The Supreme Court's three liberals sadly, but unsurprisingly, joined three conservatives in upholding the planned transfer of sacred Apache land to mining company Resolution Copper, turning the site of thousands of years of religious ritual into a two-mile-wide crater filled with industrial runoff:

The land in question had been under federal protection for decades, until Republicans added language allowing the federal government to sell or swap the land to the mining companies into a must-pass defense bill in 2014. Federal planning records show that extracting the deposit would over the course of several decades turn Oak Flat — which the Apache call Chí’chil Bildagoteel — into a nearly two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep industrial crater.

Gorsuch, who has strongly supported Native rights from the bench, penned a passionate dissent:

However, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote a dissent — joined by his fellow conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas — saying the majority’s decision not to take the case was “a grievous mistake” and “one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”

Gorsuch said he had “no doubt” that the high court would have heard the case “if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral” rather than a Native American sacred site.

“Faced with the government’s plan to destroy an ancient site of tribal worship, we owe the Apaches no less,” Gorsuch wrote. “They may live far from Washington, D.C., and their history and religious practices may be unfamiliar to many. But that should make no difference.”