SCOTUS... Turning Back the Clock
We too must DISSENT!
I dug up an older version of this letter that I had drafted and sent to the SCOTUS in 2020 after the passing of and in honor of Justice Ginsburg. I revised it and mailed a copy to each of the current members of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543
July 1, 2023
Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States
The Supreme Court must not fall into the trap of manipulation by politics or religious doctrines or specific religiously biased perceptions of what the Founders of our Constitution and Bill of Rights meant for future generations.
Please note that partisanship continues to be a major factor in attitudes about religious beliefs and practices. I provide for you in this letter reasoning to consider while you engage in deliberations between what is deemed Constitutional and matters between Church and State.
Where is the separation of religious beliefs and the neutral State as stated in the U.S. Constitution, in your decisions? Excessive entanglement between government and religion is now permissible?
Do recall all that was said during your confirmation hearings— that you would not touch, or you would protect Roe. V. Wade. Yet Roe v. Wade was overturned and against rational application of human rights and in contradiction to your publicly stated promises.
Why are you running roughshod over our rights by allowing a would-be website artist wedding to refuse to work with same-sex couples? Your decision on this and on Roe v. Wade gives the go ahead for extremists to mark women who seek control over their bodies and those who help them as criminals, you have further discriminated against gays and lesbians and have diminished our rights. This all opens the door for others to discriminate.
Why is the esteemed Supreme Court of the United States again meddling in politics and again targeting the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ citizens?
People cannot be excluded from protection simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Who will be targeted next?
Why not hold up the 4th Amendment ? – “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, etc.)”
Why allow the tweaking of interpretation of gun rights to allow the known persons who are unstable, mentally ill acquire guns and why allow hate filled people to use guns as free speech – what is next?
Religion and the Constitution
Thomas Jefferson’s Wall of Separation Letter
https://usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html
Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction — his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. He was vilified by his political opponents for his role in the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and for his criticism of such biblical events as the Great Flood and the theological age of the Earth. As president, he discontinued the practice started by his predecessors George Washington and John Adams of proclaiming days of fasting and thanksgiving. He was a staunch believer in the separation of church and state.
Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature — as favors granted; Jefferson’s reply did not address their concerns about Problems with state establishment of religion — only of establishment on the national level. The letter contains the phrase wall of separation between church and state; which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: Separation of church and state.
The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion. Note: The bracketed section in the second paragraph had been blocked off for deletion in the final draft of the letter sent to the Danbury Baptists, though it was not actually deleted in Jefferson’s draft of the letter. It is included here for completeness. Reflecting upon his knowledge that the letter was far from a mere personal correspondence, Jefferson deleted the block, he noted in the margin, to avoid offending members of his party in the eastern states. The following is a transcript of the final letter as stored online at the Library of Congress (Vol. 57. No. 6).
To messers: Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, Stephen S. Nelson, --a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents; in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only; not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
[Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorized only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.]
Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation on behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common father and creator of man and tender you for yourselves your religious association assurances of my high respect and esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson Jan.1.1802.
Neutral Stance
Because of their belief in a separation of church and state, the framers of the Constitution favored a neutral posture toward religion. The members of the Constitutional Convention, the group charged with authoring the Constitution, believed that the government should have no power to influence its citizens toward or away from a religion. The principle of separating church from state was integral to the framers’ understanding of religious freedom. They believed that any governmental intervention in the religious affairs of citizens would necessarily infringe on their religious freedom. Thus, the Constitution maintains a general silence on the subject save for two instances. The first instance, in Article VI, is a proscription of any religious tests as a requisite qualification for public service. The second instance is in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
The First Amendment contains two clauses that prescribe the government’s relationship with religion. In the first instance, the Establishment Clause states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Court struck down a law that required for-profit corporations to provide certain contraceptives as part of their healthcare packages for their employees. The owners and founders of Hobby Lobby, who were opposed to abortion on religious grounds, refused to offer health care packages for their employees that would provide them with contraceptives they deemed abortive.
The Court, however, declined to find for Hobby Lobby on the basis of the Free Exercise Clause, but instead found for them on statutory grounds. The Court found that as a matter of statutory interpretation, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 prohibited the federal government from imposing a mandate on corporations toprovide certain contraceptives in their health care packages for their employees.
Is this not a dangerous precedent where a Corporation, Hobby Lobby Arts and Crafts interferes with my or your right to exercise choice over one’s body based on a religious doctrine? What if any Corporation chooses to sue for the right to not provide medical insurance for their employees that would allow surgical procedures, (heart valve surgery etc.) or vaccinations based on religious doctrine preference and interpretation?
What if individuals are organized to kill or harm other groups because they believe or disbelieve in their religion or God? And they act accordingly, and one sues that it is their right to kill because it is prescribed in their religion’s holy (?) books?
