Infallible Justice

I saw a puzzling banner on the door of a restaurant the other day. It was a flag flanked by two aphorisms: God bless America and America bless God. Ever since, I've been puzzling over the latter. I suppose the sign could actually have meant "America blesses God," although I always thought mere mortals praised or worshiped God rather than having the temerity to actually bless God. As written, however, it had an imperative tone to it, as in "America! Bless God!" To my ear it carried such peculiar hubris, like some back-room contractual guarantee: God does for America, so America's going to ante up for God. In any event, I suppose I shouldn't try to wax too exegetical about an anonymous banner whose meaning is more sentimental than theological, a patriotic Valentine, perhaps.

I guess I'm worried about the degree to which religious fervor seems to have merged with America's new nationalism. The line between church and state is challenged by troubling arguments from theorists like Bush's most recent nominee to the federal bench, University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell. McConnell has said that the government cannot "favor nonreligion over religion" and that tax dollars should be allotted to religious organizations on the same basis as nonreligious entities--even when they adhere to racist, sexist or antigay tenets that clearly violate civil rights laws. McConnell's arguments about religion are thus very similar to new age notions of "reverse discrimination" so familiar in the context of race. (McConnell didn't hesitate to defend the old, straight-ahead kind of racial discrimination as "religious freedom," however, when arguing that Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status ought to have been preserved despite its antimiscegenation policies.)

But my concern is broader than McConnell. George W. Bush has said he's looking for judges in the mold of Antonin Scalia, and this worries me. Scalia's extreme conservatism is certainly no secret--even if the controversy generated by his positions rarely engages the public's interest much beyond his antipathy to abortion rights and affirmative action. But I do wonder if many people outside the legal profession know precisely what is being embraced when Bush makes such an endorsement. Perhaps the most lucid summary of Scalia's general jurisprudence is found in a speech he presented this past January, defending the morality of the death penalty, to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

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