Why the Supreme Court fails to be honest in its rulings

While writing my book Honest-to-Goodness, Why Christianity Needs a Reality Check and How to Make It Happen, I dug into the impact of religion on our judicial system in the United States of America. One of the striking insights I found was the similarity between the ideologies of constitutional originalism and textualism as compared to biblical literalism and legalism.

Think the Supreme Court needs to be more honest in its rulings? Share this article.

The simplest definition I found for originalism went like this: "Originalism is a theory of the interpretation of legal texts, including the text of the Constitution. Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law."

Likewise, a simple definition of Textualism is: a mode of legal interpretation that focuses on the plain meaning of the text of a legal document. Textualism usually emphasizes how the terms in the Constitution would be understood by people at the time they were ratified, as well as the context in which those terms appear.

What stands out for you in both of these methods of constitutional interpretation? The answer to that question should be plain to see: judgments based on either originalism or textualism are heavily dependent on beliefs concurrent with the past. That is, these approaches are both unapologetically anachronistic, "a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned."

Stuck in the past

That means the Supreme Court in its current form is a governmental arm firmly stuck in the past. It's no coincidence that the SCOTUS is now beloved by religious conservatives, especially those convinced that the Bible should be interpreted in much the same way that originalists interpret the Constitution. Again, the Internet offers up this colloquial understanding of that approach: "Biblical literalists believe that, unless a passage is clearly intended by the writer as allegory, poetry, or some other genre, the Bible should be interpreted as literal statements by the author."

Religious legalism is often found in companionship with biblical literalism. The definition provided by Christianity.com blames a focus on "good works" to earn favor with as the sign of legalism. Here's their claim: “Legalism exists when people attempt to secure righteousness in God’s sight by good works. Legalists believe that they can earn or merit God’s approval by performing the requirements of the law,” Thomas R. Schreiner said. A legalist believes that their good works and obedience to God affects their salvation. Legalism focuses on God’s laws more than a relationship with God. It keeps external laws without a truly submitted heart. And legalism adds human rules to divine laws and treats them as divine."

This take on legalism is actually an attempt at making an apologetic, better known as a defense of orthodox theology. In fact, the brand of legalism to which Jesus originally protested was not concerned with doing good works, which he favored, but on using theology and tradition to control others. In actuality, Jesus encouraged his own disciples to defy stringent acts of law. And yet, to this day, the most harmful form of Christian theology is legalism, because it is used to persecute others just as it was back when Jesus bucked the religious authorities of his day. Sadly, on many fronts, the Christian church became the one thing Jesus most despised, a legalistic institution bent on using religious authority for political power and control.

These days, the legalistic wing of the Christian church is aided and abetted by the conservative wing of the United States Supreme Court.

The court has made it evident that it supports the imposition of supposedly "Christian" principles in its decisions. We can see the signs of presumptive reasoning in recent events such as the decision on abortion that was leaked before the case was even heard. The activist approach or writing opinions long before any evidence is heard demonstrates that the court is too often predetermined in its plans, in this case, to strike down federal support for a woman to control decisions about her own body.

The anti-abortion decision was quickly proven to be anachronistic. Physicians trained in women's health and conducting abortions warned that taking that action is not always a matter of choice. In many cases, even when a woman wants to keep a child, there are circumstances when either the life or health of the unborn or mother is in danger. The seemingly "cut and dried" influence of biblical law to "protect the life of the unborn" is often frighteningly naive and out of date. Yet that's exactly why, more than fifty years after the Roe vs Wade decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the choice of whether to carry a pregnancy to full term should be taken away from individuals and determined only by the strictures passed down by state governments. That's hardly a "conservative" definition of personal freedom by any definition. But it is the background religious opinion that there is a "higher authority" at work in public law that determines the court's actions.

The devastating demands of dominion

But it's not just abortion judgments that are threatened by a religiously poisoned Supreme Court. During this new session, a case will be tried that could determine the health and welfare of wetlands across the country. A couple that wants to fill in a "boggy" area of their property seems to have complained that they should have the right to do whatever they want on their land, even if it's frequently covered with water.

Property owners in the United States have over the last one hundred years drained or destroyed millions of acres of wetlands. More than half of the original wetlands* in this nation have been eliminated. Many of those wetlands depended on feeder streams that were redirected or channelized. Others were filled in either by direct efforts or siltation.

The subtle aspect of wetland conservation is that many wetlands actually aren't 'wet' the entire year. These types of wetlands rise and fall with available water, especially by season, yet provide habitat for birds and other wildlife at critical points in migration or breeding seasons. These life forms evolved in context with temporary or vernal wetlands. Frogs and other amphibians often lay eggs and raise tadpoles in standing water.

Understanding the complete biology of wetlands is quite critical to make good judgments about their health and purpose. Much of the flooding experienced in the United States is the direct result of poor decision-making by local, regional, or national governmental bodies using shortsighted or ideological parameters to determine how wetlands including rivers, lakes, ponds, and even the ocean shore should be managed.

One of the sources of that narrow perspective is the religious belief that only God can control nature. That outlook typically originates from the belief system based on biblical literalism, including the take that the Book of Genesis creation narrative constitutes the only science needed to make decisions about human choices here on earth. That blanket vision is exacerbated by a single biblical phrase stating that human beings shall have "dominion" over the earth. Religious authorities irresponsibly loan that notion of human supremacy over all the world to all sorts of economic or political purposes.

That basic belief applies even to the couple who wanted to fill in their backyard wetland if they choose. Yet that brand of anachronistic blessing is dangerous to the health and life of millions of people. Wetlands perform many vital functions, including flood control and protection of coastlines where mangrove colonies or coast marshes evolved to buffer storm surges from hurricanes striking states such as Florida and Louisiana. Human activity often destroys these natural barriers. The result is one expensive calamity after another.

