Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America? I don't think so.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
The short article is worth reading several times, not only to plumb the depths of Scalia ignorance, but also to savor the incoherent, pandering style of the A.P. staff writer. Should a responsible reporter allow that quote above to be printed without any comment or footnote pointing out that the pre-WWII U.S. had separation of church and state while most of Europe did not? Not if she wants to keep her cushy gig as Scalia's press stenographer. How about this choice passage:
[...] examples of the presence of faith go back to America's Founding Fathers: the word "God" on U.S. currency; chaplains of various faiths in the military and the legislature; real estate tax-exemption for houses of worship -- and the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Why does this get to be printed without even a passing comment? The facts of the matter -- "God" in the official wording of money and pledge was added by Congress in the 20th century -- utterly invalidates the learned Justice's argument that these originate with the founding fathers. The pledge itself didn't even exist until after the Civil War. And tax-exemption was seen by the founders, and remains today, a critical brick in the wall between church and state. Shouldn't these small but inconvenient historical facts be noted by a professional journalist?
But no. The major role played by Jesus in the founding of this country is not a matter open for debate -- it is Scalia's faith and therefore to question it, like questioning any article of a person's religious faith, would be unseemly. OK then, it's time to get unseemly. An anonymous commenter on another blog called for "Militant Rationalism NOW!" Given the current assault on reason and history, the call is no longer oxymoronic. The reality-based have been abused and marginalized by the New Red Menace, while our criticisms have been harshly dismissed as bigotry against religion. Well, it's time to stop shrinking from the fight.
There are all sorts of abuses that are inflicted upon the bodies and minds of children, but the worst and most destructive is surely the imposition of irrational and unquestioning faith in the supernatural, and a mythology fixated on the forces of evil and the division of one's fellow human beings into the saved and the damned.
Earl Doherty, Axis of Logic
We must stop ceding the moral high ground the the faith-based. There can be secular morality, and there can be religious evil. In my view faith-based morality is bankrupt, riding through the streets on the back of secular morality, while whipping it and calling it evil. Enough is enough.
And oh yeah -- happy Thanksgiving.
- jack*
From what I've heard, Scalia is smart enough that he almost certainly knows better. What he's doing is much more likely to be dishonesty than ignorance. Either way, it's an impeachable error, right up there with those who claim that rights not explicitly stated in the constitution have no basis in law. (Ninth amendment? What's that?)
Posted by: Arrlaari | November 25, 2004 at 02:44 PM