Courts

So Long, Establishment Clause. What Now?

'My genius lies in my nostrils.' - Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

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War Memorial CrossI’ve never really been one to mince words, so let’s get this over with. Remember that Christianity I caught a huge whiff of earlier this month? Some time passed and I began to reconsider. This country is, of course, founded on political and religious liberty — maybe I was too harsh, too soon? Turns out I was smelling the rotting corpse of the Establishment Clause.

Recent court decisions — and those applauding them — signal America’s return to what it has been for a very long time, an Ethno-Christian police state.

And before you attack me for hyperbole, listen first. People are yelling the quiet parts out loud. Let’s look at Bremerton, the Christian prong of my assessment:

Kennedy, who served in the Marine Corps for nearly two decades, started coaching at the school in 2008 and initially prayed alone on the 50-yard line at the end of games. But students and players soon joined him and he began giving short talks with religious references.

The district learned of his prayers and talks and asked him to stop. Initially, he said he would comply and stopped leading students in prayer in the locker room and on the field. But he wanted to continue praying on the field himself, with students free to join if they wished.

“Some students reported joining Kennedy’s prayer because they felt social pressure to follow their coach and teammates,” Sotomayor wrote.

The district had said Kennedy was free to pray on the 50-yard line if it didn’t interfere with his official duties, or when he was off duty, but doing so immediately after a game ended could be seen as the school endorsing religion.

As a cyclist who rarely bets, I’d wager my bike and all — I repeat all — of my spandex that if this were a Muslim coach pressuring non-Muslim students to pray at the 50 yard line after games, we’d have been hearing cries of Sharia Law on any device that allows for writing — Etch-A-Sketches included.

For the police prong, if complaining about how dangerous their jobs are without having the obligation to actually do anything — see Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales and Uvalde — SCOTUS made it even harder to hold them accountable by ruling in Vega v. Tekoh that they can’t be sued for Miranda violations. And before you send the hate mail, yes, I acknowledge that being a police officer carries risks. That said, it is way deadlier to be a truck driver, they get paid less on average, and uhh… SCOTUS isn’t nearly as deferential to them.

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I think this take on Dobbs speaks for itself:

So what is left to be done at a time like this? One would think anything, given that a nakedly political court with an all-time low of an approval rating is spitting on stare decisis left and right like they’re at a Greek wedding? Pack the Court? Establish term limits? Yeah nah, Biden still isn’t with that. I think the most American thing here would be to respond how we do whenever a liberty is taken from us in broad daylight. Thoughts and Prayers.

I’ll end on an anecdote.

I went to a nondenominational Christian high school. As an atheist, the tongue-in-cheek “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about my religious (non)identification was a saving grace — pun intended — that made it a little easier to make it through the days. The annoyance of proselytization or calls to conformity weren’t an everyday occurrence, but they did pop up every now and again. The implicit to explicit threats of hellfire were annoying, but I could push that off as a consequence of not sharing the doxa. The things that got me were the little, unspoken interpersonal pressures that can be a challenge to navigate as a kid. I remember there was a joke a teacher told about an atheist being chased in the woods. Cornered and desperate, the man cried out a Hail Mary, asking God to make the bear a Christian, hoping that he would be saved. God responded. As the bear drew in to make the kill, he clasped his palms and thanked God for the meal he was about to receive. It was a joke, a good one even, but something about my teachers and classmates laughing at a punchline where my death could have been just as funny never really left me. I took the slight in stride and shook it off as a consequence of going to a religious school. What else could I do? Tell the teacher or the principal? And when I was occasionally called to do group prayer, I did my little “Thanks Jesus” that was so dissatisfying that they just stopped calling me to bear witness. And on some days, I was comforted by the thought of an alternate reality where I went to a public school and didn’t have to deal with religious indoctrination after lunch.

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I mourn the fact that this small pleasantry is no longer constitutionally protected for similarly situated children today.

Supreme Court Sides With Bremerton Coach Who Prayed On 50-Yard Line [Seattle Times]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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