{"id":6282,"date":"2010-05-14T17:17:40","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T21:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=6282"},"modified":"2013-05-10T14:58:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T18:58:03","slug":"may-14-2010-a-high-court-with-no-protestants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2010\/05\/14\/may-14-2010-a-high-court-with-no-protestants\/6282\/","title":{"rendered":" A High Court with No Protestants"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>BOB ABERNETHY<\/strong>, anchor: Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan made the rounds in Washington this week, introducing herself to the senators who will vote on her confirmation as the newest justice on the High Court. Special interest groups, many of them religious, are already urging specific lines of questioning for the upcoming hearings. If she is confirmed, Kagan would become the third Jewish justice and the third woman on the current court.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA<\/strong> (at announcement of Supreme Court nomination): A court that would be more inclusive, more representative, more reflective of us as a people than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/05\/post-elenakagan.jpg\" alt=\"post-elenakagan\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6320\" \/><strong>ABERNETHY<\/strong>: Kagan\u2019s confirmation would also mean that for the first time in American history the Supreme Court would have no Protestants. Does this matter? If so, what does it say about the place of Protestantism in America today? Joining me is Kim Lawton, our managing editor. Kim, I want to have a little discussion about this. People are saying, Protestants are saying, well, yes, this is a big symbol and they\u2019re sad about it, of declining Protestant influence in this country. But at the same time I hear other people saying it\u2019s really good news, because it is a symbol of how far the country has come in overcoming the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish prejudice that existed for so long\u2014still exists, but there\u2019s been a lot of progress made on that. And they also say it matters a lot more what somebody thinks, a Supreme Court justice thinks, on a particular issue than what kind of religious label that person wears. You hear that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KIM LAWTON<\/strong>, managing editor: Well, it is interesting. I mean, nobody is saying that she shouldn\u2019t be confirmed because it throws the religious balance of the court out, or anything like that, but it has been a very interesting moment to take stock of this change in our society. But, yeah, what I\u2019m hearing from people, what I heard from one Protestant pastor this week was he said to me I\u2019m less concerned about her religious affiliation than I am about how she\u2019s going to vote on, for example, some of the religion cases, and certainly that those ideas of the separation of church and state and what kind of relationship the government and religion should have\u2014that\u2019s been very controversial. There have been some very close decisions on the court, and so what she thinks about that, for example, is going to have a big impact no matter what kind of religious label she carries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABERNETHY<\/strong>: Yeah. There\u2019s also this idea that has been spoken of this week sometimes about a Protestant worldview and how it\u2019s important\u2014Protestants after all are half the country, 51 percent, but still pretty close to half\u2014that there is such a thing as a Protestant worldview and that this needs to be represented on the court. But is there such a thing as a Protestant worldview anymore?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LAWTON<\/strong>: Well that\u2019s been really interesting for me this week to watch or to read what some people are saying just in terms of that notion. Of course people\u2019s faith, their beliefs affect their worldview, affect how they look at things, their values. But is there a uniquely Protestant worldview in this kind of situation? There are certainly a lot of different kinds of Protestants, and even when the court had all Protestants they didn\u2019t have all unanimous decisions, so I do think it\u2019s been an interesting question that\u2019s been raised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABERNETHY<\/strong>: And it doesn\u2019t mean that there can\u2019t ever in the future be another Protestant justice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LAWTON<\/strong>: Well, certainly the Protestant influence in America is not going anywhere. I mean, our president is Protestant, we\u2019ve only had one non-Protestant president, the majority of the US Congress is Protestant. Protestants still are a vibrant community in this country and still very influential, but things are different than they used to be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABERNETHY<\/strong>: Kim Lawton, many thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some have said the nomination of Elena Kagan marks the passing of American Protestantism. Others celebrate it as a measure of how far the country has come. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2010\/05\/14\/may-14-2010-a-high-court-with-no-protestants\/6282\/\" class=\"more\">More <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":17022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[7830,17918,17919,5180],"class_list":["post-6282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-elena-kagan","tag-jewish","tag-protestant","tag-us-supreme-court","topics-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>May 14, 2010 ~ A High Court with No Protestants | May 14, 2010 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some have said the nomination of Elena Kagan marks the passing of American Protestantism. 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