‘Warped history’: how the US supreme court justified gutting gay rights

Rightwing justices claim to rule in the Founders' image. In reality, they disregard 250 years of constitutional law, simply to punish fellow Americans who do not share their values

The extreme religious right's mission to roll back civil rights from abortion to public accommodations is being fueled by false facts and false history. Recent articles in the New Republic have documented the shaky factual foundation behind 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, the case in which the supreme court held that a website design business owned by an evangelical Christian, Lorie Smith, could refuse service to same-sex couples. Even more troubling, the history undergirding the majority's reasoning is misleading and dangerous to the separation of church and state.

Tragically, the religious right knows it has a friendly audience in the six conservative Catholic justices on the supreme court, who have been partners in shaking the foundations of fundamental rights. The justices' new standard is whether a constitutional right is grounded in history and tradition", the latest byword for the bogus doctrine of originalism". So they need some history, and apparently any history will do.