1 )I'm seeing a few conservatives, including people with JDs who should know better, argue that Bostock -- the Supreme Court's recent LGBTQ rights decision -- is an attack on "religious liberty." This claim isn't just wrong, it's an embarrassingly wrong claim. Let me explain why.

2) Generally speaking, people of faith bring two different kinds of "religious liberty" claims. The first, which the Supreme Court addressed in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, involves laws that single out a particular religion for inferior treatment.

3) Suppose a state passes a law saying that "no Christian may own a grocery store." This law violates the Constitution's Free Exercise Clause because it singles out Christians for lesser treatment. Under this law Christians are forbidden from doing something anyone else can do.

4) But Title VII, the law at issue in Bostock, raises no issues under Lukumi because Title VII does not single out any particular faith. It forbids ALL employers, regardless of faith or lack thereof, from engaging in sex discrimination.

5) The second kind of religious liberty suit is a bit more fraught, and the law governing these cases is more unsettled. The second kind of suit arises when someone seeks an exemption to a law that they disagreee with on religious grounds. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was such a case.

6) The important thing to understand about Hobby Lobby-style suits is that, if the plaintiff prevails, the law that they object to does not get struck down in its entirety. Rather, the prevailing plaintiff gains a personal exemption, but everyone else still must follow the law.

7) That's what happened in Hobby Lobby, which involved businesses whose owners objected to certain forms of birth control on religious grounds. The requirement that employee health plans cover contraception remained in effect. Certain business gained an exemption to that law.

8) And that brings me back to Bostock. Bostock held that federal law prohibits anti-LGBTQ discrimination by employers. No doubt some religious employers will object to this law and seek an exemption. I think they shouldn't get one. Many judges agree with me. Many others disagree.

9) But let's say that judges who disagree with me prevail. That means employers with a religious objection to LGBTQ people will gain an exemption from Title VII, but everyone else will still have to follow the law.

It does not mean that Title VII must be struck down entirely.

10) Now, here's the crucial point. If the remedy for a Hobby Lobby-style religious liberty violation was that the entire law that a religious person objects to must be struck down THEN IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE LAWS OF ANY KIND!

11) Think about it. One dude who belongs to an idiosyncratic faith claims that his religion forbids him from driving the speed limit. A court rules in his favor. So now ALL speed limits must be declared unconstitutional to accommodate this one person.

12) We are a big country. With near 330 million people,, it will probably be possible to find a single person who objects to any law on religious grounds. And if one person objects, poof! the entire law goes away. For everyone!

13) I should note that there are some limits on even the most expansive reading of cases like Hobby Lobby. Religious objectors do not get an exemption from laws that pass difficult-to-clear bar called "strict scrutinty." So maybe crucial laws, like murder bans, would stand.

14) But, in any event, calling Bostock an attack on "religious liberty" is an absurdity. Bostock said that a specific law imposes a universal obligation on all employers. Some of those employers will seek exemptions.

15) And if the courts deny those exemptions, then it is coherent (though, IMO, wrong) for conservatives to attack those decisions as undermining religious liberty.

But Bostock has nothing to say about religious liberty. At all.