It's the first Monday in October, so the Supreme Court is back on the bench, and mainstream media are telling readers which upcoming cases to care about.

SCOTUSblog collects links.

I'll just read the one in The Washington Post, from Robert Barnes, which I'm choosing because the headline so perfectly sums up the reason mainstream media think you could or should care: "Supreme Court faces politically charged election-year docket."

The "politically charged" issues that might matter to an ordinary person — because they might affect how you'll vote in the presidential election (the all-important question of our time) — are: "the legality of racial preferences to encourage diversity; how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty; how far government may go to restrict a woman’s right to abortion."

I'm not an ordinary person. I'm a law professor, and I've been a law professor for a very long time. From that perspective, I'm going to home in on the language discrepancy between: "how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty" and "how far government may go to restrict a woman’s right to abortion."

The "must" is deceptive if not wrong. The cases about accommodating religious believers are not about what the Constitution requires — what government must do — but about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") — which is a limitation that the federal government chose to take on and which the government may change by statute. We already know — and the current cases are not about — that the government need only treat religious believers the same as everybody else when it comes to regulating conduct. That's the constitutional law. As I've explained before on this blog, RFRA was a reaction to the Court's rejection of constitutionally required accommodation: "The RFRA bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman Chuck Schumer and in the Senate by Teddy Kennedy. (Each had a GOP co-sponsor). The Democrats controlled Congress, but the Republicans all voted for it too (with the sole exception of [arch-conservative] Jesse Helms)." President Clinton signed the bill, which he effused over: "The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen."

The government — Democrats and Republicans — chose to accommodate religion, and the Court is simply stuck determining what their statute means. Government can repeal or amend RFRA or put language in statutes (e.g., the Affordable Care Act) saying RFRA doesn't apply, so we are not talking about how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty.

Adjust your presidential preferences accordingly.