Before continuing with the What is…? series here at Simple Abnormality, I’m going to take a break to cover something that I find a bit disturbing. While doing my general net surfing I came across some remarks made by one of our Supreme Court Justices in an article from The Wall Street Journal. You can read that article here.
After reading the following: ‘Rulings that seek to totally separate religion and government, Scalia said, run counter to the Constitution’s meaning.’ The thought occurred to me that apparently we have yet another government official who is under the misguided notion that our country was built out of Christianity.
The Wall Street Journal article intrigued me, so I decided to find out a little more about Justice Scalia and what I found was an essay written by the man himself entitled God’s Justice and Ours. You can read his essay here.
In Scalia’s piece he states: ‘All this, as I say, is most un-European, and helps explain why our people are more inclined to understand, as St. Paul did, that government carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer.’
Justice Scalia’s personal religion does not bother me at all. What bothers me is that here is a man who sits as a judge on the highest court in our country who honestly does believe that the founders of our country were Christians. What’s even sadder to me is that he repeatedly points to having “In God We Trust” on our currency to align others with the thought of our nation being Christian. Does the man not know that from the time our Constitution was written “In God We Trust” was neither our national motto nor on our currency? “In God We Trust” showed up on currency during the American Civil War. Our country’s original national motto was E Pluribus Unum (From many come one), our national motto changed to “In God We Trust” on July 30th 1956.
From USA Today: ’Scalia emphasized his “originalist” view that the Constitution should be interpreted based on what those who wrote it wanted in the 18th Century, not based on the evolving needs of society.’ Read that article here.
So, honestly this man is committed to upholding what he considers a “dead document” and it’s great that he takes his position to interpret the Constitution seriously, I find that a great value in a Supreme Court Justice. What I do not find to be a great value is to misinterpret that document based on personal religious beliefs when it comes to the law of the land from a government that is supposed to be of the people and for the people.