The Supreme Court looks likely to break the wall of separation between church and state
They don't seem to have any idea what to replace it with, though.
Ian Millhiser
Feb 27, 2019, 1:13 pm
It is likely, but not entirely certain, that there are five votes on the Supreme Court to overrule Lemon v. Kurtzman, a nearly half-century-old precedent preventing the government from advancing religion. It is also all but certain that the court will uphold the so-called “Peace Cross,” a 40-foot tall, cross-shaped monument in Maryland. One or two of the liberal justices may even join an opinion favoring the cross, which was erected to honor fallen soldiers from the First World War.
Yet, while several members of the court seemed eager to blow up much of the law preventing the government from advancing a particular faith in two consolidated cases argued on Wednesday — American Legion v. American Humanist Association and Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association — it is far from clear what will emerge to replace the toppled precedents.
True to form, Neil Gorsuch staked out the most radical possible position, at one point suggesting that plaintiffs who challenge government endorsements of religion shouldn’t be allowed to sue in the first place. As a general rule, a plaintiff must show that they were somehow injured by the party they are suing in order to file a lawsuit, a requirement known as “standing.” Yet Gorsuch suggested that no plaintiff may have standing to challenge a religious display on government property because their only injury is that they take “offense” to the display — and “mere offense” isn’t enough.
Later in the argument, Gorsuch criticized the court’s holding in Lemon, a 1971 decision holding that laws must have a “secular legislative purpose,” a “primary effect” that “neither advances nor inhibits religion,” and that the law cannot “foster ‘an excessive government entanglement with religion.’” This test, according to Gorsuch, fostered a “welter of confusion” among the lower courts, and thus it’s time to thank Lemon “for its service” and send it “on its way.”
https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-peace-cross-church-and-state-5a184c8660bb/
= new reply since forum marked as read
everyone of the justices that where placed on the bench should be removed, and every district and appellate judge that went through the sham process the last three years should be annulled, and that the current senate majority leader should be impeached for violation of the Constitution, and everyone and I mean everyone that voted to sit these judges should be impeached or voted out of office.............................the rule of law was dismantled..........................
If only there were true justice in this country, it would happen.
