Government without religion

In touting John Roberts as a Supreme Court Justice -- and ultimately Chief Justice -- President Bush said Roberts’ religious views should not be used as an issue in his confirmation. However, when Bush promoted Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers last week, he said Miers’ evangelical background was a factor in his decision to nominate her. Is it incongruous for Bush to promote the religious views of Miers, while asking the Senate not to consider Roberts’ views? Or are they two separate issues?

They are not separate issues, but separate audiences. During the confirmation process, the Senate is the audience. The Senate cannot constitutionally use the question of religion to decide the eligibility of a justice, whether Miers or Roberts. What is important is whether Miers is ready to obey the law, like any juror to weigh the evidence presented and make a judgment based on the law rather than her personal bias. That should be the issue before the Senate, not her religion. Neither the Senate nor the president have the right to ask how religion will affect the decisions of a nominee. Any good Christ follower would be compelled to follow the law, regardless of his or her own bias.

I sat in a jury room two weeks ago for a child molestation case. Jurors were asked if they could make a decision based on the law regardless of their personal disgust for the act being tried. One man asked to be excused from the jury based on his religion. His faith system would not allow him to see the defendant as innocent until proven guilty. The mere accusation was enough to bring judgment. Fortunately, that is not the way the law works in the United States. Jurors and justices are asked to withhold judgment until the details of the case are represented and then make a decision based on the applicable law. My faith requires me to obey the law. My comment to the lawyers in that case was that when someone comes to court, he or she usually claims innocence. In contrast, when someone comes to my office, they usually admit their guilt. It is my professional duty to look separate my personal feelings from their actions and see their need for healing, wholeness and hope.

If Miers knows and follows the Jesus I know, she can follow the law. Whether or not she is actually qualified to be there in the first place is a whole other question.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE PASTOR

RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

Costa Mesa

In the 1960s, the phrase “law and order,” when uttered by a political official in the South, was a coded message meaning, “Keep blacks in their place.” When spoken by a governor of Arkansas or police chief in Selma, it sent a signal to supporters that commitment to the segregationist status quo was being maintained.

President Bush’s references to the piety of his candidate for the Supreme Court are coded indicators to his “base” that, as a “religious” person, she would cast votes that align with the agenda of that constituency. She is one of the “moral, decent” Americans who espouses the “right” views. That the president was pandering to a certain segment of the faith community was revealed in that the White House did not send the coded message to Jewish leaders to praise her religiosity and bestow upon her the imprimatur of “safe.”

Cracking the Dixie code of the 1960s or the evangelical code of our day reveals a disturbing message, one not in consonance with American values, namely that there are first-class and second-class citizens in our country and that the boundary is religious faith. One of the foremost indications of America’s break with her European origins lies in the Constitution’s assurance -- guaranteed in writing in Article 6 -- that no religious test would ever be required as a qualification for holding public office or trust. Partisans of certain elements of Christianity may submit that fealty to Jesus as Lord and Savior, regular church attendance and generous tithing elevate one as a better and truer American, but the America we know and love will not survive the imposition of such a sectarian philosophy. Nor should one’s religious beliefs be touted as the building blocks for success on the Bench.

In his Statute for Religious Freedom, Jefferson declared “that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.” God may or may not “save this honorable court,” but no one’s bona fides for election to the court should include a positive response to the possibility. A President who nominates a candidate for democratic office should claim no special qualification for her owing to her piety. Being born-again, is she more knowledgeable of God’s intentions than other citizens? Being a person of prayer, will she argue that divine direction guided her opinions?

Again, Jefferson: People’s free opinions in matters of religion “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.”

It is not Genesis or Luke, Exodus or Acts, that is the document a Justice swears to uphold. Rather, it is the Constitution, the foundation of America in which one searches in vain for reference to God. I have heard it said that the president’s nominee is hardly a Constitutional scholar. But the minimum both she and the president should know is that a Supreme Court Justice is not mandated by the Constitution to adjudicate religious truth. It should make no difference to judicial fitness whether a justice believes in the inerrancy of Scripture or is a principled atheist.

The code words used by the president may help his nominee win approval. I only hope that whoever is ultimately chosen will stand for “law and order,” not the code for blocking civil rights, but words that mean what they should mean: a straightforward attachment to the law of the Constitution and to the order of a secular society.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

{LDQUO}Politicians in black robes” is how Utah Supreme Court Justice Christine Durham describes the growing cynicism many feel about the judicial system. We want Supreme Court Justices who are committed to the highest ideals of justice. These judges are addressed as “Justice” itself. They have lifetime tenure to free them from the shifting tides of presidential elections and politics. Their opinions will be read and quoted by generations of lawyers, and their contribution to American history can be significant. They are the guardians of an independent judiciary system, providing the essential check and balance to the executive and legislative branches of government. I think most of us would agree that self-interest, favoritism, corruption, cronyism and political manipulation are the inevitable shortcomings in a judicial system which has nonetheless served us admirably well for over two centuries.

I think many people are not well-informed about how the process for the selection of a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to work. It is difficult to sort through the news, to understand the issues and evaluate the nominees. But this public tug of war is a healthy one because it sheds light on the competing interests of all the parties involved, as well as the legal qualifications and character and fitness of the nominees.

We want an umpire who can put aside personal interests and call the pitch fairly. Character, whether it stems from religious and spiritual values or other sources, is an aspect of “fitness” and it is pertinent to the ability to be impartial. It does not make sense to say that religious affiliation is relevant to character and fitness of one nominee, but not another. In the situations of Chief Justice Roberts and nominee Miers, it seems obvious that President Bush was trying to placate his supporters from the religious right, albeit unsuccessfully. Every president chooses someone he believes shares his political perspective. Yet religious views, personal philosophy and political preferences have not necessarily determined how a Justice would decide a case, nor should they.

Respect for precedent is one of the hallmarks of judicial philosophy and it safeguards the court from making changes too quickly or radically or idiosyncratically. The Supreme Court decides the very cases which are most difficult to decide, which is why they have reached the court despite extensive litigation in the lower courts.

For these cases, we want highly skilled, experienced and impartial judges who draw upon precedent, while recognizing that each case presents new facts which necessitate further development of the law, a small step forward.

Theodore Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, in a recent American Bar Assn. interview, underscored that it isn’t just a case which is decided, but human rights: “There is a losing party, but also a losing point of view.” It is this element in society highly polarized on many issues which has made Supreme Court decisions and nominations so volatile.

It is not necessarily because the Supreme Court is creating new legal standards or diverging from previous interpretations or applications of exiting law, but simply because people passionately disagree.

I believe that the justice upheld by the United States Supreme Court endures beyond any particular judge, presidential nominee or single case.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

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