WEBVTT - Parents Object to LGBTQ Books 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:07.400 You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.240 Uncle Bobby's Wedding is a story of a same sex 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.360 wedding where a niece worries that her uncle will not 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.160 have as much time for her after he gets married. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.720 It's one of five books with LGBTQ characters at the 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.880 center of a Supreme Court case, and it seemed more 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.720 like book Club during the Supreme Court oral arguments when 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:34.199 liberal Justice Sonya so to Mayor and conservative Justice Samuel 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.760 Alito gave competing interpretations of the book. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.960 Because I'm looking at the books. I've looked through all 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:47.320 of them. They have two men Little Bob Bobby's Wedding 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.000 where they're getting married. One is black and one is white. 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.160 In this rendition of the book, I had one with mice. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.200 The two male mice looked identical to me. Is looking 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.880 at two men getting married? Is that the religious objection? 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.920 I don't think anybody can read that and say, well, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.120 this is just telling children that there are occasions when 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.399 men marry other men. Uncle Bobby gets married to his 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:21.200 boyfriend Jamie, and everybody's happy and everything is you know, 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.280 it portrays this everyone accepts this, except for the little 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.440 girl Chloe, who has reservations about it, but her mother 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.320 corrects her, No, you shouldn't have any reservations about this. 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:39.760 As I said, it has a clear mora, It has 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:41.440 a clear moral message. 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.760 Just answer my question is looking at the pictures, is 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.440 there any affidavit from any parent that merely looking at 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.320 people getting married holding hands, none of them are even 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.040 kissing in any of these books. The most they're doing 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.760 is holding hands. That exposure to that is coercion. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.360 Welcome back to the culture wars at the Supreme Court 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:11.600 where public school parents are objecting to incorporating LGBTQ friendly 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:17.000 books into elementary school curriculum on religious grounds, and after 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.160 two and a half hours of oral arguments, it seemed 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.000 clear that the Conservative justices will back the parents who say, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.400 my guest is First Amendment law expert Caroline Malcorbin, a 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.120 professor at the University of Miami Law School. So, Caroline, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.359 in addition to Uncle Bobby's wedding, which was thoroughly discussed 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.040 at the oral arguments, there's a book called Pride Puppy 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.160 about a puppy who gets lost at an LGBTQ pride parade. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.360 Another called Born Ready is about a transgender child who 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.040 wants to identify as a boy. The point being these 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.800 books are not about religion, their stories with LGBTQ characters. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:00.360 Yeah. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.359 So, basically, the case that the Supreme Court heard oral 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:10.959 argument on Tuesday morning concern a religious liberty challenge brought 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.799 by parents who argue that they had a constitutional pre 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:21.600 exercise right to prevent their children from reading books with 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:27.120 LGBTQ characters. And from the tenor of the argument, it 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.400 does seem quite likely that the Supreme Court will agree 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.680 with them and grant them this as a constitutional right. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.360 And to be clear, these are parents of children in 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:40.120 public school. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.480 Did the Court readily accept the idea that, you know, 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.600 books about a puppy who gets lost at an LGBTQ 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.080 pride parade or a transgender child who wants to identify 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:58.320 as a boy, that these are against the Christian beliefs 0:03:58.360 --> 0:03:59.520 of the parents. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.400 So definitely the parents bringing them are religiously conservative, although 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.280 they're not only Christian. I think there are also some 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:13.360 Muslim parents as well. And the justices very much accepted 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:18.560 the idea that having children read these books would impose 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:23.760 a substantial burden on the parents free exercise, which is 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:30.719 a stunning expansion of what it means for the government 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:36.120 to impose a substantial burden on someone's religious exercise. So originally, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.760 when we thought about government imposed burdens, it would be 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:46.680 something like the government is preventing you from observing a 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.760 tenant of your faith, like the government made it impossible 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.960 for you to observe your sabbath or participate in the 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.760 sacramental use of peyote, something that was really central religious practice. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.560 The Rabbits Court has already expanded what counts as a 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:14.320 substantial burden to not just view yourself violating a religious tenant, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:20.800 but for someone to endorse or facilitate a third party's 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.000 violation of religious tenants. So we have the Supreme Court 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.200 being very sympathetic to people who argue that baking a 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.320 cake for a same sex wedding would be akin to 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:39.680 adorsing the sin of same sex marriage or facilitating the 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.600 sin of same sex marriage. That first expansion was itself 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.240 already quite a broad reading of what counts as a 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.640 substantial burden. But what we may see after the Supreme 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.599 Court hands down its decision in this case is just 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.120 hearing about people who act in a way that's contrary 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.760 to your religious tenants suffices to be a substantial religious burden, 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.240 because that's ultimately what's going on in these public schools. 