i think you’re going by someone else’s interpretation of scalia’s opinion. even if we were to concede, and this is a big if, that his denial of an establishment clause violation rests on one washington letter, it does not follow that the free exercise rights of other religions or non-religions relies on that groundwork. scalia’s own words regarding non-jeodeo-christian beliefs from the link you cite:

The beliefs of those citizens are entirely protected by the Free Exercise Clause, and by those aspects of the Establishment Clause that do not relate to government acknowledgment of the Creator.

when have they been arbitrarily barred?

i didn’t say they have been barred, i said scalia explicitly lays the groundwork for the future.

what one letter?

this

no, he just arbitrarily drew a line – which can well be redrawn, since it is based on one letter – so the court can bar them when it so desires

you lost me. what one letter? when have they been arbitrarily barred?

47 · haroun said

henh?

that appears to be a double-standard, but read it carefully. he’s not saying that polythists and devout athiests are banned from the public square via the establishment clause, but rather their exclusion is permitted via the free-excercise clause and/or govt speech doctrine. see comment 42.

no, he just arbitrarily drew a line – which can well be redrawn, since it is based on one letter – so the court can bar them when it so desires.

henh?

that appears to be a double-standard, but read it carefully. he’s not saying that polythists and devout athiests are banned from the public square via the establishment clause, but rather their exclusion is permitted via the free-excercise clause and/or govt speech doctrine. see comment 42.

he appears to consistently allow religion in the public sphere even if other religions are excluded

henh?

With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists

Now imagine a courthouse in America doing this with the Koran. Or pre-Christian laws that shaped western Jurisprudence. Do you think that Scalia would acquiesce?

my guess is he would. he appears to consistently allow religion in the public sphere even if other religions are excluded, since government is not compelled to include all viewpoints, and especially if there is even the vaguest secular purpose (in this case the traditions of American law). he sees religious texts on par with a secular texts, so if the court were to have a display of say feminist writers, that may be unwise or even viewed in some quarters as exclusionary, but its not unconstitutional. he’s looking for an actual establishment of religion in order to strike down the govt act.

his opinion in kiryas joel illuminates his thinking. there he views religion as a culture, in that case a peculiar sect of Judaism. in his view, since cultural organizations are allowed govt aid, religious ones are too…the establishment clause does not put religion on a lower level.

It would be interesting to see how they line up if this law went to the high court.

C’mon Manju, the 10 commandments case wasn’t about momentarily displaying the commandments in the context of a history lesson, in a school. They were about the commandments in a courthouse in KY. The first time, they were the largest documents in a set of nine (including the declaration of independence) the second time they were of equal size. The district court argued that the counties had cherry picked documents so that they could include only foundational documents referring to Christianity. As I recall, there wasn’t even discussion of the Jewish perspective on the commandments, which makes it fairly ahistorical.

Now imagine a courthouse in America doing this with the Koran. Or pre-Christian laws that shaped western Jurisprudence. Do you think that Scalia would acquiesce?

There’s something to that (actually, a lot to that), sure–a lot of things are settled, and so the litigation is over the edges, yes. So, we are 99% in agreement!

But one might hope for more consistency in departures/tough cases–LOL, like, growing wheat for your own consumption effects interstate commerce b/c you consume less wheat imported across state lines, but education has no such indirect effect on interstate commerce (huh?!). Now, what about the snail darter?? Of course, even here it’s not as if the outcomes are indeterminate/random–there are only a few plausible positions, and the Court more or less rotates between them.