Supreme Court OKs prayer before town board meetings

Bob, "Why bother?" is a legit question. But that isn't a question that belongs in our judicial system. This isn't a constitutional question -- it is a social more question. The establishment of religion clause doesn't address these prayers at the start of governmental meetings. Our first Congress -- led by the generation who ratified the Bill of Rights -- opened with a prayer by a Christian chaplain who was paid by the Federal government.

We can all ask, "Why do we do this?" I personally wouldn't mind it if those prayers went away.

What I don't get is why fewer and fewer people question how we have evolved into a country where this stuff ends up in the hands of the Supreme Court to arbitrarily give a stamp of approval or a thumbs down to things we should be deciding for ourselves. Before 1983, when Marsh v. Chambers essentially ruled the same thing, the country went 200+ years without these social mores being put before the court to render arbitrary authority over things we should be deciding for ourselves (until you get 9 other appointees with a different agenda to layer different bullshit over the Constitution to give us a new set of social mores that they dictate for everyone).

In this case, I am with you on the "Why bother?" question. I am not a Christian (or any other religion) and personally find these prayers silly and pointless. I also know that I am in a minority, and in this particular case, a prayer at the start of a meeting doesn't really do me any harm. I find those moments of waste of time, but it is so de minimis in terms of any effect on me that the practice is harmless. That is why I don't understand why anyone else would get so upset about it. Those prayers will go away if and when people decide they serve no purpose and don't belong at meetings. But we shouldn't be leaving it to an evolving group of 9 appointed people who legislate for us and cloak it all in bullshit that the Constitution clearly doesn't address.

 

Yes, the job of the court (as established by John Marshall) is to decide when legislation conflicts with the Constitution.

My problem is that for 150 + years, it stuck to the obvious things in the ACTUAL bill of rights, and put a limit on its ability to act as a de facto legislature (which is NOT its role). It left the legislating up to the people who were elected for that reason, and didn't touch things that the Bill of Rights doesn't spell out. And when it did overreach so that the justices tried to impose their agendas on the country (great example is Dred Scott), it almost destroyed the court because of the strife they created when they tried to impose their arbitrary authority over social issues that divide the country.

We have had silly prayers at the beginning of legislative sessions since the country's inception. The reason the court didn't touch it until 1983, was that the Constitution clearly doesn't address it. It doesn't conflict with anything in the bill of rights.

Until relatively recently, the court couldn't touch things that aren't in the Constitution, because spinning bullshit to impose the agendas of the 9 justices on the country would have never flown.

Over time, that changed (I can get into the reasons). The court has evolved into a third branch of government that allows interest groups to make everything into a judicial issue to try to bypass the people we elect when they can't get the legislation they want. That leads to every social problem that we should be addressing ourselves (even when there is contention), now ending up in the courts for 9 appointees to ultimately decide as a de factor legislative branch.

It is absolutely arbitrary and it has nothing to do with the Constitution (the role the court was set up to play). I can expand on it. But we now have the court deciding every social question we can't agree on for us. So you get a decision today, but somehow 10 years from now if the agendas and politics of the people sitting on the court change, the constitution will magically say something different.

Of course the constitution never said anything about most of the things they lord over now. And the rulings over the last 50 or 60 years have gotten ridiculous. They ignore the Constitution and tell us it says things they want it to say (but doesn't), if it serves the ruling they want to see for their own reasons.

 

The constitution is open to evolution, or change, for sure. There is a built in mechanism to amend it in Article V.

That authority rests on the legislature (2/3 of both houses), not on the judicial system, or some unofficial process that has 9 unelected people somehow putting what they want to see into an ever-changing Constitution by their authority.

We have used the actual process to amend (or change) the Constitution 33 times. It is certainly adaptable to times, even if it was made intentionally difficult to change it.

I didn't suggest that the Supreme Court doesn't have an important role as a third branch of government that is a check on the other two. I suggested that we have allowed it to become more than a check that gives the Constitution teeth. We have allowed it to usurp authority from one of the other branches in particular -- the legislature. The irony to me is that because they can just make up whatever they want and insert it into the Constitution by their own authority in their rulings, it actually makes the constitution have less teeth.

I can point to hundreds of decisions since the Warren Court, in which the supreme court was allowed to expand its role to create law. They make up rights.

At a certain point (which evolved slowly starting about 60 to 70 years) the rulings stopped pointing to actual things in the constitution, and they started just making it all up. And we allowed it to happen.

We have 9 doddering appointees who decide what they want the law of the land to be (the majority of the 9), and they just BS it. A good example is Roe v. Wade. Every presidential election, someone tells me I need to elect so and so because the other candidate will put people on the court who will make abortion illegal. Putting aside the obvious -- that the court shouldn't make law, my question is, if it is actually covered by the Constitution (and not BS), why would the agendas of judge nominees matter? If it was in the Constitution in 1973, what has changed since?

Whether you think abortion should be legal or not, the Constitution just doesn't address it (or hundreds of other things the court has made a part of its role). We ELECT people to deal with those things. It's another important branch of the government, the legislature.

By the time we got to Roe v. Wade, by the way, the court wasn't even doing whatever it wanted and PRETENDING there was a constitutional rationale. They gave us a ruling (and continue to give us these rulings) that said that they threw the bill of rights into a hat and shook it up, and they pulled out a brand new right. We never amended the Constitution. That right was never there before. But voila.

Of course that right is only a right until the agenda of the majority on the court changes, at which time, the Constitution will somehow say completely different things because the politics of the judges has changed.

The end result is that these social issues they put their stamp on, have no teeth and the whole process is a joke. OK, so prayer is OK before a town meeting. In 15 years from now, perhaps we will have a whole new court that decides it isn't OK. The constitution will still be the same. What will have changed was the majority agenda of 9 people who none of us ever voted for, and who are given their power for life.

 

I didn't claim it happens with regularity. But the only reason it doesn't happen more willy nilly than it already does is that the court has largely stayed the same in terms of its agendas since the shift I was talking about.

That doesn't mean what I am suggesting hasn't occurred. One example was Bowers v. Hardwick being overturned by Lawrence v. Texas. In 1986, anti sodomy laws were somehow hunky dory according to Constitution. We didn't amend the constitution afterward, but somehow in 2003, the document said the exact opposite thing it had said less than 20 years before.

Obviously what changed were the actual judges -- not the Constitution.

My problem is that isn't what the court is there for, though. We should be evolving our social ideas (and how it manifests itself on society) on our own, not allowing 9 people to play that role arbitrarily.

Also, my point wasn't JUST that it makes the Constitution into something that can say something today and something different tomorrow (even though that is what it does, in effect). It's that this isn't the role of a court. In a democracy, we elect people to make our laws. Even if the 9 judges always gets it right (and they often do -- at least pushing us to a society I personally want to see), this isn't the right mechanism for getting there. In a democracy you want to elect people to legislate. The court is there to make certain they legislate consistent with an overriding set of rules. You don't want random things the court wants to take on to be subject to the arbitrary rule of 9 appointed people.