Avert your eyes

Yesterday’s cases before the Supreme Court on government-endorsed Ten Commandments displays produced some interesting fireworks, but also offered one of the most disturbing arguments I’ve heard in a long while.

“If an atheist walks by, they can avert their eyes,” said Justice Kennedy, who also complained of society’s “obsessive concern with any mention of religion.”

[…]

Scalia was persistent in proclaiming the religious meaning of the Ten Commandments. “It is a symbol that government derives its authority from God, and that’s appropriate,” said Scalia…. For those who disagree, Scalia said, “turn your eyes away if it is such a big deal for you.”

This is painfully absurd. For one thing, it’s completely at odds with what is supposed to be a conservative outlook on society. Indeed, Scalia’s standard was embraced by the right yesterday, but would be horrific to the right if applied beyond state-sponsored religion.

Imagine the outcries of conservatives if the Supreme Court’s response to complaints about pornography was, “Turn your eyes away if it is such a big deal for you.” Or if someone saw some jerk burning a flag and those who complain were told, “Turn your eyes away if it is such a big deal for you.” Or if some so-called “pro-family” group saw adult content on broadcast television and the FCC officials responded, “Turn your eyes away if it is such a big deal for you.”

In fact, yesterday’s flippancy during oral arguments was worse. In the cases of the Decalogue displays, it’s state officials, who are supposed to be neutral on religion, promoting the Ten Commandments and Supreme Court justices telling us not to look at the state-sponsored religious monuments if we don’t like them. In other words, one branch of the government is endorsing Christianity while another branch tells us to try not to notice.

The other dramatic flaw in Kennedy’s and Scalia’s reasoning is that it’s a recipe for mob rule on religious liberty. To hear these justices tell it, if the majority wants the state to endorse a specific religion’s holy text, the minority should just get over it. Your First Amendment rights will be protected, so long as you’re not out-voted by people of other religious traditions.

It’s turning the nation’s protections against tyranny of the majority on their head. I remember hearing from my Dad that as a young Jewish kid in a Philadelphia public school, he’d hear Christian prayers in his classroom every morning. If he didn’t like it, he was told he could wait in the hall. Eventually, the Supreme Court said this kind of practice is unacceptable under the First Amendment — kids can pray if they want, but it’s not the school’s job to promote prayer, and it’s definitely not the school’s job to make people of minority faiths outsiders in their own school and their own country.

Yet this is the logical extension of yesterday’s “avert your eyes” argument. The state is going to endorse the majority faith now, and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem.

It strikes at the very heart of what the First Amendment stands for and undermines religious liberty at its core.