Maybe Stop Trying to Be Funny, Samuel Alito

Stop trying to make your comedy career happen, Samuel. You’re bad at it.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito loves to try to be funny but he tends to just end up being really insulting and horrible, as evidenced by his behavior during this week’s oral arguments in a “religious freedom” (code for LGBTQ discrimination) case. This is not the first time he’s thought he was a giggle riot. He thought it was absolutely hilarious that he got to overturn Roe V. Wade. You know, that right laugh fest.

This week, the court heard arguments in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. The case is over a Colorado Christian artist who objects to the possibility of someday having to design wedding websites for same-sex couples because it is “against her religion” (which is already a whole thing because the bible says nothing about homosexuality so … jot that down, Lorie Smith). Alito took this as his opportunity to try out a comedy routine.

It started when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson posed a hypothetical question to Smith’s attorney Kristen Waggoner, asking if a white mall Santa could theoretically be allowed to refuse to take pictures with Black children. Waggoner responded that the white Santa would be able to refuse. I don’t know how that makes sense because the argument is that Lorie Smith can refuse service over her “religion” but with Jackson’s hypothetical, it has nothing to do with “religion” and everything to do with personal racist bias. Anyway, somehow Waggoner’s reasoning is NOT what we’re talking about because Alito’s awfulness managed to overshadow even that.

Alito thought that he had to continue Jackson’s analogy by asking if that meant that a Black Santa had to take pictures with children in KKK robes. Obviously the answer is no because, as Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson, pointed out, “Ku Klux Klan outfits are not protected characteristics under public accommodation laws.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor added that “presumedly, that would be the same Ku Klux Klan outfit regardless whether if the child was Black or white or any other characteristic.” Alito responded by chuckling, “You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits all the time.”

That “joke” is so inappropriate, as was the laughter it elicited from the room. This entire case is so gross and absurd and that it got escalated to the Supreme Court is shameful. But pair that with Alito’s comedy hour and it truly is laughable how horrible the majority of the Supreme Court currently is.

(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)