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:16.760 The children are hearing about the existence of two men 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.680 getting married, or they become aware that there are transgender 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.360 people in the world, and if that information is not 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.919 accompanied by a condemnation of it, then it seemed like 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.160 there were five justices who thought that that could amount 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.640 on a very serious infringement on the parents' free exercise rights. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.120 I am willing to bet that there are at least 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.320 five justices who thought that there is a free speech 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:48.160 violation here. 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:49.720 I think there might even be six. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.239 What I did say, at least five, though I would 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.560 say I think Justice Gorsus was going for a different theory. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.960 So what were the main concerns of the conservative about 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:01.679 these books? 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:07.360 The main concern was that they were hearing about LGPT 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:14.680 community without hearing the condemnation of it, and therefore, in 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:22.200 their eyes, that equates to indoctrinating their children into accepting 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:28.640 gay people or transgender people, and that is contrary to 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.840 their own religions which condemn them. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.400 Justice Sodo Mayor said, haven't we made it very clear 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.200 that the mere exposure to things that you object to 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.440 is not coercion. And then she talked about this book 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.720 Uncle Bobby's Wedding, and she said that none of them 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.120 are even kissing in any of these books. The most 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.000 they're doing is holding hands. And then Justice Alito actually 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.520 read from the book, saying there was a clear moral message. 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.920 His argument was, this book not all only articulate that 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:06.760 these people exist, but it also conveys a message that 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:12.360 these people are people, and they're okay, and there's nothing 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.480 wrong with two men marrying each other. And that is 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:22.120 what he equates to indoctrination of children in the classroom, 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.880 which of course is not the only way to think 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:30.120 about what those books are doing. One of the central 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:37.160 goals of the public schools system is to train children 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:38.640 to live. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:40.000 In a democracy. 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:45.679 And one of the preconditions for us all coexisting together 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.160 is that we learn that we're not all alike, and 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.080 that even if there are people who are different from us, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:01.760 we should still treat them with dignity and humanity and 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:06.640 record them the same respect that we ourselves would like 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.960 to receive. And so I think the reason the school 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.880 included these books in the first place is to try 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:21.400 and teach that very basic civic lesson to little kids. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:27.559 But that message that these books, again, they're surprisingly innocuous. 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:32.800 I think the main point of the uncle Bobby's wedding 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.400 was that she was a little upset her favorite uncle 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.520 might get married and she wouldn't get to hang out 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.320 with him anymore. And the message she learned is she 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.360 didn't lose an uncle, she got another one. You know, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.600 that kind of message you often see in children's books. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:53.720 But again, the very presentation of the LGBT community as 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.920 regular people who we should not condemn as doing something 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:05.120 against I don't know, God's orders is considered to be 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.360 unacceptable to the religiously conservative families. 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.720 So the issue was whether the children of the parents 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.760 who object could opt out of the classes that include 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:21.560 these books. And apparently the school had tried that and 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:23.559 found that it was not manageable. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.800 So they argued that they had both the right to 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.720 notice of when the books would be read and the 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.600 right to off their children out if they were. And 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:38.040 as you said, schools did try. They started off by 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.160 attempting to accommodate everybody, and it really turned out to 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:47.360 be unworkable. And it was unworkable. I suspect for at 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.520 least a couple of reasons. Although again part of the 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.360 problem these cases is there's not a well developed record, 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.800 and so we don't know exactly how these books were 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.960 or were not you in the various schools. We just 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.200 sort of have intimations of things that happened. And so 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.560 one problem is with the notice because it's not always 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.200 clear cut when a book might end. 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:14.080 Up being used. 