|
In a message dated 11/4/2005 12:32:13 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
My organization represented CEF in the Stafford case. Prof. Volokh is For anyone with the time and energy, read the brief of the State of New
York in the United States Supreme Court in Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches Union
Free School District. The hostility of the State of New York fairly reeks
from the pages of the brief. Most notable is the "religion is only of a
benefit to its adherents" remark. (Perhaps unfairly, Justice Scalia put a
pointed question to the school board's attorney about that bizarre claim, even
though the school board had not climbed quite so far out on the branch as had
the NYAG. I still chuckle at recalling his interrogatory, "How's
life in the new regime?")
That notion - religion only benefits those who believe - is fairly
distant from the folks who, during our wastrel and misspent youths, urged us to
attend our places of worship this weekend (public service announcements during
Saturday cartoons, brought to us by "Religion in Public Life" and the "Ad
Council"). If there are voices on this list who doubt the value of
religions in which they place no faith, that is all well and good for them, but
every time an all too human impulse to pulverize someone or steal their car or
their spouse is suppressed by a sense of religiously inspired morality, then I
count myself benefitted, and on that basis, even the most ardent atheist enjoys
relative peace and quiet in this nation because religion, if nothing else,
opiates the masses.
And the hostility expressed in that brief is not the invention in the
first degree of the Supreme Court, and of the lower federal courts in New
York, but of the state's officials; the brief, after all expressed the view of
the Attorney General of New York.
There was, however, a trail of evidence indicating indifference to or
ignorance of the law or disregard for the teaching of the Supreme Court in the
area of First Amendment rights in the lower court decisions, and in subsequent
decisions of both lower courts in cases involving other challenges to denial of
religious uses of New York school facilities. And that, I think,
fairly supports the impression of hostility.
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
|
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