The Constitution protects religious beliefs. It does not protect a person’s right to discriminate based on religious belief.
Who dictates what we are to believe or practice? Where should the Line Be Drawn?
A secular, open, and pluralistic society where government does not ascribe to one worldview over another is a right to which every American is entitled as guaranteed in the US constitution? Does the Supreme Court uphold actions based on religious texts? Consider this example: There are scriptures within the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran that suggest violence is reasonable for the sake of God. For example, in the Old Testament, God frequently forewarns people to not worship other gods. In some cases, extreme measures must be taken: “If anyone secretly entices you—even if it is your brother, your father’s son or your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend—saying, ‘Let us go worship other gods,’ whom neither you nor your ancestors have known any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. (Deuteronomy, 13:7-10).”
Do remember that Slavery was deemed acceptable by the Founding Fathers, argued for by the minority populace based on religious dogma and private property rights.
Do recall that many religions base individual personal matters and choices on individual discernment—especially regarding choice for their own health and personal matters- it is between them and their Creator.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,
“Religious concepts — such as Christian end times prophecy, millennialism and the belief that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is imminent — play a vital role in the recruitment, radicalization and mobilization of violent right-wing extremists and their illegal activities in the United States. For example, white supremacists have adopted Christian concepts and Norse mythology into their extremist ideology, group rituals and calls for violence. Similarly, sovereign citizens use God and scriptural interpretation to justify breaking “man-made” laws, circumventing government regulation, avoiding taxation, and other criminal acts. Violent anti-abortion extremists have used biblical references to create divine edicts from God and Jesus Christ to kill others and destroy property. And militia extremists and groups use religious concepts and scripture to defy the government, break laws, and stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons to hasten or await the end of the world. As a result, religious concepts and scriptures have literally been hijacked by
right-wing extremists, who twist religious doctrine and scriptures, to justify threats, criminal behavior, and violent attacks.”
“Religion and scriptural interpretations have played an essential role in armed confrontations between right-wing extremists and the U.S. government during the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., the Covenant, Sword, Arm of the Lord standoff in 1985, the siege at Ruby Ridge in 1992, and raid and standoff at Waco in 1993) as well as the 2014 Bunkerville standoff and the takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in 2016.These events not only demonstrate extremists rebelling against the U.S. government and its laws, but also served as declarations of their perceived divinely inspired and Constitutional rights. They also serve as radicalization and recruitment nodes to boost the ranks of white supremacists, militia extremists, sovereign citizens, and other radical anti-government adherents who view the government’s response to these standoffs as tyrannical and overreaching”.
Now we still have extremist right wing and hate groups. Then there is QAnon-- the umbrella term for a sprawling and growing spider web of right-wing internet conspiracy theories with anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ elements that falsely claim, “The world is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles who worship Satan and are plotting against former President Trump.”
Scholars like William Cavanaugh contend that even when extremists use theological texts to justify their actions, “religious” violence is not religious at all - but rather a perversion of core teachings.
Whose Religion or Belief Counts?
The Free Exercise clause extends government’s protection to all religious viewpoints and activities that do not result in violations of other rights and laws.
Religion itself is a system of power. It is sad that many interpretations of religion weaken and even ignore women's rights. The politics of blame and fear are on the rise. Intolerance, hatred and discrimination and all gender-based violence disproportionately affects women and it remains a human rights crisis that politicians and religions continue to ignore.
“Most Americans are familiar with some of the basics of Christianity and the Bible, and even a Few facts about Islam. But far fewer U.S. adults are able to correctly answer factual questions about Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and most do not know what the U.S. Constitution says about religion as it relates to elected officials. In addition, large majorities of Americans are unsure (or incorrect) about the share of the U.S. public that is Muslim or Jewish”—per a Pew Research Center survey that quizzed nearly 11,000 U.S. adults on a variety of religious topics. The bias of Judeo/Christian religions neglect all other religions. For example: Judaism does not share the belief common among abortion opponents that life begins at conception, nor does it legally consider the fetus to be a full person deserving of protections equal those accorded to human beings. In Jewish law, a fetus attains the status of a full person only at birth.
The Nature and History of Hermeneutics
[SOURCE of this section of text below: C. Strenger, in International Encyclopedia of the SocialBehavioral Sciences, 2001]
Hermeneutics originally denoted the discipline of interpreting texts. The place of origin of hermeneutics was the interpretation of the holy scriptures of the various religions, which entailed a variety of problems: how to derive laws from texts, and how to find out what the—presumably divine—intention behind the text was. There were several attempts to codify hermeneutic rules that were guided by specific religious, political, and social needs. The assumption of classical hermeneutics was that there was one right interpretation; the question was how to reach it.
