St. Maximos' Hut

My colleague Jonathan Adler has a (as usual) incisive analysis of Judge Alito's nomination in today's WSJ.

On the possible implications for religion cases, Jonathan says:

One area we may expect to see differences between the two [Judge Alito and Justice Scalia, with whom he is often compared] is on the First Amendment. Judge Alito's record suggests that he is more sympathetic to religious liberty claims, and more willing to hold that purportedly neutral government regulations unnecessarily impede upon the right to live in accord with one's religious ideals. He has ruled favorably in challenges by Muslims and Native Americans who argued that local laws impermissibly burdened the exercise of their faiths. There are also indications a Justice Alito could take a more expansive view of constitutional protection for free speech, including religious expression. In several cases he has voted to protect public school students' rights to express their own religious views.