He has gone to his just reward . . . and here is Scalia telling us just why democracy went wrong. [View all]

[cheyanne]

There has been a lot of articles about Scalia's "originalism" but not much about his religious basis for political "originalism".

However, in an article about his views on capital punishment “God’s Justice and Ours” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/05/gods-justice-and-ours, Scalia explains his basis for this belief.

Divine right never died.

Scalia explains that in past times the majority of people were told that rulers gained their authority directly from god. And this was backed by a pageant of ceremonies that connected the god and the ruler. However, with democracy, it is not so self-evident to people that the state recieves its authority from god (because politicians, elections and other malarkey.)
But the state’s authority in a democracy is derived from god just as it is in a monarchy.

Divine right means that the Constitution was divinely ordained at its inception to further the aims of god through civil authority.

He believed the Constitution is not a living document, just as the bible is not a living document, and therefore society’s views of judgments and punishments should not change, but must adhere to the god’s word as given in the bible.

God has given the government the authority to judge and punish in accordance with god’s laws.

Thus because God punished with death, the state can also punish with death.

Civil rights not mentioned in the bible are not legitimate.

For example, since there is no mention of a right of abortion in the bible it can not be a legitimate civil right.

In other words, Scalia did not believe in the separation of church and state . . . He should never have been a lawyer, much less a judge.