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Monday, June 27, 2005
Justice Scalia and "second-class citizenship"
Ten Commandments | Posted by Rick Garnett at 04:24 PM
I appreciate Jack Balkin's detailed and provocative post on Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in McCreary. With respect, though, it is not as clear to me that the opinion shows that Scalia is "willing to enshrine a notion of first class and second class citizens based on religion -- first class citizens can have government acknowledge their religion in public pronouncements and displays, while second class citizens cannot." Maybe I'm hung up on the words "can" and "cannot." I do not understand Justice Scalia to be saying in McCreary -- or ever to have said -- that the Constitution would permit government to preclude, prevent, or ban any citizens from "hav[ing] government acknowledge their religion in public pronouncements and displays." If some citizens "cannot" secure -- or fail to secure -- such acknowledgments, is it correct to say that this because of a constitutional theory rendering them second-class citizens? Would Justice Scalia regard this failure as signalling that these citizens "don't count," or are "insignificant"? Or, would he say instead that the democratic political process tends to produce acknowledgments of majoritarian values and commitments, which the Constitution permits, even when it does not (and should not) permit the enforcement or imposition of those values? (I suppose this question touches also on Justice Thomas's view that "offense at seeing the [Ten Commandments]" is not the kind of harm to which the Religion Clause speaks, and acknowledgments of religion are simply not the kinds of official actions that count as "establishments" of religion). I would welcome others' thoughts (and I apologize in advance if I have misread or misunderstood Jack's point).
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Comments
If the three most popular monotheistic religions are similarly favored under Justice Scalia's vision of the Establishment Clause, can we soon expect to be be pledging allegiance to the flag of "one Nation under Allah"? Or are some monotheistic religions more equal than others?
Posted by: Carl Christensen at June 27, 2005 08:16 PM
Carl,
People have been raising this issue since the decision, but Allah is not a different god -- or at least, no more than the Christian god and Jewish god are different gods. Allah is just the Arabic word for god.
Posted by: David Nieporent at June 28, 2005 05:03 AM
I agree with David Nieporent that Allah is not a different God and is just the Arabic word for God, but unless a Muslim would use the word "God" interchangeably with "Allah" when speaking in English (a matter about which I will confess ignorance) the very choice of the Christian term rather than the Arabic term would be an expression of preference the effect of which cannot be lost on those whose preferred term is ignored. I suspect that very few Christians would see the words as interchangeable if they were asked to substitute "Allah" for "God" when saying the Pledge.
Posted by: Carl Christensen at June 28, 2005 10:53 AM
James Nieporent wrote:
"but Allah is not a different god -- or at least, no more than the Christian god and Jewish god are different gods."
I'd like to see you argue that point with an evangelical Christian whose god demands that you be "born again" and accept Jesus as your personal savior in order to be "saved".
Posted by: Dennis J. Tuchler at June 28, 2005 01:04 PM
"but Allah is not a different god -- or at least, no more than the Christian god and Jewish god are different gods." I'd like to see you argue that point with an evangelical Christian whose god demands that you be "born again" and accept Jesus as your personal savior in order to be "saved".
Christian theology says that the father, son, and holy spirit are three persons of one God. "Yahweh" in Judaism and "Allah" in Islam are different names for what Christians call God the Father. There are certainly a few Christians that would argue that the religions speak of different gods, but most Christians recognize that we all worship the same God even though the Jews' and Muslims' theology on the nature of God is seriously deficient.
Posted by: Stephen at June 29, 2005 01:57 AM