It was in the nineteenth century, with the rise of philology and the Geisteswissenschaften as academic disciplines that methodological self-reflection of hermeneutics achieved a different turn. The sharpening of historical consciousness made it evident that the model of the one meaning behind the text (determined by the author’s intention) was problematic. Furthermore, it became evident that interpretation varied according to the historical position of the interpreter.
Human beings are never completely transparent to themselves, as we are embedded in historical contexts that are not fully understood.
Historical distance therefore creates both the necessity for interpretation and the perspective that allows the interpreter to understand aspects of meaning that were not accessible to the author. At the same time, the activity of interpretation also changes the interpreter. The integration of historically (or culturally) distant horizons of intelligibility makes the interpreter [hopefully] more conscious of his or her own point of view [and bias ] and thus changes and widens it.
Doctrine
The definition of religious doctrine is described as the written body of teachings of a religious group that are generally accepted by that group. Doctrine is not civil law.
Religious Pluralism
Text below is from https://iep.utm.edu/religion/ Philosophy of Religion
In the West, most work done in philosophy of religion historically has been theistic. More recently, there has been a growing interest in religions and religious themes beyond the scope of theism. While awareness of religious diversity is not a new phenomenon, philosophers of religion from both the East and the West are becoming increasingly more aware of and interactive with religious others. It is now common to see contributions in Western philosophy of religion literature on various traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and African religions.
While interest in Eastern religion and comparative religion have brought about a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the different non-theistic religious traditions, it has also brought to the fore an awareness of the many ways the different traditions conflict. Consider some examples: for Buddhists there is no creator God, whereas Muslims affirm that the universe was created by the one true God, Allah; for Advaita Vedanta Hindus, the concept of
Ultimate Reality is pantheistic monism in which only Brahman exists, whereas Christians affirm theistic dualism in which God exists as distinct from human beings and the other created entities; for Muslims and Christians, salvation is the ultimate goal whereby human beings are united with God forever in the afterlife, while the Buddhists’ ultimate goal is nirvana—an extinguishing of the individual self and complete extinction of all suffering. Many other examples could be cited as well. For the realist, at least, not all these claims can be true. How is one to respond to this diversity of fundamental beliefs?
Over the last several hundred years there has been tremendous growth in scientific understanding of the world in such fields as biology, astronomy, physics, and geology. These advances have had considerable influence on religious belief. When religious texts, such as the Bible, have been in conflict with science, the latter has generally been the winner in the debate; religious beliefs have commonly given way to the power of the scientific method. For example, the three-tiered universe held by the biblical authors, with heaven above the sky, hell below the earth, and the sun moving around the earth (and with the sun stopping its rotation during battle at Joshua’s command), is no longer plausible given what we now know.
Abortion
The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly mention a right to reproduce, however, the Supreme Court has recognized it as a personal right that is deemed fundamental and which extends to procreation (Skinner v. Oklahoma), contraception (Eisenstadt v. Baird), family relationships (Prince v. Massachusetts) and child rearing (Pierce v. Society of Sisters).
About six-in-ten Americans (62%) continue to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 36% who say it should be illegal in all or most cases. While these views have changed little in recent years, support for legal abortion is higher than it was a decade ago (Pew Research Center, April 2023,) and nearly a year after Roe’s Demise, Americans’ views of abortion access increasingly vary by where they Live.
Moreover, a person’s right to privacy is expressed in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and was the subject of the precedent setting case of Roe v. Wade in 1973. The United States has the highest fertility rate of any industrialized nation and 45 percent of Pregnancies are unplanned. Taking responsibility for our reproductive decisions is an important part of Protecting plant and animal diversity around the globe, but this is only possible when everyone has access to reproductive healthcare, family planning and comprehensive sex education.
Bodily Autonomy
Bodily autonomy does not conflict with religious freedom. Respect for autonomy is one of medical ethics. No one has the right to infringe on the right of a person’s bodily autonomy. Personal autonomy is the entitlement to decide for oneself what is the best for oneself and the right to pursue a course of action in one's life irrespective of any discriminatory and inflexible religious dictum.
The foundation of the Human Right to autonomy serves as the basis for which all other human rights are based on. The Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee against state deprivation of liberty, including a right to privacy and to control one's body, must remain a core pillar of all our rights including a right to reproductive and bodily autonomy.
Throughout history we have seen many individuals and groups of people including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQI denied their human rights. The prejudiced argument was that these “select categories” of people lacked capacity or license to make choices for themselves or on their own behalf.
I respectfully ask you to consider what is at stake here—it is the way our democracy operates, and it is about the core of human rights. Please do not abandon democracy and set up a one-party religious state. The federal government must protect the rights of women and minorities when biased religious groups and government actions of our states do not.