In my last blog post, I expressed my opinion that the Supreme Court has lost its credibility and that it has become an instrument of Republican policy, specifically the insidious ways it is working toward establishing a state religion which is expressly prohibited by the Constitution.  In that post I included the disclaimer that I am not a legal scholar.  Today’s blog post is an extract from the New York Times column by Linda Greenhouse who teaches at Yale Law School and is a legal scholar.  She agrees with my position.

“Nor was there any crossover (Republican judges voting with Democratic judges) in the Town of Greece decision earlier this month, authorizing sectarian invocations at local government meetings. Opening the doors to greater public expression and observance of religion is another central part of the Roberts court’s project. Here, the court has moved a bit more slowly. Three years ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit invalidated the practice of public prayer at county board meetings in Forsyth County, N.C. Local clergy members were offering prayers that just happened to be laden with Christian references. The Supreme Court declined to hear the county’s appeal.

But the pause was just temporary. The Town of Greece case didn’t differ from the North Carolina case in any meaningful way. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had found the steady diet of Christian prayer at town board meetings to be an unconstitutional establishment of religion. This time, the justices agreed to hear the appeal. Since it was obvious that the majority’s goal was to overturn the Second Circuit’s decision, it was no great surprise that the 5-to-4 opinion did so.

But Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court was startling nonetheless for its obliviousness to the impact that sectarian prayers can have on those citizens for whom prayer before a government meeting is not “a benign acknowledgment of religion’s role in society” (to quote the opinion) but an affront. “Adults often encounter speech they find disagreeable,” Justice Kennedy said dismissively. This from a justice who in his majority opinion in a Florida death penalty case on Tuesday emphasized the right of a convicted murderer to be treated with “dignity” by having his intellectual deficit assessed meaningfully rather than mechanically. The Constitution’s “protection of dignity reflects the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be,” Justice Kennedy wrote on Tuesday, overturning a death sentence. I was left to wonder about the dignity of the two women who sued Greece, N.Y., on the claim that the price of conducting their business with the town board should not include having to listen to Christian prayers.

The country didn’t need to have the religious culture wars reignited, but thanks to the court, that’s where we now are. Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian-right group that represented the victorious town, has taken out newspaper ads praising the decision’s “far-reaching implications” and offering its “model prayer policy” that people can press on their local governments. The Supreme Court’s “O.K. to pray” is being quickly and unsubtly turned into a right to pray. The Alliance’s reference to a “long-standing, important tradition of public prayer” isn’t accurate, at least as to its client; the Greece town board observed only a moment of silent prayer until 1999, when for unexplained reasons, the board started inviting local ministers to pray out loud.”

To read her whole column go to   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/opinion/greenhouse-polar-vision.html?ref=opinion

And it came to pass that the once great democracy, the United States of America, saw its Supreme Court become, rather than the upholder and defender of the Constitution and the law, the subservient lackey of the Republican Party just as that Party had become the subservient lackey of the wealthy and powerful. This, of course, is my cynical way of saying the Supreme Court has totally lost its credibility.  I am referring to the latest politically influenced decision that town meetings are constitutionally allowed to open their sessions with prayer.  The Chief Justice stated that prayer is only “symbolic” so it’s no big deal and the other right wing justices said there is a historic precedence because legislative sessions have opened with prayer since the beginning or our nation.  Neither of those arguments have anything to do with constitutionality. (You will recall it was a 5-4 decision split along party lines, not legal lines.) I make no pretenses to being a legal scholar.  But I would like to offer my interpretation of the United States Constitution.  (By the way, the Constitution does not specify requirements for being a Supreme Court Justice.  No age nor citizenship rules are stated not even the requirement to have a law degree so I guess I am qualified.)  Since most Americans have never read the Constitution, here’s what it says about religion: First Amendment—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”  And in the Third Article of the Constitution itself it says: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  In plain language this means that the government cannot establish an official state religion, you can practice any religion you want and candidates do not have to adhere to a specific religion to qualify for office.  But, in a rather devious way, the Republican Party is attempting to establish an official national religion and many Republican politicians are touting their qualification for office by being “devout Christians.”   You might ask, is prayer before a town meeting the establishing of a state religion?  Not in and of itself, but what if you are Jewish, Muslin, Buddhist, atheist or agnostic and your town meeting is asking the blessing of “our personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” You might find that objectionable.  In an oblique way, the local government is imposing a religion on you.  And if you believe a woman has no right to have an abortion and you believe contraceptives are a sin because of your personal religious beliefs and if you push the government to impost yours beliefs, and if the government complies with your demands, then the government is effectively imposing the establishment of a state religion which is specifically prohibited by the Constitution. Of course, the only “government” that would impose those religious restrictions would be Republican. We will find out how much sway the religious Republicans hold over the Supreme Court when it will decide whether an employer can deny insurance coverage for contraceptives or abortions on the basis of religious beliefs.  If the Court allows that, it will, in effect, be another step towards establishing a state religion, which, of course, is against the Constitution.