs, agrees with the fact that the accused still has equal rights under the law.

 As we know, there are some religions that are much less tolerant of alternative lifestyles than Christianity. Still, it seems that decisions such as this fail to recognize that tolerance and instead demonize Christians. After all it was Jesus Christ that said:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?