In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that we needn’t eviscerate the 1st Amendment to satisfy the Religious Reich quite yet… the tattered 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Amendments were unavailable for comment.
The American Taliban was waiting with bated breath over the recent Supreme Court decisions regarding the display of The Ten Commandments (the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, not the Cecil B. DeMille movie) in and around courthouses. The cases arose from framed copies of the Ten Commandments displayed inside a Kentucky courthouse and a big stone graven image displayed on the grounds of a Texas courthouse.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struggled in a pair of 5-4 rulings Monday to define how much blending of church and state is constitutionally permissible, allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed outside the Texas state Capitol but not inside Kentucky courthouses.
In its first rulings on the issue in a quarter-century, the high court said that displays of the Ten Commandments on government property are not inherently unconstitutional. But each exhibit demands scrutiny to determine whether it amounts to a governmental promotion of religion, the court said in a case involving Kentucky courthouse exhibits.
In effect, the court said it was taking the position that issues of Ten Commandments displays in courthouses should be resolved on a case-by-case basis.
…[F]ramed copies in two Kentucky courthouses went too far in endorsing religion, the court held. Those courthouse displays are unconstitutional, the justices said, because their religious content is overemphasized.
In contrast, a 6-foot-granite monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol — one of 17 historical displays on the 22-acre lot — was determined to be a legitimate tribute to the nation’s legal and religious history.
“Of course, the Ten Commandments are religious — they were so viewed at their inception and so remain. The monument therefore has religious significance,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority in the case involving the display outside the state capitol of Texas.
“Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment clause,” he said.
It’s interesting how these decisions get made, isn’t it? A framed piece of paper with Judeo-Christian scripture is considered to be “overemphasizing” religion, but a six-foot granite monument with Judeo-Christian scripture is… what, subtle?
In my study of this issue, it all seems to come back to the idea of ceremonial deism; the idea that if government endorsement of religion is vague enough to be considered a mere representation of our religious history, then it is okay. And even as a Positive Christian Atheist, I’m somewhat accepting of that. I don’t freak out (much) at money that says “In God We Trust” and I don’t begrudge anyone’s desire to add “under God” to their Pledge of Allegiance.
Of course, our mullahs of the American Taliban aren’t as accommodating as I am. Denying the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses to them is blasphemy! To think that human sinners could come up with a system of morality and laws without the imprimatur of God’s Holy Book (and the men in $1500 Armani suits and Lincoln Town Cars to interpret It for us) is outrageous? Here’s a sample of their thoughts from AgapePress
Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family said by ruling against the display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courtrooms — but, in a separate decision, stating a granite monument in Texas depicting the Decalogue is constitutional — the Supreme Court “tore a hole through the First Amendment.”
Dobson sees very little in the seemingly contradictory decisions to be encouraged about. “This was no affirmation of the right of religious expression,” he said in reference to the Texas ruling. He then paraphrased what he feels that ruling essentially stated:
“It’s okay to keep a Ten Commandments monument on state-owned land, so long as you don’t consider what’s written on the state tablets to be anything more than empty words from a bygone era that is only worth remembering as a distant point on a timeline.” (You mean, as long as it’s treated as history, and not the holy words of your religion? What part of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” don’t you get?
He added that the 5-4 vote in the Texas case was “chilling” because it means that four justices sitting on the Supreme Court bench “can’t even condone the Commandments under decidedly non-religious circumstances.” And if just one of those five justices in the majority had changed their vote, Dobson added, “sandblasters would have had to be taken to just about every government building in Washington, DC — including the Supreme Court itself.” (Because Moses delivering the Ten Commandments is one of the carvings on the Supreme Court walls, as part of a mural of lawgivers throughout history. Sorry, SpongeDob, won’t happen. They’ve been pretty consistent about those displays in an areligious historical context.)
The closeness of both votes motivated Dobson to call upon his listeners to prepare to be involved in the anticipated fray over Supreme Court vacancies. “[T]he next justice must be a strict constructionist, a jurist who understands his or her role is to uphold, not shred, the Constitution,” he said. (Litmus test? Who ordered the litmus test?)
“All people of faith … must be prepared to make their voices heard to make sure that a future Supreme Court lineup doesn’t completely eradicate even our rights as individuals to acknowledge God publicly.” (Pity the poor marginalized Christians, with their 75% of America’s population, churches in every neighborhood, six cable/satellite networks, the only radio station that comes in clearly in the boonies, their holy book in every motel room, religious references inextricably laced throughout our culture, 600-million-dollar movie blockbusters, the all-time best-selling fiction novel series, and a paid day-off federal holiday to worship the birth of their Savior!)
…
Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida says were it not for the public acknowledgment of God, America would not exist. “Our nation came into being because we acknowledged God,” Kennedy says in a press release. “Independence, the Founders said, was something to which they were entitled by ‘the laws of nature and of nature’s God.'” (Is this the time to bring up that “nature’s God” was a reference to the Deist, not Christian, belief system, a system that rejected Christian religious dogma in favor of scientific inquiry and critical thinking?)
As for the rulings, Kennedy is blunt in his assessment. “This is not law,” he says. “This is the consequence of the Court’s abandonment of the plain text of the Constitution.” In effect, he adds, the Supreme Court has amended the Constitution “to make it mean and say something at odds with the text of the Constitution and with American history.” Again, what part of “Congress shall make no law…” isn’t the “plain text” part?
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Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families also sees, in the majority decision in the Kentucky case particularly, a continued misinterpretation of the so-called “separation of church and state” argument that detractors often read into the First Amendment. Of Justice David Souter’s opinion that the Kentucky case demonstrated an advancement of religion by government instead of neutrality toward religion, Bauer states that Souter “seems to be suggesting that a display of the Ten Commandments may be constitutional so long as it is devoid of any religious significance.” (Now you’re getting it!)