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.079 Yes, the teacher might plan a lesson and use it, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.679 but a teacher might also say, okay, you know, Tony, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.960 it's your turn to pick a book. Which book would 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.920 you like to read today? And Timmy goes to the 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.120 bookshelfs and pulls this out right. So, especially in the 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.000 younger grade, the attorney was trying to argue, you don't 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:37.160 have like distinct lessons. Sometimes you kind of hits more flexible, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.800 it's more flowing. So that's one issue, and then the 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.959 other issue is, well, what if you know half the 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.480 plas stops out, you have to have a whole nother 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.800 lesson plan to deal with them, because you have to 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.240 have someone to lack after the kids. You have to 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.120 have an alternate lesson plan for them, you have to 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.680 have an alternate space for them. And if you have 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.560 this kind of scenario multiplied by who knows what kind 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.760 of factor and who knows what other kind of issues 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.800 that parents might object to, it becomes absolutely unmanageable to 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.320 run a school with all these opt outs. 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.360 The conservative justices, a lot of them couldn't understand why 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.480 it was such a problem, but all three of the 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:26.800 liberal justices focused on the line drawing problems presented by this. 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:32.880 Case, because again, the principle that they were arguing for 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.360 is if there is something in the curriculum that a 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.320 religious parent objects to on the grounds that it is 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.360 contrary to their own faith, that they have the right 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.680 to know in advance that that it's going to be taught, 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.000 and the right to pull their children from the classroom. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.960 So there was no limit by age, there was no 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.680 limit by subject matter. And of course we live in 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.839 an magnificently diverse kind of tree where people have all 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.760 different kinds of beliefs, and so there was one line 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.080 of questioning is well, what if parents object to interracial marriages, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.040 do they get noticed? And what about if there are 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.960 some object to interfaith marriages, What if some belong to 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:21.040 religions that oppose having women who work outside of the home, 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.080 Are they now entitled to notice any times there is 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.920 a social studies class or a literagy class that features 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.080 a woman who's worked outside of the home. What about 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:37.160 parents who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.720 and take that to mean that evolution is false? Does 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.040 that mean that they can pull their kids from the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:49.640 evolution section of the of a biology class or and 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.800 this is another question that was asked, what if a 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:59.720 parent objects to a teacher using the appropriate pronoun for 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.800 transgender child in the class, does that mean that they 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.680 can say, I don't want my child in this class, 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.400 I'm entitled to a completely different teacher. And the lawyer 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.240 for the parents did concede that, yes, there were some 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.320 parents who would find that to be the substantial burden 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:23.000 on their own religious exercise if the teacher uses appropriate 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.440 pronouns for another transgender child in the class. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.320 And coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, we'll 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.240 talk about the next religion case the Supreme Court is 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.200 taking up next week. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg. 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.280 A divided US Supreme Court signal they will back public 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.000 school parents who are seeking to have their children opt 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:50.720 out of classroom lessons that incorporate LGBTQ friendly books. The 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:55.200 court's conservatives suggested support for parents who say school children 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.600 are being taught ideas that violate their families religious beliefs. 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.640 I've been talking to Professor Caroline Malacorbin of the University 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.800 of Miami Law School. So what is the question that 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:08.920 the Supreme Court is going to answer? 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.160 Well, the question before them is are these parents entitled 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.760 under the free exercise Clause to have the right of 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.520 notice and the right to opt their children out. How 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.960 the court gets there may depend on which route the 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.120 court takes, because there is more than one. We've been 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.360 focusing on a very traditional one where the court says, well, 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.440 this law is not neutral and generally applicable, it's sort 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:43.920 of targeting religion. There's a substantial burden on the religious parents, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:49.320 and the law fails to scrutiny. Under traditional doctrine, all 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.080 three of those requirements must be satisfied. So again, the 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:57.160 law is not neutral and generally applicable, but targets religion 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.320 in some kind of way. Second, what we've been sort 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.080 of talking about is does this requirement, does this book 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.840 impose a substantial burden on the parents' right to practice 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:14.640 their religions? And finally, can the government justify insisting that 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.000 everyone read this book? Does it pass the scrutiny? Is 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.120 there a compelling government interest that everybody read it? And 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.960 is there no other way the school can accomplish It's 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:31.960 really important government interests that don't infringe on the religious parents' rights, 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.440 And so it's quite easy to see how the court 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.000 