Any American still sitting on the fence about whether or not Liberal Judicial Activism represents a subterfuge for the dictatorial impulse which plagues the human psyche needs to take a good look at the Supreme Court opinions in the “Ten Commandments” cases recently decided: Van Orden v. Perry, in which the Court ruled 5-4 that a display of the Ten Commandments in a park on the Texas State Capitol grounds is constitutional, and McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, in which the Court ruled 5-4  that displays of the Ten Commandments in two courthouses in Kentucky are unconstitutional.

What is the principle argued by the Court’s Liberals in both cases? The Liberal Activists tell us that they can read the minds of people who post the Ten Commandments on government property to determine whether or not those persons acted with the “intent” of establishing a religion.

Amid this insanity, however, there is some good news. Those of us who believe in the dictatorial nature of any kind of judicial activism (remember the word “dictatorial”) have gained support from within the Court itself in Justice Scalia’s dissent in McCreary. Scalia writes, “What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship [italics mine] of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle. That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that— thumbs up or thumbs down—as their personal preferences dictate.”

With his usual incisiveness, Justice Scalia makes clear how the Liberals’ own words explode their arguments. Regarding McCreary, Scalia points out that the majority admits that the “Establishment Clause doctrine” it purports to apply in the case “lacks the comfort of categorical absolutes.” Of this admission, Scalia concludes, “What the Court means by this lovely euphemism is that sometimes the Court chooses to decide cases on the principle that government cannot favor religion, and sometimes it does not.”

With Justice Scalia’s help, let us look at some of the other nonsense uttered by the Liberal Activists. Dissenting in Van Orden, Justice Stevens (joined by Justice Ginsburg) writes, “We have repeatedly reaffirmed that neither a State nor the Federal Govern­ment ‘can constitutionally pass laws or impose require­ments which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.’”

Scalia explodes this patently false and ostentatious bomb as follows: “Suffice it to say here that when the government relieves churches from the obligation to pay property taxes, when it allows students to absent themselves from public school to take religious classes, and when it ex­empts religious organizations from generally applicable prohibitions of religious discrimination, it surely means to bestow a benefit on religious practice—but we have ap­proved it.” So much for the fact that laws which “which aid all religions as against non-believers” are held to be unconstitutional.

Stevens, however, is undeterred in continuing his intellectual dishonesty as he goes on to argue that invocations of God or religion by a public figure “delivering public addresses” are different from a “permanent placement of a textual religious display on state property” because the individual expresses “inherently personal views . . . as an individual member of the polity.”

Listen carefully to how Justice Scalia detonates that stink-bomb: “This is a peculiar stance for one [Justice Stevens] who has voted that a student-led invocation at a high school football game and a rabbi-led invocation at a high school graduation did constitute the sort of governmental en­dorsement of religion that the Establishment Clause forbids.”

The self-inflicted injuries of the Court’s Liberals do not end there. Note how another Stevens buzz bomb blows up in his face when he asserts: “The message conveyed by the Ten Com­mandments thus cannot be analogized to an appendage to a common article of commerce (“In God we Trust”) or an incidental part of a familiar recital (“God save the United States and this honorable Court”).

But the idea of God is inherently associated with religious beliefs. Does Justice Stevens believe that when non-believers see the word “God” on our currency or hear it invoked to open a governmental session they think of a famous chemist or renowned astronomer? And what does he imagine non-believers think about when they look upon depictions of the Ten Commandments which adorn buildings of the Federal Government (many examples of which Justice Rehnquist carefully enumerates)?

Ironically, the Court’s Liberals could easily have saved themselves from the embarrassment of standing before the nation, smoke rising from their singed robes and curling about smudged faces lacking eyebrows. Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter should have said what they really think: that any association whatever of religion and government is invariably prohibited by the First Amendment. Then, again, relativists such as they would amend that absolute prohibition, telling the people of the United States that Liberal Activist judges stand ready to dictate in exquisite precision the who, what, when, where, and how of the very, very few exceptions which may apply. Now, that would be speaking honestly in true dictatorial fashion.

Copyright by A.J. DiCintio

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