Archives for June 2005

June 30, 2005

SCOTUS on GOD

Great article in New Republic, by Leon Wieseltier, on both the Scalia dissent and the Rehnquist majority in the two Ten Commandments cases (which I talk about in the previous post), and how far both wandered from the path of legal analysis. Here's the final paragraph:

It is not the task of this Court, or any other Court, to suggest what God there is, or is not. This is an arrogance beyond any judicial activism. Judges do not know that there is a Supreme Being any more certainly than anybody else. (And at some point in the consideration of whether our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being we really must consider whether there is a Supreme Being.) There are democracies in the world that were conceived and implemented by religious people, and there are democracies in the world that were conceived and implemented by secular people. Religion has never secured any country or culture against immorality, and neither has irreligion. And there is something risible about the anxiety that religion is imperiled in America. To feel sorry for religion in America is a great waste of pity. Who in America is prevented from believing and practicing what religion? I understand that many God-fearing Americans think that they are living in the wilderness, but they are wrong. They are living in the metropolis, and in some respects they are ruling it. In his magnificent dissent in Zorach, written "[a]s one whose children, as a matter of free choice, have been sent to privately supported Church schools," Justice Jackson insisted that the opposition to release time for religious children in New York's public schools was not "anti-religious, atheistic, or agnostic." And he added: "My evangelistic brethren confuse an objection to compulsion with an objection to religion. It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar." The same may be said about our own evangelistic brethren. It is an infirm faith indeed that can be exalted by that cheesy slab of constitutionally protected stone in Austin.

posted by scott pilutik at June 30, 2005 12:43 AM

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June 28, 2005

traditional bullshit

I knew when I first saw that SCOTUS had split its decision in the 10 Commandments cases that the Dominionist Christians would pounce on the victory. They've not disappointed:

Within hours of yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, Christian groups announced a nationwide campaign to install similar displays in 100 cities and towns within a year.

"We see this as an historic opening, and we're going to pursue it aggressively," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, which organized vigils outside the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo died this year.

Although disappointed that the court ruled in a related case that two Kentucky counties could not hang framed versions of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses, Mahoney said the Texas decision was sufficient to "open up a whole new frontier" for preserving the United States' "Christian heritage."

What Mahoney has blithely neglected to realize is that his plan fails fantastically under the Lemon test, even if the monuments are staged in a setting identical to the one on the Texas Capitol, because the purpose of the government act in question there was secular. Mahoney's purpose, and by proxy, the purpose of any legislature that he and his minions managed to prod, would not be secular, as demonstrated by his optimistic comment about the ruling opening a "new frontier" of US "Christian Heritage."

The Lemon Test, by examining the purpose and effect of the government action, is contextual - there isn't necessarily an intrinsic violative quality that one religious symbol on government property possesses that another does not. And if a court ever considers the surrounding circumstances of Mahoney's fantasy plan as described above, it'll have little trouble finding a non-secular purpose.

Also interesting was Scalia's dissent in the Kentucky case, one of his boldest yet. Scalia advanced his argument, which can be seen in seedling form in earlier establishment clause decisions, that monotheistic religious majorities following have more rights than minorities. The religious majority club is comprised of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, according to Scalia. Polytheistic religions need not apply. This monotheistic argument is rooted to his absolutely bullshit 'tradition' argument, seen elsewhere (including the Vatican - recall that Scalia is a devout Catholic, even an Opus Dei member).

Jack Balkin shreds Scalia's dissent, which I was waiting and hoping for as soon as I read it. Balkin has taken Scalia to task for his reliance on 'tradition' in the past, but Scalia's perception of what constitutes tradition is exposed by Balkin as inconsistent and opportunistic, especially in light of his inclusion of Islam in the "big three." Just imagine a glass encased Koran as part of a 'Great Books" outdoor display at your local City Hall - it'd last a day, if that. Indeed, the tradition Scalia relies on in his dissent is decades from even becoming a norm.

