September 05, 2003
YOU CAN'T HIDE YOUR FEVERED EYES:
The Court's Gone Too Far in Purging Religion From the Square (Stuart Taylor Jr., September 3, 2003, The Atlantic)
In its drive to purge the public square of endorsements and even accommodations of religion, has the Supreme Court stretched the Constitution's ban on "establishment of religion" too far? The answer is a qualified yes, in my view. While the lower courts have been quite right in Moore's case, and while the Supreme Court's major establishment-clause decisions seem correct on their facts, some of the justices' opinions exude indifference, or even hostility, to the interests of religious believers in maintaining innocuous ceremonial traditions that have long been sponsored by governments. Clowns such as Moore would have a harder time rallying such large constituencies if the high court justices mustered a bit more common sense and tolerance.They will have an opportunity to do that in two other cases that are in the pipeline. In the first, which the Bush administration has urged the Court to review, a federal appeals court infamously ordered "under God" excised from the Pledge of Allegiance, at least when recited in public school classrooms. In the second, another federal appeals court barred the Virginia Military Institute from having a brief, nondenominational prayer read by a chaplain to students before supper every evening.
The justices should reverse both appeals courts. They should also junk the feckless, 32-year-old, three-part "test" that they have sporadically invoked in establishment-clause cases, and replace it with a commonsense distinction between governmental bows to religion that are nonsectarian, rooted in tradition, and impose no real burden on dissenters, on the one hand, and religious exercises that are unconstitutionally coercive, sectarian, or discriminatory, on the other. [...]
The sad fact is that millions of people feel like outsiders every day, usually for reasons having little to do with religion. The burden of hearing religious believers talk about God at public events ranks too low on the scale of oppression to warrant a constitutional remedy. The Court's long-standing ban on state sponsorship of supposedly "voluntary" classroom prayer makes sense because impressionable schoolchildren inevitably feel strong pressure to participate. But there is far less pressure in the context of graduation ceremonies and football games. And even in classrooms, the tiny minority of children who find "under God" offensive can, if they wish, easily, and undetectably, skip those words when reciting the Pledge. Or they can skip the whole thing.
Such vague government references to God have "no tendency to establish a religion in this country or to suppress anyone's exercise, or non-exercise, of religion," Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez wrote in dissent from the Pledge decision, "except in the fevered eye of persons who most fervently would like to drive all tincture of religion out of the public life of our polity."
More to the point, there is no Constitutional right not to feel like an outsider and it's quite appropriate for a society to make those who diverge the furthest from its core principles feel just so. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2003 07:46 PM
For the record, women and blacks fought for and demanded those rights. White men didn't give them anything. They were taken by anger and drive and force. Good organizing didn't hurt either...
Posted by: Philip Shropshire at September 5, 2003 09:06 PMWe weep for the rivers of blood spilled by the suffragettes.
Posted by: oj at September 5, 2003 10:27 PMI said the pledge for decades without giving a thought to "... under God ..." despite being a benighted atheist.
Until the 9th Circuit Court's decision. In as much as Congress, at the behest of the Knights of Columbus, passed the law inserting that phrase, it seemed like a pretty clear cut First Amendment violation to me.
But so what.
What should be more important to religionists is the invocation of God's name becoming so routine, so much like verbal wallpaper as to become inaudible. For if that invocation escapes the notice of people like I, then it truly has achieved triviality.
Never mind that the core principles of this country are Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not knee-jerk responses.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 5, 2003 10:50 PMJeff:
From whence derive those rights?
Posted by: oj at September 5, 2003 10:54 PMThey were axiomatic, right?
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at September 6, 2003 02:21 PMWell, Tom, you are right. They were axiomatic assertions. And if they didn't work, we wouldn't be them now.
You can strip the word "Creator" out of the Declaration, and the axioms remain unchanged. As well as their fitness.
Posted by: Regards, Jeff Guinn at September 6, 2003 09:10 PMJeff:
That's actually the point; you can't do anything of the kind.
You can't speak of truths or inherent rights or any of that stuff, once you remove the Creator. So here's what you get.
"All men are equal." This is obviously false. No one would consider Ted Bundy the equal of Charles Darwin.
"To secure" "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" "Governments are instituted among men" You've effectively replaced God with the State, from which all "rights" are now to be derived.
It's like Jenga and you've removed the one block that keeps the whole tower standing.
Posted by: oj at September 7, 2003 12:33 AMRight on, there is no Constitutional right not to feel like an outsider. Well done.
There is, however, a Constitutional right to living in a nation free of state-sponsored religion. "Under God" in the pledge clearly crosses that line. The U.S. is not one nation under God, but, correctly, one nation under whatever religious deities--if any--one chooses to worship. Same deal with "In God We Trust" on money. Not true, we trust in whomever we [darn] well please. Just because a lot of people in the U.S. believe in God (or a specific Chistian God) changes nothing. These are simple, basic, fundamentals. Nobrainers.
Posted by: Jimmy at September 7, 2003 03:08 AMOJ:
One can say all men are created equal without specifying the manner of their creation. Never mind that I don't think the meaning of that sentence is changed in the least by dropping the word "creation."
Absent that word, Ted Bundy is no more Darwin's, or your equal, then with it.
And no, I haven't replaced God with the state, no matter how many times you say it. I'm saying that the results of those assertions are independent of how you spell "because." Replacing individual freedom with the state will lead to worse results no matter whether your "because" is transcendental or otherwise.
That's why states' rights is far, far more important. Given 50 laboratories, what works is bound to find its way to the fore.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 7, 2003 08:50 AMAs one of the very, very rare Catholic rednecks, I grew up accustomed to being an outsider of a sort.
Some people react OK to that, some not.
If you're running a government, though, you'd do well to be inclusive. I thought you guys admired
Reagan, with his big tent and all.
Anyhow, to the extent that I'm a statist, it would be because the state does things I like; and I am
irreligious on principle and antireligious based on unpleasant experience.
If you want to be admired and loved, do something admirable and lovable.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 9, 2003 06:05 PM