New Wave Of Anti-Protest Laws May Infringe On Religious Freedoms For Indigenous People

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This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1381057
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Bad News, this

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It’s too bad the religious freedom stuff doesn’t apply to non-evangelical Christians, according to the Republican Supreme Court, as well as courts and legislatures across the land. Somehow, the Constitution’s clear statement about respecting all religions and not favoring any under the law is being ignored…instead, we are marching towards a Christian theocracy that is completely unconstitutional. Hopefully the effort fails, otherwise our democracy will be broken.

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Why should Indians get special protesting rights? They should be treated the same as everyone else, per the 14th Amendment.

Make a case against the laws without resorting to ethnic setasides.

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Did a Native American invent the light bulb!?!? NO!

CASE CLOSED!!!

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“To begin the gathering, Indigenous elders led a public religious ceremony.”

Nothing could have possibly irritated the white Christian dominionists more…except maybe interfering with Big Oil in some fashion.

What’s that?

Oh…

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Nothing new. SC US vs Montana in 1983 gave all states priority over Native American water rights egreed to by treaty. Same thing the Israelis just did to the Palestinians.
Shameful.

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Sovereign rights and treaty rights are inseparable from Native American rights. It’s entirely different than any other ethnicity. They were here first and we nearly wiped them out. They deserve special treatment.

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I’ve long been waiting for Native Americans to use the new “religious freedom” laws passed by the GOP to enforce their sovereign rights. There appear to be at least 4 votes in the SCOTUS for this (3 liberals + Gorsuch):

I wouldn’t be surprised if SCOTUS conservatives somehow find a way to say that “religious freedom” does not apply to non-Christian religions. However, it would expose that these laws are about protecting white Christians, not religious freedom.

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Apparently the First Amendment only applies to White folk “of the proper religious background”.
This sucks.

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These “laws” kinda stomp all over the first amendment, don’t they? “Peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” is still in the English language is it not?

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Illegal…esp. if Black, Brown, Native American, democrat.

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The very fact that the federal government made sovereign-to-sovereign treaties with Native groups (regardless of whether they have been respected) makes this not comparable to the situation of any other ethnic or religious minority.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2018/11/30/native-perspectives-american-indian-religious-freedom-act/

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In the case of Native Americans, they seem to have this covered.

Indeed, some experts estimate more than 80 percent of native Americans claim membership in a Christian church …

https://tribalcollegejournal.org/crossing-cultures-growing-number-christian-churches-work-support-destroy-indian-spirituality

(Those are the most current numbers I could find)

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Funny how the most absolute rights we have are always brushed aside whenever they get in the way of fossil barons. Fossil barons specifically.

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“Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground”

Midnight Oil

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Timber War Redux. As before, so it shall be, until all the Earth lays threshed.

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I don’t understand; tribal water rights are senior to state ones and that is supported both explicitly by scotus

In this case, the Klamath Tribes’ treaty water rights were confirmed once again as the most senior water rights in the Basin;

and implicitly

Judge Martinez held that the 1854-5 Stevens Treaties, by which the Tribes ceded vast amounts of land for settlement, would have been understood by the Tribes at the time as a guarantee that there would forever be salmon available to them. He further held that the fish-blocking culverts were an impermissible infringement on the Tribes’ treaty rights.

https://celp.org/2018/07/12/culvert-case-update/

as well as being a longrunning expectation that lands held in trust had the senior water right when they went into trust

https://www.justice.gov/enrd/federal-reserved-water-rights-and-state-law-claims

in other words Tribes fully expect to have senior rights retained both directly for lands not ceded under treaty and indirectly for resources retained even in ceded lands

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Nonsense. There is no treaty right to protest. Ethnic setasides are always a bad idea.