Religious privilege of this sort was never intended for all belief systems, but rather for one type of religion. Sure, its advocates will on occasion rope in representatives of non-Christian faiths to lend the illusion of principle to their cause. But the real aim and effect of the religious liberty movement is to advance their idea of religion at the expense of everyone else.

If your religion or deeply held moral beliefs include the view that all people should be treated with equal dignity, then this religious liberty won’t do anything for you. If you’re a taxpayer who helps to fund your local hospital, a patient who keeps it in business, or a professional who works there, then your sincerely held religious and moral conviction that all people are entitled to equal access to the best medicine that science can provide and the law permits won’t stand a chance against a Catholic bishop’s conviction that some procedures are forbidden by a higher authority.

Today’s Christian nationalists will insist they are the only victims here. But that is as false as it is lacking in compassion. The terribly real effect of the kind of religious supremacy they seek is to target specific groups of people as legitimate objects of contempt. L.G.B.T. Americans, women and members of non-favored religions may be able to get the services they need from some other pharmacist or cake decorator or retirement home or emergency room — at least we have to hope so. But what they won’t get back is the equal dignity to which they are entitled — and that’s the point.

President Trump, as part of his kickback to the white evangelicals who got him elected, has fashioned this idea of religious supremacy into a cornerstone of his shambolic administration. In January 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services set up an office designed to make it easier for health care professionals to deprive their clients of medical services, including birth control and other forms of reproductive care, on the basis of religious belief. In July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed up with his own Religious Liberty Task Force. Already the Department of Labor is assuring federal contractors that it’s all right to violate anti-discrimination law as long as they can claim they did it on account of an implicitly defined set of religious or deeply held moral beliefs.

All of these detestable initiatives, however, are really just a preview of the damage Brett Kavanaugh would be able to deliver from the Supreme Court.

To understand the significance of Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, you have to know something about how he got to this crowning point in his career. Judge Kavanaugh comes from a hothouse carefully tended by the ideologues of the Federalist Society and given the stamp of approval by Mr. Trump’s court evangelicals and conservative Catholics. Having lost the so-called culture war on women’s and L.G.B.T. rights among the general public, Christian nationalists understand that the only way for their regressive views to dominate is if they control the courts.

The confirmation process brought to you by today’s Republican Party only serves to confirm the antidemocratic nature of Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment. Republicans defaulted on their Constitutional obligation to advise and consent on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. But now they are aiming to push Judge Kavanaugh’s through without anything close to a full revelation of his documentary trail.