Read: When conservatives oppose “religious freedom”

Kagan also blasted the state’s “security” argument, writing, “The State has offered no evidence to show that its wholesale prohibition on outside spiritual advisers is necessary to achieve that goal.” Kagan ended her dissent by saying that despite Ray’s “powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated,” the Court refused to hear that claim in full “just so the State can meet its preferred execution date.”

Instead of learning from its mistake and expanding religious freedoms for all prisoners, Alabama, according to court filings, will now apparently bar all spiritual advisers from the execution chamber just so it doesn’t run afoul of the establishment clause.

Constitutionally protected freedoms and concerns for religious liberties now frequently take a back seat to specious security concerns and fearmongering. We witnessed such hypocritical intellectual gymnastics last summer with the Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban. The conservative majority held that the executive order was facially neutral and nondiscriminatory, willfully ignoring Trump’s history of anti-Muslim rhetoric, including his proclamation that “I think Islam hates us” and his call for a “total and complete shutdown of the entry of Muslims to the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Instead of the conservative justices joining a decision that prioritized the government’s religious neutrality, it was left to Justice Sonia Sotomayor to make that case in her dissent. However, in what was considered a major win by conservative Christian groups, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for gay clients. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against the Christian baker was infected with religious animus and “inappropriate and dismissive comments.”

If only the rest of us were lucky enough to elicit such sympathy for inappropriate comments, including those directly tweeted and uttered by the president. If the free-exercise clause allows you not to bake and sell a cake, maybe it should also allow you to have an imam at your own execution.

Read: The quiet religious-freedom fight that is remaking America

Whatever the legal merits of these individual decisions, the lasting impression they create for Americans is undeniable: Islam is a faith tradition that is not only inferior to Christianity but also inherently hostile to America. We practicing Muslims are treated as security threats by virtue of our existence and are left to conclude that we are not co-equal citizens of this country—even though we’ve been here since the beginning, when enslaved people were brought to this country. We are told to have faith in our legal institutions and promote the narrative of America as the land of the free, but decisions like this make me question whether Muslims, and other religious minorities, can look to the courts for equal and fair treatment.