The US Supreme Court has ended their 2025 term by releasing several highly anticipated decisions. For the first time in several years, the court heard religious freedom cases that will have a major impact on the way First Amendment rights are interpreted for the foreseeable future.

It was a painful term that set us back decades.

The Supreme Court has been embracing Christian Nationalist ideals for years. As far back as 2014, the court began to prioritize extremist religious beliefs by exempting private businesses from an ACA mandate to provide contraceptives to employes. Over the next decade the increasingly political and conservative court has made it easier for public dollars to support private, religious schools, upheld prayer in public school settings, and permitted discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals if based in religious beliefs. And then in 2022 it overturned Roe v. Wade, setting us down the path of criminalizing abortion access.

This year, the court continued to embrace Trump's Christian Nationalist administration with decisions that threaten religious freedom for all and harm LGBTQ+ individuals, public education, and access to reproductive healthcare.

• U.S. v Skrmetti - the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against gender affirming care for trans youth. Kansas had already banned gender affirming care with a law passed this year, and this decision makes the path to victory for existing legal challenges in the state extremely difficult. On the same day, the Trump administration announced that it would end the LGBTQ+ specialized support line within the national suicide prevention hotline (988).
• St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School v. Drummond - in an unexpected, if temporary, victory for public schools, the court decision stopped the creation of a state funded religious charter school in Oklahoma. The decision was 4-4 with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself. It's safe to assume that another similar case will make it's way to the court in the next several years, and this time Justice Barrett will be able to participate in what will most likely be a decision in favor of public funds for religious schools.
• Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic - a victory for anti-abortion activists, the 6-3 decision effectively allows states to withhold Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics. Medicaid reimbursements are already federally prohibited for abortion services, but Planned Parenthood, as a qualified provider of reproductive and gynecological healthcare, could receive reimbursements for other services. The courts decision prohibits Medicaid patients from suing a state for directly interfering in their ability to choose where to receive services. This could essentially permit states to slash Medicaid funding to medical providers that they don’t want to support for political or religious reasons.
• Mahmoud v. Taylor - the 6-3 majority ruled that parents can remove their children from school on days when books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and storylines are taught because they violate their religious freedom. Books that were cited in the case include Pride Puppy, an alphabet book that features a lost puppy at a Pride parade. This will effectively restrict children from exposure to any positive depictions of queer life and prioritizes the extremist religious beliefs of the few over the rights of all others.
• Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton - in another 6-3 decision, the court upheld a Texas law, similar to a 2024 law passed in Kansas, that requires proof of identity and age to access explicit adult content online. The dissenting opinion concurred that states have a compelling interest to protect minors from obscene content, but argued that this broadly applied law also violates an adult’s right to constitutionally protected free speech. This conservative court broke legal precedent to align with the Christian Nationalist agenda to decide who has the right to constitutionally protected free speech, and who doesn’t.
• Trump v CASA, Inc. - the 6-3 decision skirted the legal question of Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, and instead upended the legal tool known as Nationwide Injunctions to challenge unchecked executive power. While legal scholars debate the short- and long-term impact of this ruling, all seem to agree that this, at least temporarily, gives Trump unprecedented power against the judicial system. Trump’s attempt to destroy birthright citizenship will be allowed to temporarily continue under this decision.

While we are discouraged by these court decisions, we are not giving up the fight to protect real Kansans from the theocratic regime that Trump and his allies are working to create. With your support, we will continue to fight the Christian Nationalist agenda here at home and in DC.

Donate to Mainstream and help protect church-state separation in Kansas.