A Stitch in Haste

To review: The Supreme Court held in McCreary County v. ACLU, 545 U.S. 844 (2005), that a Decalogue could remain displayed on Texas courthouse property because it was part of a comprehensive secular display.

The case was backward-looking, essentially saying that — since the monument had already been there for several decades — it was entitled a level of deference that such religious displays would not normally receive. Fair enough.

But notice how the McCreary exception has been abused by theocrats recently. First we had Casper, Wyoming, wasting taxpayer money erecting a secular display around a lone Decalogue in order to rescue it from a First Amendment challenge. Because the more obvious and less obnoxious solution — remove the Decalogue — would apparently have been an abomination.

All this theocratic sturm und drang despite the fact that such remedial actions are not necessarily sanctioned by McCreary, which concerned already existing comprehensive displays and not post hoc efforts to “rescue” what would otherwise be impermissible. Stated differently, “was then and is now permissible” is not the same as “wasn’t then but is now permissible.” It’s simply a different fact pattern.

In any event, theocrats in Berkley, Michigan, are now pushing the envelope even further:

City voters will get a chance in November to decide whether they want the city to display a nativity scene and other holiday symbols on City Hall property for the Christmas season.
…
The petition calls for the city to display the nativity scene along with secular holiday icons so that it is in compliance with existing law, which prohibits displays of only Christian religious icons on government property.

This insolence is the reciprocal of the Casper fact pattern. Rather than build a secular display around the religious icon, voters will now be invited to compel the erection of a religious icon within a pre-existing secular display.

…voters will now be invited to compel the erection of a religious icon…

Can you imagine a more unconstitutional act? How could such a vote not be deemed “the establishment of religion”?

What’s next? Mandating a church be built on city property, right between the (secular) public library and the (secular) public swimming pool?

The mind reels.

The activist theocrats, so many of whom apparently seem to suffer from the jurisprudential equivalent of obsessive-compulsive disorder, will always concoct new ways to try twist and distort case law and the First Amendment, to try to blur the line between “God’s house” and the courthouse. They will never run out of abominations to try to impose on others.

(Via Religion Clause.)

Similar Posts:

• “Jesus Judge” Does a George Wallace Impersonation
• On the Dixie County Decalogue
• We Had to Destroy the Ten Commandments in Order to Save It?
• B.A.T. Archives: On the Dixie County Decalogue
• Linkfest: Two More Decalogue Cases

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