The whole thread on Twitter is worth a read, especially the excerpts of Justice Sotomayor’s dissent.
How will evangelical churches and institutions, as well as other conservative religious organizations, abuse this ruling? Follow the link to leave comment on Substack, or join the conversation by following me on Twitter.
Just as they already abuse it. Take members of the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), or whatever they are calling it now, which has members outside the US too. They've always required their full members to exclude from employment anyone who is not a trinitarian Christian, and some of these members further require their faculty to be members of specific denominations and sign doctrinal and other statements constraining their speech and actions (in all areas of life) typically regarding sexuality these days, but creationist positions have a history there too. Some even require that faculty either homeschool their children or enroll them in their associated K-12 schools, which in some states have been funded through tax-free student tuition organizations (STOs) and denominational contributions, which means employers, churches, and schools all share and discuss the private financial and other information they share on their members, often quite casually.
Under these conditions, a non-employee spouse or dependent child had better not come out as non-cishet or engage in any public speech or democratic activism contrary to this airtight theocratic system or their employee spouse will be threatened with job termination, their children will be harassed, and their property will be vandalized. The same things will happen if any family members take a contrary position in any local politics to the theocratic regime's old boy network, which is indeed all male.
It will also be unremarkable to get a call from a church secretary asking if there's a problem and you need financial help because your tuition payment to the school is late, even though the school is not formally tied to the church congregation.
If a college faculty member belongs to a church that does not contribute to the private school funding, he will be pressured by the school to donate at a higher level than his colleagues.
If a teacher at the Christian school that many parents have warned about and sought to have their children avoid ends up in prison for sexually molesting several hundred students over more than a decade, nothing fundamentally changes to the strictures families are under regarding school choice.
If sexual assault, sexting, revenge porn, and racist, homophobobic, islamophobic, and sexist targeting of minors is adversely affecting your child's security and well-being in this type of Christian K-university system at any level, you can be certain it will be covered up, whistleblowers will be punished, and you remain locked in unless you are prepared to leave or be pushed out.
It is possible and even common for mayors, city council members, etc. to be elected leaders in the local churches and school boards of trustees, etc. It is probably unusual for any "city father" (yes, typically all male and referred to as such) not to hold several or all of these roles in his career sequentially or concurrently.
Faculty divorces will be investigated via university administrators and church disciplinary courts (consistories) as well as other interested parties from employers and busybody neighbors and relatives. Private investigators retained by the university will be used to confirm affairs or non-marital cohabitation even of people engaged to be married if one is an employee. Couples in the process of potential separation may be "counseled" and directly pressured by employers and related church entities to remain married.
In such a town there will be an extensive sexual predator list composed primarily of cishet males who offended at age 18-19 with a cishet female <18. There will also be a long history of older males of fairly high status who were known to engage in consensual relations with students and younger males over a long period of time until something suddenly makes it a scandal.
These are all things that happened to me, my family, or around us with friends, reatives, and acquaintances during the Obama years.
Just as they already abuse it. Take members of the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), or whatever they are calling it now, which has members outside the US too. They've always required their full members to exclude from employment anyone who is not a trinitarian Christian, and some of these members further require their faculty to be members of specific denominations and sign doctrinal and other statements constraining their speech and actions (in all areas of life) typically regarding sexuality these days, but creationist positions have a history there too. Some even require that faculty either homeschool their children or enroll them in their associated K-12 schools, which in some states have been funded through tax-free student tuition organizations (STOs) and denominational contributions, which means employers, churches, and schools all share and discuss the private financial and other information they share on their members, often quite casually.
Under these conditions, a non-employee spouse or dependent child had better not come out as non-cishet or engage in any public speech or democratic activism contrary to this airtight theocratic system or their employee spouse will be threatened with job termination, their children will be harassed, and their property will be vandalized. The same things will happen if any family members take a contrary position in any local politics to the theocratic regime's old boy network, which is indeed all male.
It will also be unremarkable to get a call from a church secretary asking if there's a problem and you need financial help because your tuition payment to the school is late, even though the school is not formally tied to the church congregation.
If a college faculty member belongs to a church that does not contribute to the private school funding, he will be pressured by the school to donate at a higher level than his colleagues.
If a teacher at the Christian school that many parents have warned about and sought to have their children avoid ends up in prison for sexually molesting several hundred students over more than a decade, nothing fundamentally changes to the strictures families are under regarding school choice.
If sexual assault, sexting, revenge porn, and racist, homophobobic, islamophobic, and sexist targeting of minors is adversely affecting your child's security and well-being in this type of Christian K-university system at any level, you can be certain it will be covered up, whistleblowers will be punished, and you remain locked in unless you are prepared to leave or be pushed out.
It is possible and even common for mayors, city council members, etc. to be elected leaders in the local churches and school boards of trustees, etc. It is probably unusual for any "city father" (yes, typically all male and referred to as such) not to hold several or all of these roles in his career sequentially or concurrently.
Faculty divorces will be investigated via university administrators and church disciplinary courts (consistories) as well as other interested parties from employers and busybody neighbors and relatives. Private investigators retained by the university will be used to confirm affairs or non-marital cohabitation even of people engaged to be married if one is an employee. Couples in the process of potential separation may be "counseled" and directly pressured by employers and related church entities to remain married.
In such a town there will be an extensive sexual predator list composed primarily of cishet males who offended at age 18-19 with a cishet female <18. There will also be a long history of older males of fairly high status who were known to engage in consensual relations with students and younger males over a long period of time until something suddenly makes it a scandal.
These are all things that happened to me, my family, or around us with friends, reatives, and acquaintances during the Obama years.