Attack Of The Clones

Church & State, Mar 2005 by Boston, Rob

President Bush And His Religious Right Allies Want To Stack The Supreme Court With Right-Wing Ideologues

Ken Mehlman, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, knew just what his Religious Right audience wanted to hear.

Standing in a packed ballroom at Washington's glitzy Ritz-Carlton Hotel Jan. 19, the former chief of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign told a collection of far-right religious activists that changes are coming - starting at the top with the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Promises made will be promises kept," Mehlman said. As the Los Angeles Times reported, he went on to call the appointment of judges a president's "most sacred duty."

Concluded Mehlman, "We're going to have more Scalias and Thomases."

The crowd of 800 at the "Christian Inaugural Gala," an unofficial inaugural event sponsored by the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) and a phalanx of other Religious Right organizations, liked what they were hearing. The thought of more justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the high court's most dogged opponents of separation of church and state, made some positively giddy.

"We don't believe in cloning, but if we did, we would clone Scalia and Thomas," gushed Andrea Lafferty, TVC executive director.

Mehlman's words might have been music to Laffcrty's ears, but to defenders of church-state separation, the GOP official definitely struck a sour note. Mehlman's promise was clear evidence that the Bush administration is determined to remake the Supreme Court in a rigidly right-wing mode. The final result could be a full-scale judicial assault on the church-state wall.

What would a court stacked with Scalia and Thomas clones do to the wall of separation?

To answer that question, one need only look at the opinions the two have penned. Since joining the high court in 1986, Sealia has been a consistent foe of church-state separation in every case. Ditto for Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991.

A court remade in the Scalia/Thomas mode would permit public schools to teach crcationism along-side evolution and give its blessing to other forms of government-sponsored religion in the classroom. Government would not only be allowed, but required, to fund religious schools and other sectarian enterprises in certain cases. Government officials could festoon courthouses and other public buildings with religious symbols.

At the same time, Scalia's vision of religious freedom - the "free exercise of religion" promised in the First Amendment is already holding sway at the high court, and even many conservatives say it's a cramped and narrow view that unfairly singles out minority faiths and makes them vulnerable to government control.

Scalia calls himself an "originalist." In his view, the Constitution is a set-in-stonc document that - very conveniently - reflects his ultra-conservative opinions. When attempting to decide controversies over religion, the high court should be guided by his constricted take on the Founders' intent.

Speaking recently in Ann Arbor, Mien., at a forum sponsored by Ave Maria School of Law, an ultra-traditionalist Roman Catholic institution founded by Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, Scalia dismissed the idea that the Constitution is able to adapt to changes in American culture.

"The Constitution says what it says and does not say what it does not say," he told the crowd. The Associated Press reported that Scalia went on to insist that "tradition and historical practice is stronger" than tests devised by the Supreme Court to determine church-state violations.

In a late November speech, Scalia was even more aggressive.

"The Founding Fathers never used the phrase 'separation of church and state,'" Scalia told attendees at a conference at Shearith Israel Synagogue. He went so far as to assert that the separation principle failed to protect European Jews during World War II. (see "Scalia Escalates Attacks On Church-State Separation At New York Conference," January 2005 Church & State.)

Scalia is also fond of giving a speech to conservative religious groups during which he brags that he is a "fool for Christ" and heaps scorn of those who dare to adopt a worldly-wise skepticism of the claims of traditional Christianity.

"To believe in traditional Christianity is something else," Scalia told a Knights of Columbus audience in Baton Rogue, La., in January. "For the son of God to be born of a virgin? I mean, really. To believe that he rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven? How utterly ridiculous. To believe in miracles or that those who obey God will rise from the dead and those who do not will burn in Hell?"

Continued Scalia, "God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools...and he has not been disappointed."

Scalia's outspokenness on his personal religious views is nothing new. In fact, it goes hand in hand with his ultra-conservative judicial philosophy. Once seated on the high court, Scalia wasted no time making his hard-line anti-separationist views known. During the court's 1986-87 term, the justices heard a case challenging a Louisiana law requiring public schools to offer "balanced treatment" between biblical creationism and evolution, giving the combative newcomer an early opportunity to sound off.