Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Chicago area debates Commandment displays
By Inggrid Yonata
The Columbia Chronicle (Columbia College)
06/06/2006

(U-WIRE) CHICAGO — In the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has had to decide whether it is constitutional to display the Ten Commandments on public property. Now, with two new conservative justices on board, Chicago-area college students, lawyers and religious leaders have mixed views as to how the high court might rule on the issue in the future.

The Supreme Court's decisions have varied from case to case, but with President George W. Bush's appointment of John Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito Jr., two justices with histories of being more conservative, some people are concerned that the court might be lenient on the issue of the separation of church and state.

"I think the court has tilted dangerously to the right," said Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary at the University of Chicago.

Prior to Bush's appointments, the political ideologies of the Supreme Court's nine justices were relatively balanced-four conservatives, four liberals and one justice, the now-retired Sandra Day O'Connor, acting as the swing vote. When former chief justice William Rehnquist died last year, Bush appointed Roberts to that top position. And when O'Connor announced her retirement shortly after, the president chose Alito as her successor, causing concern among liberals that the court had become too conservative.

These appointments have also led Chicago religious leaders and U.S. Constitution experts to believe that the Supreme Court will be more tolerant in future rulings of public displays of the Ten Commandments.

Rev. Larry Greenfield of the American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan Chicago is one of those people concerned about the Supreme Court's collective ideology.

"The separation of church and state is very important for our democracy, and if the court weakens on this ... it is a serious slippage," he said.

His view is shared by Harold Washington College student Jeremie Crump, who believes that the president is trying to fill the court with justices who share his mindset.

"Now that Bush had assigned people that are 'more like him,' they can pretty much get their way with more stuff," he said.

Before Roberts and Alito were on board, the court issued opinions in two cases regarding public displays of the Ten Commandments-one in Texas (Van Orden v. Perry) and another in Kentucky (McCreary County v. ACLU). In the Texas case, justices said a Ten Commandments monument on state Capitol grounds in Austin could remain because it had been on display for 40 years, and no one had contested its constitutionality.

However, in the Kentucky case, the high court ordered displays at two county courthouses to be taken down because they were promoting religion.

In another recent case of the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments, Georgia legislators said that they were in the process of making the display of the commandments part of an historical display.

John Mauck, a Chicago attorney practicing U.S. Constitutional law, explained that the constitutionality of the Georgia legislation would rest on the context and intent of the display-whether it has valid educational and historical values.

"If the intent of the legislation is to defy the Supreme Court decision, then it's not going to stand either with the liberal Supreme Court or the conservative Supreme Court," he said.

While some Chicagoans are apprehensive about how the Supreme Court could rule with Roberts and Alito as justices, others have a more positive outlook.

Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that promotes traditional family values, issued a press release applauding the confirmation of Justice Alito.

"It is clear, from his record as an appellate court judge and his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, that Justice Alito understands that his responsibility will be to interpret law, not create it," the release read. "He will be a welcome addition to a Supreme Court whose justices often fail to recognize the limits of judicial power and authority."

Joseph Morris, a U.S. Constitutional law expert, said he believes the justices' ideologies are irrelevant when it comes to making rulings. It does not matter, Morris said, whether the court has more conservative justices like Roberts and Alito because each case's constitutionality depends on whether the court finds an intention to promote religion.

"In the absence of this intention, the court might hold the display as constitutional," he said. "The government is to be neutral toward religion. It is not to favor it; it is not to oppose it; it is not to embrace it; it is not to be hostile to it. It is to be accommodated to the fullest extent that it can be accommodated without crossing the line into establishment-that is, favoring one over the other."

Still, various religious leaders and political experts remained concerned with government infringement on privacy.

"I'm beginning to be worried whether the general tilt of the United States is toward theocracy-actually establishing Christianity as the official religion," Thistlethwaite, who is a devout Christian, said.

American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Edwin Yohnka explained that the ACLU had no objections on the free exercise of religion by individuals in their private lives but is against using power of authority to allow governmental or public buildings to advance one's religion.

"The notion that government would start involving itself in choosing which religion is favored and which isn't is one that ought to give us all pause for concern," Yohnka said. "I think people ought to be watching what the court does and what it says on this thing, and really sort of monitoring it because it is really critically important."

However, organizations like Focus on the Family believe the Supreme Court should not give preference to secular views.

"It is no more neutral to favor the secular over the religious than to favor the religious over the secular," according to a statement from Focus on the Family.

The organization called on judges and lawyers "to return the interpretation of Establishment Clause to its rightful and original place as a protector of equality for all religions in public square and not as a weapon to shield public life from religion," according to the press release.

Ultimately, the Court's rulings on public displays of the Ten Commandments will depend on chief justice Roberts and how he handles the case, as well as his reaction to the other justices' viewpoints, said Alysia Franklin, who is a first-year DePaul law student.

Though there could always be a surprise, Thistlethwaite said that she is relatively sure of the direction the Supreme Court will lean.

"People can surprise you; they can surprise you very negatively, and they can surprise you very positively," Thistlethwaite said. "But I think on balance, it is my guess that the court is going to tilt toward much more conservative positions."

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