The court is hearing a case on the constitutionality of erecting a cross on Government ( our ) land in order to honor the dead of WW I. It's not really a religious symbol, opined Scalia but just a common thing to do in cemeteries. In Christian cemeteries -- certainly but here's where Scalia seems unimaginative enough to recognize that many of us and certainly many of us whose families have been here far longer than his, are not Christians nor is there an established religion in the US; Christian or otherwise.
Crosses never appear in Jewish cemeteries, said the ACLU lawyer, but like the hard hearted biblical Pharaoh, Scalia could only reply
“I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that’s an outrageous conclusion.”Well I don't think it is outrageous and I imagine there are more than a few people buried in any military cemetery who would, if they could, disagree with him. As Ann Woolner points out on Bloomberg.com,
"Hundreds of thousands of non-Christians served in World War I. Jews alone accounted for 250,000, or about 5 percent of the troops deployed. To memorialize them, Muslims and other non- Christians who gave their lives for their country with a Christian cross doesn’t honor them. For many of their families, it insults them. "There is no secular purpose and therefore no legitimate government purpose in putting a cross on government property, says the Amicus brief filed by Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America. Of course that's true and in my opinion, as each grave has it's own appropriate marker, the only reason to Christianize the entire cemetery is to put a Christian stamp on the US military and all it's endeavors and all it's men. One would think that the truly devout might say that it puts a US military stamp on Christianity and indeed some do.
All things considered, I'd rather not have a symbol of a religion ( particularly Scalia's) that's been persecuting and vilifying my ancestors since the Constantine administration on my lawn or my grave or the graves of any of my family who has been in the US military for the last 150 years. The party that so often screams about their "freedom" being taken away is usually quite silent when someone else's freedom of religion is being taken away and the honor and dignity of so many of our troops is being trod upon by their fellow Americans.
2 comments:
I read about this nonsense too. Scalia is simply a christian pimp: using the power he was so unjustly given to try and turn our republic into the Christian nation he fantasizes about.
Putting a cross on public land to honor any group is bound to raise the ire of some -- and is most definitely unconstitutional. The fact that this idiot argues otherwise -- and he'll likely vote that its ok -- just demonstrates his biases toward his irrational religion over the precepts of the laws he is sworn to uphold.
It's funny how you never hear them call this kind of rewriting constitutional law to mean the opposite of what it was intended to say, "judicial activism" although it's a perfect and egregious example.
Post a Comment