Scalia: It Is ‘A Lie’ That Government Cannot Favor Religion Over Secularism

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a conservative Christian audience yesterday that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibit government from favoring religion over secularism.

One of the nation’s most conservative judges yesterday dropped a bombshell that likely will leave many progressives and legal analysts furious. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told students at the conservative Colorado Christian University near Denver that it’s “a lie” that the government cannot favor one religion over another, or religion over secularism.

The Supreme Court’s “latest take on the subject,” Scalia told students, “which is quite different from previous takes, is that the state must be neutral, not only between religions, but between religion and non religion. That’s just a lie. Where do you get the notion that this is all unconstitutional? You can only believe that if you believe in a morphing Constitution.”

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The Washington Times added that Justice Scalia “said Wednesday that secularists are wrong when they argue the Constitution requires religious references to be banished from the public square.”

Scalia, who has said that “the traditional Christian virtues are essential” for society, also said that “we do God honor in our pledge of allegiance, in all our public ceremonies. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.”

The longest-serving member of the nation’s highest court, Scalia also told the students that it’s “utterly absurd” to suggest that “the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non religion.”

 

Image via Flickr
Hat tip: The Raw Story

 

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