Tag: scotus

Thicker Norms.

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From Burt Neuborne’s review of Sarah Barringer Gordon’s The Spriti of the Law, today at The Forward.

When my daughter first explained to me why she wanted to be a rabbi, she said that she had watched my wife and I spend a lifetime seeking to use law and reason to bring moral order to a chaotic universe. “Your norms are too thin,” she told me. “I’m going to try to achieve the same goals — but I’m going to use thicker norms.” Sally Gordon’s excellent book explains why she was right. In the long run, the norms of faith are thicker than the norms of law and reason. That’s often grounds for celebration. But it’s also a reason to be very frightened.

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Faith and Trust

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The nomination of Elana Kagan to the Supreme Court has a few progressive commentators rightly chattering over the cartes blanches the Obama administration is receiving. Glenn Greenwald at Salon provides the most cogent summation of the illogic:

Just think about what that means. If the choice is Kagan, you’ll have huge numbers of Democrats and progressives running around saying, in essence: “I have no idea what Kagan thinks or believes about virtually anything, and it’s quite possible she’ll move the Court to the Right, but I support her nomination and think Obama made a great choice.” In other words, according to Chemerinksy and Yglesias, progressives will view Obama’s choice as a good one by virtue of the fact that it’s Obama choice. Isn’t that a pure embodiment of mindless tribalism and authoritarianism?

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When is a Cross a Cross?

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That is the question Stanley Fish at The New York Times asks when summarizing the Salazar v. Buono decision made last week by the Supreme Court. Fish looks at the surreal world of Establishment Clause jurisprudence and finds Kennedy’s assertion that the cross, in this case placed in the Mojave desert on public land to commemorate WWI dead, was not intended to “promote a Christian message,” is perverting the symbol with patriotism:

Notice what this paroxysm of patriotism had done: it has taken the Christianity out of the cross and turned it into an all-purpose means of marking secular achievements.

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What Would Jefferson Do?

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Journalist and director of USC’s Annenberg Digital News, Marc Cooper, makes a case in today’s LA Times for the next Supreme Court Justice to be an atheist. How about some representation for the 1 in 6 Americans who claim no faith? he asks. Alas, even those tangentially following the Obama administration’s hob-knobs with religious groups would know how radical Cooper sounds. Continue Reading →