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The highest court in the land has ruled that discrimination against millions of Americans like me is OK because one person imagines their religious freedom might someday be at risk if they ever decide to establish a website business and, by some odd chance, a same-sex couple wants to obtain the offered service.
This is a new low point for the Supreme Court. The Constitution’s First Amendment establishes the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances — a genuine grievance, not one that’s imagined.
My blood boils when I hear that religious freedom is threatened. I respect that freedom, but it’s not freedom they want; they already have that. They want control. And it looks like the high court will let the right wing impose its religious beliefs on the rest of us. We are on that slippery slope now.
My heart cries for the young people at risk of losing the rights my generation fought for so valiantly. I hope they will go to the voting booth every chance they get to ensure that we have freedom from religion, too.
Richard Hutson, San Francisco
Raise number of justices
In 1879, the California Constitution was amended to raise the number of state Supreme Court justices from five to seven, which remains to this day. Now the state’s population is over 39 million, about what the population of the United States was in 1869 when the U.S. Supreme Court was increased from seven justices to the present nine.
Clearly, it is time to increase the number of California Supreme Court justices from seven to nine.
Congress should similarly increase the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices from nine to 11 or 13. It has stood at nine for 154 years, while the U.S. population has ballooned almost 10-fold since 1869.
While it may take a state Constitutional amendment to increase the size of the California Supreme Court, only an act of Congress is needed to enlarge the U.S. Supreme Court. But California should show the way to the rest of the nation by acting first to make its high court more democratically proportionate to the growth.
Jerome Garchik, San Francisco
Systemic racism exists
Regarding “Reparations to Black people are unfair. Here’s what will make up for past racism” (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, July 6): I take issue with the argument that we should not pay reparations for “sins that occurred long ago in other parts of the country.”
Anyone disputing that white people have benefited and still benefit from systemic racism flunked American history. Systemic racism has played a role in education, health care, ownership, employment and virtually every other facet of life since this nation’s founding and continues to this day.
A one-time payout alone would mean little if African Americans don’t have equal access to education, employment, health care or housing. I would hope that reparations would address these shortcomings in our society.
Ralph Stone, San Francisco
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