Supremely Embarrassing: "I like the Texas Supreme Court because..." Video Link

I don't know if anyone has seen this, but it IS well worth the time of 2.5 minutes.


http://www.vimeo.com/1853365

Texas Watch is a good advocacy group.


Sonia

Okay, I'm biased, but only because I represent a few of the "et als" in that case. :)

dg

I'm happy they ruled in your favor that one time, but really their record is 99.9% pro-business and .1 for citizen consumer.

:shrug:


Sonia

I fully expected them to go the other way & even at the COA level, we pulled a panel of the most conservative Rs on the court. You could have knocked me over with a feather when THAT decision was handed down.

So, they're not full asshats, but this decision isn't enough to get me to vote for any of them, don't worry.

dg

If you read the court's decision in the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Schubert case, the court said this:



Given this extremist court ruling from this summer, I cannot see how the could have possibly ruled against the religious sect in your case.

yes. Were you at the hearing in question? No? Then you don't know what you are talking about. I've got stories about what happened to the FLDS that would make your hair curl & your stomach churn. But I suppose you think that since it's a small, unpopular religious sect, it's okay because the government would NEVER do something like that to you. (guess again)

I don't give a damn what you think about the FLDS. They do have some strange beliefs. But had we let the State get away with the bullshit it was trying to pull off (namely, genocide), there would be nothing to stop them from doing the same thing to any other person or group. The Nazis were alive & well in San Angelo this spring. We stopped them. You're welcome.

And besides, you're comparing apples to oranges....the case you cited was between an individual & a private entity. The FLDS case involved State action based on a phone call known to be a hoax at the time the warrants were sworn out & where the State had to prove specific elements before removal of the children into foster care could be ordered.
dg

in the FLDS case.

To the contrary: the state was unequivocally wrong in the FLDS case and the court unequivocally reached the correct result in that case.

What I'm saying is that it was never in doubt which way the high court would rule. After the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Schubert decision, the outcome in the FLDS case was no longer in any doubt whatsoever.

Did you read that quote from the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Schubert case? The high court said "The Free Exercise Clause prohibits courts from deciding issues of religious doctrine" such as "the appropriateness of {the} belief in 'laying hands' ... because providing a remedy for the very real, but religiously motivated emotional distress in this case would require us to take sides in what is essentially a religious controversy, we cannot resolve that dispute."

The court couldn't rule that the outrageous tortious conduct at issue in the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God case was a nonjudiciable controversy, and then rule against the FLDS just a month later.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled so far outside of the mainstream on the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God case that it couldn't possibly rule against the FLDS in a case which the FLDS should have won even before the peculiar Pleasant Glade Assembly of God decision.

Whether or not the FLDS beliefs are mainstream or outside the mainstream is beside the point and completely irrelevant to the discussion. What's truly way outside the mainstream is the Texas Supreme Court's bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment to find an unprecedented hidden prohibition by which the court holds that church activities are immune from judicial scrutiny. That's completely nuts!