Liberals dissent in 'culture war' decisions

The US Supreme Court's three liberal justices exerted waning influence during its recently concluded term, and their frustrations with the conservative majority spilled into public view in major cases involving President Donald Trump and issues such as transgender rights.

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In five of the biggest cases of the term, which wrapped up with its final rulings on June 27, the court's six conservative justices were in the majority and liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson were in dissent.

Top among these was the ruling on the term's final day that curbed the ability of judges to impede Trump's policies through nationwide injunctions. The other four came in cases at the heart of the American "culture wars." Those included rulings that upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, backed a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify the age of users in an effort to protect minors, let parents opt children out of public school classes with LGBT themes and allowed South Carolina to strip abortion provider Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funding.

The ideological divide was abundantly clear in cases in which the justices acted on an emergency basis, sometimes called the "shadow docket," which produced a string of orders permitting Trump to enact policies impeded by lower courts.