could answer all those questions in a way that would 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.320 lead to a right. Now, the alternate, which I mentioned 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.160 briefly before, is something that such this gorstic seemed very 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:50.760 fixated on, and under his approach, from what I could glean, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:56.080 is he wouldn't even bother doing a distinct analysis of 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:01.040 whether reading the books imposes a substantial burden on the 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:07.480 parent's religion, Because the first question is is this a 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.119 neutral and generally applicable law? Does this target religion in 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.199 some kind of way? And I think he and some 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.440 other justices were trying to build an argument that this 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.760 rule was motivated in part by hostility to religion. And 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:28.119 if he can make that claim, then he is going 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.800 to argue you go directly to strict scrutiny. If there's 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.600 some kind of discrimination against the religious parents, he would 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.679 think that in itself is a substantial burden, and strict 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:44.040 scrutiny applies. So one way or another, the Quarter is 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:49.280 going to say dist infringes on people's religion, and the 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:54.359 government can't justify insisting on reading these books because ultimately 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:55.600 they could read other books. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:18:00.560 And Justice Skatanji Brown Jackson asked the question, do we 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.960 want federal judges quote, flipping through the picture books and 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.080 deciding whether these are appropriate for five year olds? 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:08.200 Yeah. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.680 I think she's trying to motivate the very strong sort 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:17.000 of balance of power issues and federalism issues, right because 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:22.560 one thought is that education should be under local control, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.879 and it will be a little less under local control 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.280 if the Supreme Court justices or deciding what books schools 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.479 can offer without having any challenges to them and what 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.080 books they cannot. And of course also she wanted to 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.480 emphasize that the decisions on the curriculum should be made 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:48.760 by the school boards, who are democratically accountable to the 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.919 people who go to those schools. I mean, the core 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.480 of our democracy is that the people making little decisions 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.000 are ultimately accountable to the people who put them into power. 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.680 And if it's the school board making decisions, then it 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.560 should be their decisions that people are able to vote on. 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.280 If it's the court making the decisions, well, the courts 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:11.720 are not accountable to the people. 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.000 I almost don't understand why the Court took this case 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.800 before the issue could percolate through the lower courts, before 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.480 it's known how these books are going to be used 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.920 in lessons or you know, how teachers plan to use them. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.960 I mean, it's so amorphous, it's just the books are bad. 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:36.240 I cannot answer that question, although it does seem part 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:42.640 and parcel of a Supreme Court dedication to ensuring that 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.080 those who belong to conservative religions pretty much get what 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.840 they want, especially if it's at the expense of the 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:52.520 LGBTQ community. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.399 And just to that point, about a dozen cases in 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.080 the past decade, the Supreme Courts expanded the role of 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.560 religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of gay rights. 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.280 So we had the Supreme Court in twenty twenty three 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.680 ruling in favor of a Christian web designer who didn't 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.400 want to create sites for same sex weddings, even though 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.120 she'd never been asked yet to create a same sex 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.720 wedding site. You had in twenty twenty two the high 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.560 school football coach they sided with who said he had 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.480 the constitutional right to pray at the fifty yard line 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.080 right after games. And then in twenty eighteen, of course, 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.520 you had the famous case about the baker who didn't 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.200 want to bake wedding cakes for same sex couples. 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.840 I can here more. Don't forget the city of Philadelphia 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.600 has to do a lot. It's government funding to social services, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.320 even if they discriminate against LGBTQ parents. And your mention 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.560 of the coach case, this is the case where the 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:57.040 Supreme Court rejected establishment cause challenges to a coach that 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:02.320 was praying in front of his students, his players, and 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.800 some of them said they felt like they had no 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.600 choice but to participate. And I just want to highlight 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:14.359 how the court was so dismissive of the claims of 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.120 the players that they would feel coerced to participate when 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.240 the coach who decides whether they play or not is praying, 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:24.440 and they seem to say, well, he has their right 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.200 to pray, and certainly no student would ever feel compelled 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.239 to join in. That's ridiculous. There's no evidence of it. 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.440 How could you even suggest something? 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:34.160 Right? 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:39.920 The really very dismissive of the idea that the students 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.480 who are not Christians and who do not want to 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.160 join in the prayer may feel like they have no choice. 