Balkin says it better:

Once again, I must insist, as I have before in other posts, that although Justice Scalia repeatedly claims that his theory of adherence to text, original understanding and tradition is superior because it constrains judges from imposing their personal views into the Constitution, it does nothing of the sort. This case is a perfect example. Justice Scalia has particular views about religion and about what sorts of government invocations of religion should or should not be regarded as offensive or as marginalizing people with different religious beliefs than his own. These political beliefs produce the outcome he takes in this case.

I'll only add to that it may not be political beliefs that shape Scalia's opinions, but, ironically - given the subject matter, religious beliefs.

posted by scott pilutik at June 28, 2005 09:48 PM

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June 26, 2005

Billy Graham

Billy Graham is in town, which is something that isn't often said anymore, and likely won't be said again, judging from Billy's appearance as well as his accompanying PR blitz, which is hailing the 3 day Queens stint as one last go-round.

I'm obviously no huge fan of Graham's; to start, public displays of religion make me queasy and Graham is nothing if not the most accomplished media whore in our hemisphere.

Graham has parlayed his king of the evangelicals status into a presidential advisor role, and has managed to impose his divine wisdom on nearly every president in memory, but is perhaps best remembered for his relationship with Nixon, whom Graham implored to "do something about the [Jewish] problem." (Nixon replied that he agreed that the Jews owning the media was a problem, but politics limited what he could say or do about it)

Graham's legacy will also include an ugly wake of crass imitators, like Fallwell, Swaggart, Bakker, and Hinn. Whether or not Graham also begat the current wave of Dominionist pirahanas like Dobson, Robertson, and Rushdoony is less likely, but it was at least comforting these past few weeks to witness Graham attempt to put some distance between himself and the current strain of evangelical:

When asked what troubles him most today, Graham doesn't mention homosexuality, abortion or any of the other hot-buttons that rally conservative Christians.

He mentioned poverty in the world.

Indeed, Graham seems to be going out of his way to incorporate a message of inclusiveness. While it's nice (and unfortunately rare) to hear any Christian stand up to the conservative bullies that have shrewdly positioned themselves as the spokespersons for all things religious, something tells me it could be too little too late. Franklin Graham, Billy's son and successor, had the brilliant idea during the run-up to the Iraq war to accompany the troops as part of an effort to convert the "wicked and evil" Muslims to Christianty, which suggests that he's not exactly on the same page with his father's big tent idea.

Also interesting is the notable absence of the RCC, who had assumed a visible presence at Graham events in the past, but claimed that they were too busy this year.

posted by scott pilutik at June 26, 2005 09:34 AM

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June 22, 2005

just like chicken

from atrios, comes word that, according to Tom DeLay, Iraq is just like Houston (with all of its attendant violence), and it's about time the liberal media grasped this essential truth.

If Iraq really poses no more danger than Houston, DeLay would be well served to show the press just how silly they're being by taking his family on a summer vacation to Iraq. To lend weight to his profound analogy, he could do the whole thing sans the $1,000/day security guards that the liberal media has found it necessary to hire when reporters risk their lives to cover the situation there. I've never been to Houston, but I'm relatively comfortable in asserting that Houston Chronicle reporters don't require the same.

Maybe the mayors of Baghdad and Houston could have one of those public 'all-in-fun' challenges, like those Mayors engage in prior to Super Bowls, only they could compare car bomb death tolls at the end of a given month. Houston would wager a NASA space helmet, maybe, and Baghdad would counter with free ride to the airport (life insurance not included).

posted by scott pilutik at June 22, 2005 09:40 AM

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The Congregation for Intermeddling in the Civil Affairs of Other Nations

The new Pope has not disappointed thus far; his newly formed Congregation for Intermeddling in the Civil Affairs of Other Nations is rounding out nicely. Not that inartful interruptions in Other People's Politics is new to the Vatican - indeed, they've been doing it for thousands of years - but Pope Benedict is signaling that he's ready to take it to a new level.

