The never-ending march of court cases about church and state sometimes seems so rapid that they blur together. But Peter Irons, a longtime professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the Supreme Court bar, has slowed down time to take in-depth looks at several highly symbolic disputes in his new book God on Trial: Dispatches from America's Religious Battlefields. He talked to TIME's David Van Biema about swing votes, death threats, and the rule of law.
TIME: Your book treats six First Amendment religion cases, several of which went to the Supreme Court. Briefly, what were they?
IRONS: "There was the San Diego case against a 43-foot Latin Cross erected in a veterans cemetery in San Diego; the football-game prayer case from Santa Fe, Texas, two Ten Commandments cases, the attempt to remove "under God " from the Pledge of Allegiance and the Intelligent Design case in Dover, Pa."
(snip)
"We've reached a pretty general accommodation in this country between different religious denominations and sects, such as Protestants and Catholics, between whom conflicts like the Bible Riots arose. I do see more bifurcation, a shrinking of mainstream Christian religion and a separation between conservative Christian groups and more secular groups on the left. Both use the terminology of "culture war, " which I appropriated. But thankfully, these wars are by and large rhetorical or legal, which distinguishes us from other cultures where violence seems to be the inevitable outcome of religio-political divisions."Full interview at TIME
No comments:
Post a Comment