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12:00 AM - Ceremonial deism and judicial pragmatism Went to church this morning to sit in on a forum discussion of the most recent batch of supreme court cases. Of particular interest was the Newdow case, in which Justice O’Connor declared that various Congressional affirmations of classical monotheism constitute permissible expressions of “ceremonial deism” rather than a religious credo which would be subject to the first Amendment’s non-establishment clause. So much for the oft-repeated claim of the Religious Right that court is packed with liberal activists who hope to eliminate religious expression from the public square. I found O’Connor’s decision rather surprising, since the circuit court had based its decision upon a fairly straightforward reading of her reasoning in previous cases. Her decision in this case was narrowly tailored in order to allow for generic expressions of (male-gendered) monotheism while disallowing any expressions which might be somehow distinguishable from the Judeo-Christian faith tradition (e.g. reverence of Allah, Vishnu, or any other gods or goddesses) which is fairly counterintuitive considering her earlier insistence in Lynch v. Donnelly that “[t]he Establishment Clause prohibits…government endorsement or disapproval of religion,” because of the fact that “[e]ndorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Perhaps I have missed something here, but if the Congressional endorsement of the notion that we are subservient to the Judeo-Christian deity within the context of our most common patriotic exercise does not send a message to nonadherents (i.e. those who worship other gods or none) that they are outsiders and hence not full members of the political community, then I cannot imagine what possibly does. (
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