The no restraint policy is demonstrated by a litter of easily found articles on Google News: Pope criticizes New Zealand’s civil union legislation and Vatican touts victory with failure of Italy fertility referendum stand out most notably. The latter story had the Pope beseeching Italians to *not vote* on a posted referendum that would have eliminated bans on egg and sperm donation, and frozen embryos. The Pope didn't encourage the citizens to vote against, but rather simply not vote - the reason was that the referendum needed a 50% quorum. I'm guessing the Pope finds no hypocrisy in commanding native Italians to ignore their political process while simultaneously inserting himself into the same.

Two other noteworthy Vatican happenings deserve note while I'm here:

The Pope has suspended the planned beatification of a Rev. Leon Dehon, a French Priest circa 1900, whose writings exhibit anti-semetic leanings. The following is highly speculative, but it seems doubtful that the Pope - one of the best read, intellectually astute theologians the Vatican has ever witnessed - would have been taken by surprise by the fact that Dehon's writings exhibited anti-semeticism. It seems more likely that the Vatican was caught off guard by the fact that someone was about to kick up dirt over Dehon, and the Pope took the politically astute and preemptive step of appearing pro-active. Again, pure speculation.

More charming diplomacy can be found in the recent Vatican overture towards China - the flip side of which requires the Vatican to end ties with Taiwan. The Vatican has stated that this will somehow result in "more religious freedom." But the Chinese demanded that "the Vatican sever relations with Taiwan and refrain from 'interfering' in China's internal affairs-- for instance, agitating for religious freedom -- before relations can be restored." It's not easy to reconcile these two statements, but more significant is the fact that the Vatican chose to drop Taiwan while it held no apparent deal with China - indeed, they hold diametrically opposing views on the matter of religious freedom. The Vatican put the negotiable cart before the negotiable horse. As a result of the Holy See's crude cost-benefit-analysis, it decided to sell the souls of its faithful members for the mere possibility that more souls will be behind Window Two.

posted by scott pilutik at June 22, 2005 12:54 AM

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June 21, 2005

Dissent in Dover

Via Panda's Thumb (stories here and here), and as reported by the York Daily Record, the Dover School District's attack on evolution, as funded by the Thomas More Law Center, has exposed an interesting rift between Intelligent Design 'secularists' and the dominionist Thomas More Law Center, when ID heavyweights Dembski, Campbell, and Meyer being withdrawn as expert witnesses on the defendant School District's behalf.

This is interesting for a few reasons - first, the rift already existed - the Discovery Institute has stated in the past that the time isn't ripe to bring suits forward to establish ID in the public schools, ostensibly because ID has not entirely gelled as a theory, but mostly because the Supreme Court some gelling to do of its own.

So why then were three Discovery Institute fellows thisclose to testifying in the doomed Dover effort in the first place? I'll guess that the DI is at a conflicted road - they may have realized that ID, from a public relations vantage, has a finite degree of public debatability. The Dover case has gotten a ton of press already, and how many Dovers will their possibly be after this? Sensing that Dover was going badly, they reached out to Thomas More in an effort to try and right the ship. But the Thomas More lawyers are even loonier than the DI, and the factions didn't mix well.

The presence of 'some other reason' is backed by the conflicting stories given by the DI participants and Thomas More as to the experts discontinued involvement. The fact that they couldn't get their stories straight (the stories mostly inovlving the experts wanting to utilize their own lawyers during testimony), we can better assume that the true reason for the parting was ideological - DI showed up to fix what Thomas More thought was working just fine.

Of course, it's not working fine at all. Cobb County was a far closer case than Dover is turning into - the Dover school district's proposal is far more overtly violative than was Cobb County's, and Thomas More lends a religious taint that Cobb County at least wisely sought to avoid (but was eventually burned on anyway). Not that any of this necessarily matters - the district court judge could see things entirely differently (and is not bound to any of the law made in Cobb County).

posted by scott pilutik at June 21, 2005 01:01 AM

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