Comments on: Justice Antonin Scalia on Why We Don’t Need Church/State Separation

By: SalV

SalV — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:20:11 +0000

Unfortunately, though this may be want you want to be true in the scope of the history of the founding fathers, it is not. The man who is first quoted with the term “separation of church and state” and a supporter of the thing, President Jefferson, also appropraited federal funds to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Indians. He also authored, himself, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” So, while he agreed that there should be a separation in regards to the chance of a state enforced code of religious principles, he obviously did not intend for atmosphere so hostile or afraid of God. In truth every man has a religion, even if that is not have a religion. That is to say that we all represent what we believe in. There is no separation between church and state. We all carry with us exactly what we believe in and there is no separation of that. An attempt at that is vanity.

By: muggle

muggle — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:49:29 +0000

That’s some religious freedom. As long as you pick some delusion. Any one will do.

By: LyokoFreaks

LyokoFreaks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:16:19 +0000

This is what pisses me off: he’s on the Supreme Court and he’s supposed to uphold the Constitution, yet he doesn’t think church/state separation is necessary? News flash for this guy, but it’s clearly stated in the wording of the First Amendment that the government cannot make a law with respect to religion. This means AT ALL. I don’t care what the “common people” of America want; the First Amendment was written to protect the people who AREN’T the common people FROM the common people. This guy just makes me sick. My blog is hyperlinked in my name up there, my first post is about the true nature of the First Amendment.

By: Rooker

Rooker — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:02:48 +0000

It is infuriating and offensive to see a Justice of the Supreme Court blatantly dismiss as irrelevant the text of the constitution as well as the intentions of the founders in favor of “American tradition.” There are a lot of things that were “American traditions” in the past that we don’t do any more, things which shame most present-day Americans and anyone with any sense of morality.

By: Karl Withakay

Karl Withakay — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:51:26 +0000

Many of the founding fathers, such as Jefferson. Franklin, etc were basically Deists, not Christians.

By: Walker

Walker — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:35:08 +0000

Dugg.

http://digg.com/politics/Scalia_Admits_U_S_Supreme_Court_Favors_Religion

By: Transplanted Lawyer

Transplanted Lawyer — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:22:31 +0000

Woody Tanaka wrote:

I think that if substantive due process means ANYTHING, it means that there will be procedures in place to prevent the imposition of the death penalty as a criminal punishment, when actual innocence can be established.

While I don’t disagree with that statement as an assessment of current U.S. Constitutional law, bear in mind that Scalia does not believe that there is such a thing as substantive due process at all. As he sees it, the Due Process Clause was intended to, and therefore does, only provide guarantees about the fairness of the procedures used in criminal proceedings. FWIW, Scalia actually has a point here. “Process” not mean “substance.” Process refers to the way laws are administered, while substance refers to what the laws regulate. I say this without agreeing with the result of his reasoning.

The problem arises from the Court’s unwillingness to revisit the Slaughter-House Cases, which essentially interpreted the Privileges and Immunities Clause out of the Constitution altogether. Had the Court been willing — or were the Court to become willing — to read real meaning about individual liberties into that clause, we wouldn’t need to pretend that “due process” protects things like the right to engage in gay sex. We could instead say that citizens are immune from prosecution for certain things (like gay sex) in the first place.

Again, if Scalia were willing to be consistent — to apply a meaningful interpretation of what the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States really are rather than relying on a century-old piece of judicial activism — then he would have room to restrict the due process clause to the interpretation of it which he favors.

By: Woody Tanaka

Woody Tanaka — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:03:34 +0000

Delphine wrote:

Scalia made the unpopular call a few months ago that “the Constitution doesn’t guarantee an innocent man won’t be executed if he were to be found guilty after a fair trial.”

I agree with that statement.

Oh, I don’t. I think that if substantive due process means ANYTHING, it means that there will be procedures in place to prevent the imposition of the death penalty as a criminal punishment, when actual innocence can be established.

By: Woody Tanaka

Woody Tanaka — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:59:35 +0000

“Preferably before the supreme court rules on the current ‘Corporations are people too, lets scrap campaign finance laws for them’ case.”

Yeah, and even though the “original understanding” of corporations were that they were NOT persons legally, but creations of the state, don’t expect “thoroughgoing originalists” Scalia and Thomas to be bothered by that…

By: JJR

JJR — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:00:26 +0000

I for one am bothered there are now 6 Roman Catholics sitting on the Supreme Court. Even a liberal Catholic like Sotomayor could rule unexpectedly in the event of another challenge to Roe v. Wade; No one religious group should have a majority in such an important body as the Supreme Court, though I recognize that for most of its history it had a WASP majority. I fear for the future of state-church separation with 6 RC justices sitting on the court for the foreseeable future.