In a recent speech to law students at Georgetown, he argued that there is no principled basis for distinguishing child molesters from homosexuals, since both are minorities and, further, that the protection of minorities should be the responsibility of legislatures, not courts. After all, he remarked sarcastically, child abusers are also a “deserving minority,” and added, “nobody loves them.”
.. In a speech at Rhodes College in Memphis, he said that the decision represents the “furthest imaginable extension of the Supreme Court doing whatever it wants,” and that “saying that the Constitution requires that practice” — same-sex marriage — “which is contrary to the religious beliefs of many of our citizens, I don’t know how you can get more extreme than that.” The decision, he said, “had nothing to do with the law.”
The suggestion that the Constitution cannot override the religious beliefs of many American citizens is radical. It would imply, contrary to the provision that forbids religious tests for public office, that religious majorities are special wards of the Constitution. Justice Scalia seems to want to turn the Constitution upside down when it comes to government and religion; his political ideal verges on majoritarian theocracy.
Trumpism has triumphed, whoever wins the Republican nomination
Donald Trump’s invective has disrupted the character of US politics. It will be hard to change.. Meanwhile, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and ultimate insider, last week said that the US should set up a federal agency to promote Judeo-Christian values. Until Mr Trump, most Republicans rejected the “clash of civilisations” view of the world. Now it is normal.
.. Father Charles Coughlin, the Trump of 1930s America, said: “When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing.” Mr Trump talks of Syria’s huddled refugees as “Trojan horses” for Isis.
Should Christians Still Celebrate July 4?
When he tried to force himself on her, after she protested that she was already pregnant, she whacked him with a stick and burned his body. She was condemned to hang, the local court effectively deciding that a slave had no right to prevent a master from raping her. Missouri’s supreme court declined to intervene.
.. At no point in America’s past has there been a golden era of Christian faith and practice — not among the people, and not in public policy. Church attendance today is estimated to be significantly higher than it was in the 19th century. And while secular elites seem to be effectively marginalizing Christian witness, there’s never been a time when Christianity, certainly not as Evangelicals interpret it, reigned supreme in private and public life.
.. Conservative Christians especially should robustly celebrate July 4, showing their country and the world their confidence that God is lord of all the nations, including America the sinful, confused, blessed, and beautiful.
A Big Win for the Prayer Lobby
To understand why the case’s backers were so cock-a-hoop, you must first know something about the long game being played by the religious right. The goal is to get back to a “soft” establishment of religion in America — that is, a system in which formal guarantees of religious freedom and the official separation of church and state remain in place, but one religion is informally or implicitly acknowledged as the “approved” religion of the majority and a legitimate basis for public policy.