No Ban, No Wall, No Hate!

A disgraceful ruling upholding the disgraceful policy of a disgraceful president. That will be history’s verdict on the Supreme Court affirming Trump’s Muslim Ban version 3.0 in Trump v. Hawaii. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent should have been the Supreme Court’s ruling today. It articulates the principle that five of her colleagues abandoned: “The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. Our Founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment.”

Instead of upholding the promise of religious liberty, the five conservatives on the court chose to willfully neglect the long, deeply troubling record of Donald Trump’s own anti-Muslim words and deeds. As Justice Sotomayor explains, the Trump administration should not be permitted to launder candidate Trump’s clearly discriminatory taint and anti-Muslim bias into United States policy. One of the duties of the judicial branch is to examine the whys and wherefores presented by the executive branch, that duty is especially important when adjudicating the rights of vulnerable minorities and people targeted for hate. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch failed to serve as guardians against Trump orchestrated hate and cruelty today. History should not judge their decision kindly.

This flawed ruling shows the five conservative justices as willing to close their eyes to explicitly broadcast bigotry. Not every bigot provides clear, recorded evidence of their motivations beforehand. In Trump’s “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” he broadcast his vile, discriminatory intentions from the very beginning for all the world to see. What happens when bigotry hides behind a veil? What happens when the bigot-in-chief does not advertise his animus beforehand?

We the people can reject the absurd conclusions of the five justices who decided to uphold Trump’s Muslim Ban. We the people can choose sight instead of blindness and follow the example of Justice Sotomayor. We can see through the toxic bigotry and hate peddled by the Trump administration. We the people can embrace our Muslim brothers and sisters and reaffirm our core values. Let us now render our judgement: No ban, no wall, no hate!