Separation of Church and State Weakens
For good and ill the United States sets the tone these days for much of what gets discussed and how (as an Australian, I’m especially sensitive to this; our obseqious little prime miniature John Howard being such a Bush lap-dog), so it behooves us all to note the horrendous decision by the Supreme Court this week upholding the use of public funds for religious education. I’m very firmly with the dissenters on this one.
Not surpsingly, however, the judicial decision that’s getting all the attention comes not from the Supremes but from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Alfred T. Goodwin ruled that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconsitutional (the phrase was added to the pledge in 1954). Republicans and conservatives generally are having a field day, naturally, as this ruling – small potatoes though it may be – provides a wonderful smokescreen to mask not only the havoc that the Supremes are wreaking but also the complete ethical and moral bankruptcy of corporate America and the Bush administration’s complicity in this.
Salon.com (which, sadly, may not be long for this world) leads with four stories on the pledge ruling and not a single article on the school voucher case (all of the articles are subscriber-only stories, so I can’t link directly to them). In one of the stories, Michelle Green writes
“I think the decision is built on a very firm chain of Supreme Court precedent striking down prayer in the classroom, at graduation ceremonies and in the football field. It has rejected the placement of the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” says Jamin Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University and author of We the Students, a book about students and constitutional rights. “If we could somehow drain the emotion from the discussion, the vast majority of people would see this as a perfectly logical and modest decision.”
While Raskin supports what the appellate court did, he shares the worry that it’s given ballast to conservatives. “There’s no doubt that the Republican Party is using the 9th Circuit opinion to change the subject from the ethical collapse of corporate America,” he says. “It’s classic Republican politics where the flag and God are used to replace issues of immediate concern to peoples’ lives. It’s the temporary triumph of cheap symbolic politics over dealing with the nation’s serious structural problems.”
Raskin’s last sentence is worth repeating: It’s the temporary triumph of cheap symbolic politics over dealing with the nation’s serious structural problems.
Let’s hope he’s right about the “temporary” part.
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Posted to General Rants • 2002.06.29 (Sat) • 00:09
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