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Trump Judge Justin Walker, currently up for a promotion to the DC Circuit, attacks a mayor for discouraging drive-in church services—in a wildly intemperate opinion filled with inappropriate rhetoric and editorializing. (He’s auditioning for SCOTUS.) https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.kywd.116558/gov.uscourts.kywd.116558.6.0.pdf
As @JoshABlock has asked before, can a judicial opinion violate the Establishment Clause?
Does anyone seriously think Walker would issue the same ruling, with similarly heated and sectarian rhetoric, if an Imam sued to reopen his mosque?
(Leonard Leo’s friends on twitter will pretend to think it, but they are not serious.)
(Leonard Leo’s friends on twitter will pretend to think it, but they are not serious.)
Walker's distinction between "believers" and "nonbelievers" (first image) reminds me of Justice O'Connor's prescient warning in Lynch v. Donnelly (second image) about the problems that emerge when the government makes this distinction. https://casetext.com/case/lynch-v-donnelly
Incidentally, Walker is not the first Trump judge to claim that directing Christians to do or not do something on Easter is unconstitutional Christian persecution. Ho did it in 2018. Perhaps it's becoming a tradition. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/judge-james-ho-attacks-abortion-rights-while-accusing-a-lower-court-of-anti-christian-bias.html
