X-post from GD: Court rules for Utah city in religious marker case

[beam me up scottie]

Dammit! I posted this and now I have to leave for a few hours.
I'll return as soon as I can, I'd like to get your feedback.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5132080

[enlightenment]

1. I'll post here what I said there.

Alito's statement that the ten commandments monument is 'government speech' sounds like a violation of the Establishment clause to me. Can the Supreme's make a decision based on one clause that violates another clause in the same damn sentence?

I'm not a Constitutional scholar or lawyer and I certainly don't know the answer - but this one isn't passing my smell test.

I don't understand - I have never understood - why cases before the high court have to be so narrowly defined when the ramifications of the decision are used in such broad and sweeping ways.

It seems like a total cop-out on the part of the court to argue that because the case was brought forward on the grounds of the free speech clause that they could not address the establishment clause. They don't have a rule book - they make the bloody rules. If they wanted to address the establishment clause they could do so . . . and it would have been a much more thoughtful and complete decision had they done it.

This decision is very poor, imo, very poor.

[beam me up scottie]

2. I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was unanimous.

I was moved to tears by Justice Ginsberg's presence last night, I really think she held out this long so that bush wouldn't be allowed to pack another religious conservative on the court.
Thanks for you insight, I didn't have any time to dig up more, I may be able to do so tomorrow.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. That's an excellent point

If a person were to kill another then eat the flesh, then claim that the laws regarding murder, corpse mutilation and cannibalism didn't apply to them because of freedom of religion, the SC wouldn't even bother to address the claim. That example is more extreme, but uses the same argument as the one used by the SC to allow government to promote a specific religion over another.

Why does religion get special extra-constitutional privilege?

[immoderate]

4. The Ten Commandments is the government speaking? This is bad.

But the way this case was drawn, there was no way to win.

--imm