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.120 And yet in this case, the mayor hearing about something 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.520 seems to be a gross infringement on someone's religious liberty. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.359 In other words, caring about an idea that people disagree 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:03.639 with is treated very differently. If it's conservative parents whose 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:09.320 children are hearing about the existence of LGBT community as 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:15.920 opposed to students who are actually present during their coaches prayers. 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:22.560 Is there a line that the conservatives won't cross? Where 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:23.840 is it? I haven't seen it. 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:26.960 Yeah, and again I know you are slu raising. A 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.320 slightly different point is are they going to be this 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:34.840 accommodating to parents making religious claims when they don't agree 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:35.200 with them? 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:35.920 Right? 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.240 So what if you have some I don't know, Unitarians 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.240 saying I do not want my child hearing anything complimentary 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.720 about Christopher Columbus because he was a you know, a 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.919 savage colonizer. So you better give me notice and a 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.200 right to opt out on any kindergarten, first grade, second grade, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:01.359 third grade lessons about Christopher Columbus, or maybe any of 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:06.480 the plantis dors. We'll see if those parents claim get 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.560 the same kind of treatment. 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:12.760 And there's another religion case coming up next week. The 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:16.160 justices are going to consider whether to approve the country's 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:18.439 first public religious charter school. 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:23.600 Yes, So the question is if the court does insist 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:28.359 that this religious charter school must go ahead, will it 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.679 do it on the grounds that it's ultimately really a 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:36.760 private school, in which case it's not necessarily expanding it's 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:42.320 already problematic doctrine that says if you fund a private 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.479 secular school, you also have to make funding available to 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.600 a private religious school, as opposed to ruling that said 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:58.640 the government must fund public religious schools. That would be 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:04.760 astonished and devastating to public school education. But either way, 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.360 I suspect it's not going to be a great outcome, 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:10.840 But I think how it gets decided is going to 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:13.800 make a huge difference. I want to emphasize one more 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:17.240 point about this argument that part of the mission of 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:22.080 public schools is to teach children how to get along 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:26.000 with all different kinds of people, and they're making that 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:30.879 lesson impossible if they say there are some kinds of 0:24:30.920 --> 0:24:35.760 people who are so awful that it violates people's religion 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:40.000 to even hear about them without getting a moral lesson 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:45.639 about how they're going to hell. And again, completely absent 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:50.639 in most of the Supreme Court justice's mind is how 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:58.240 devastating this kind of right would be for children who 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:03.080 belong to LGBT families, children who are gay, children who 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:09.000 are transgender. Right, why is half the class leaving when 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:13.720 we're finally going to read a story about me? Why 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:17.639 is half the class leaving when we're finally going to 0:25:17.680 --> 0:25:20.919 read a story about me? Is that really what we 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:23.600 want for public school education to look like? 0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:27.760 I haven't thought about that, Thanks Caroline. That's Professor Caroline 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:30.560 Malacorbin of the University of Miami Law School. 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:32.600 No, I have no intention of firing him. 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:36.360 I would like to see him be a little more 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:40.520 active in terms of his idea to lower interest Rate's 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:42.600 just a perfect time to lower interest rates. 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:47.600 President Trump didn't about face on Tuesday saying he won't 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:51.800 fire FED chair Edjr. Own Powell despite days of criticism 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:55.960 over the Central Banks policies like this. Just five days 0:25:56.000 --> 0:25:58.159 before I don't think he's. 0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:02.639 Doing the job. He's lake always do late, a little slow, 0:26:03.480 --> 0:26:07.520 and I'm not happy with him. I let him know it, 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:11.640 and if I want to, he'll be out of their 0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:12.160 real fast. 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:15.080 Believe me, Trump is known to change his mind and 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:18.960 his posture could shift yet again. So does he have 0:26:19.040 --> 0:26:22.960 the power to fire Powell? Joining me to answer that question? 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:26.600 Is constitutional law expert Harold Krant, a professor at the 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:30.320 Chicago Kent College of Law. The Federal Reserve Act says 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.800 that members of the Central Banks Board of Governors can 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:37.160 only be removed for cause. What does that mean? 0:26:37.600 --> 0:26:41.360 It means that the president before you movese the governor 0:26:41.600 --> 0:26:45.840 has to show some kind of neglective duties, misconduct, something 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:49.639 along those lines before someone can be removed from office. 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:53.080 And more importantly, perhaps is that any kind of removal 0:26:53.119 --> 0:26:56.160 than can be second guests in a court? In other words, 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:59.520 a court has the power than to determine whether the 0:26:59.560 --> 0:27:03.439 president had cause or not to a member of the 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:04.200 Board of Governors. 0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:09.199 So the law doesn't explicitly provide four cause protection for 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:11.359