All because the belief systems fueling our judicial system are often based on outdated or twisted forms of legalism, originalism, textualism, biblical literalism, and political ideologies that make a mockery of honest discernment and consideration. There's a reason why the Founders of the republican and authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights specifically banned the formation of a state religion.

Wrong side of the law

That's what the conservative members of the Supreme Court current and past have always failed to recognize. They're on the wrong side of the law with almost every judgment they make because anachronism fuels an entirely narrow scope of judgment on every call, especially as these decisions relate to protecting the rights to liberty, personal health, and an environment that is safe for all. Granting corporations the same rights as people? Wrong. Banning abortion? Wrong again. Wrecking conservation measures designed to protect our water, air, land, and human health? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Second Amendment calls? Really wrong.

Second Amendment travesties

In some of the most contentious interpretations of all, conservatives on the Supreme Court committed the egregious act of ignoring the first phrase of the Second Amendment, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state..." to selectively favor the latter half, "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." This cherry-picking of law to grant essentially unrestricted right to weapons designed to kill stands in direct contrast to the court's imposition of law over abortion rights to protect life. The Supreme Court is a decidedly conflicted, contrarian cabal these days. Yet it whines that people don't respect it anymore.

It's pathetically ironic that a court committed to the supposed principles of originalism or textualism entirely dispenses with the need for a well-regulated populace, militias or not (because there was no federal army when the Constitution was written) to grant people unrestricted rights to bear arms. The Supreme Court is lying to the American people every time this willfully ignorant interpretation is affirmed. As a result, children are being shot down in public schools, and people are strafed with bullets in churches, concerts, and even public gatherings on the Fourth of July, as happened in Highland Park, IL. this past summer. Yet the Supreme Court stubbornly refuses to recognize or acknowledge its absolute complicity in the death of Americans from gun violence. The "well-regulated militia" the Second Amendment plainly (and textually) demands is cast aside to satisfy the gun addictions of millions of Americans. There are now more guns in America than people.

The truly sick part of the conservative cabal is the sick helix into which Christian conservatives twist themselves to support unrestricted gun rights. Some even have the gall to claim, it seems, that Jesus himself might have carried a gun if he'd had one. In an opinion piece written in 2020, Timothy Hsiao asked the question "Is it morally permissible for faithful Christians to carry firearms?" He replies: "My paper argues that the answer is “yes.” I argue that Jesus’s instruction to sell one’s cloak and buy a sword in Luke 22:36 should be interpreted as endorsing the carrying of weapons for personal protection. I then give a philosophical argument showing that a strong moral right to gun ownership can be derived from the right to life."

In other words, a single bible passage about carrying a sword should be literally applied to the American right to tote an AK-47 or an AR-15 that can kill 25 people in a matter of minutes? That seems so very Christian, we must agree, mustn't we?

Lies and more lies

The sick and sad truth is the number of lies it has taken to install this composition of the court to this point. When Mitch McConnell blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that it was too close to an election to allow President Barack Obama to nominate a judge, he lied about his true intentions. He only wanted to guarantee a conservative majority at some in the future. In fact, when other court candidates were nominated close to the election between Trump and Obama, McConnell pushed them through.

When the intentions of those candidates to rule on the issue of abortion were raised, to a person, they lied about their actual commitment to respect precedent. Instead, they willingly voted to ban abortions in line with the predetermined opinion written by the noted constitutional originalist (or textualist, what's the damned difference, really?) of "Justice" Samual Alito.

Authoritarians abound

The levels of anachronistic dishonesty by our current Supreme Court majority are indeed disgusting, but not unpredictable. One of the key traits among religious literalists and legalists is an appetite for authoritarian rule. Even the anachronistic habit of calling Jesus a "King" or "Lord" speaks to this weakness in the call for rulership over democracy. The ex-President Donald Trump recognized this authoritarian streak and played it for all its worth. These days, he's even embracing QAnon theories and depicting himself as a sort of Christ figure. The result is that thanks to the dishonesty of that man and his predilection for the Big Lie and these propagandistic tactics (MAGA, for example) the value of truth and good judgment is in deeply short supply in the United States of America.

The terrible truth is that even if a case is brought to the Supreme Court in which a clearly guilty ex-President is indicted for leading an insurrection against our nation, the conservative members of the court might give him a pass because they feel they "owe" him their position. That's exactly the sort of complicity Jesus most opposed in the religious authorities of his day. The fact that Christians keep replicating the worst habits of religious authority while continuing, in some quarters, the long tradition of anti-Semitism by gaslighting, ostracizing or Zionizing Jews is the most damning evidence of all that Christianity, and the Supreme Court in the United States of America...are long overdue for a reality check of the first order.

If we really want to Make America Great Again, we should get back to the principles of the Founders and work to extract the toxic influence of religious bias from our lawmaking process.

Christopher Cudworth is the author of the book Honest-To-Goodness: Why Christianity Needs a Reality Check and How to Make It Happen.

#religion #supremecourt #SCOTUS #Christianity #christian #abortion #wetlands #secondamendment #justice #wetlands #environment #climatechange #president #trump #originalism #textualism #literalism #legalism

Sources for this article are provided in direct links within the text.

*The wetland photo in this article was taken by the author. It shows the marsh and swamp adjacent to his property where the local park district installed a path too close to the edge of the wetland, which after a dry year or too expanded to cover its natural boundaries also in line with the hydrology of the drainage system. Judgments like these result in inconveniences and even destruction of human-placed infrastructure. The real decision should respect the need for such wetlands and the fact that regional hydrology is established over centuries, not just a decade.