On Tuesday June 26, 2018 the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling, dealt a massive blow to democracy and delivered a victory to hatred. The five justices, with one stolen from President Obama, joined with President Trump to discriminate against Muslims. In historic terms, this ruling wiped out a sacred American principle of religious freedom, forged in the 18th century.
On September 17, 1787, after a long hot exhausting summer, America declared in Article VI of the Constitution that ‘No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ It began a process of etching religious freedom as a legal right and affirmed it on December 15 1791 in The First Amendment, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Religious freedom was one of the first steps in the right direction in America’s journey to live up to its democratic ideals. The nation and its legal system still had a long way to go to abolish its horrific slavery and to increase civil right. But unlike now, America then started by responding to its religious minorities.
In the 18th century these were Jews fleeing persecution, Catholics and various Protestant sects, Quakers, Baptists, Huguenots, Pietists and Reformed groups who contested despotic majority religions in Europe. With a history of devastating religious wars, faith communities were unsure how enduring America’s promise would be. Churches and synagogues wrote to President George Washington seeking reassurances. The president answered each and every letter with specific guarantees.
In his letter to the Jewish community of Newport, RI, Washington responded directly to its deep fears of endemic hatred. He declared in a letter, which he read publicly, promising that the Government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” His letter was published in papers around the country, and is known since as the Tuoro Synagogue letter. Washington’s promise became an iconic American commitment to religious pluralism; presidents of both political parties frequently reaffirmed it.
In the 1960 election, for example, both presidential candidates, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy pledged religious freedom on the commemoration of 170th anniversary of George Washington’s letter to the Tuoro synagogue. Nixon “quoted from the letter’s definition of ‘toleration’ and spoke of the letter’s longevity as an inspiration.” Kennedy asked Eleanor Roosevelt to represent him at the event and she chose to hold up America as a place that “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” President Reagan used the letter twice, in 1982 and in 1986. George H.W. Bush mentioned it in 1989, and George W. Bush held it up in 1989.
Religious freedom has been an American icon until President Trump and five justices chose to walk away from it. Yet one of the SCOTUS nine, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stood up for Washington’s promise. She wrote a compelling dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Ginsburg, which deserves to be reprinted in full. Here, however, I offer just a taste of her powerful admonition. “What began as a policy explicitly ‘calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ has since morphed into a “proclamation” putatively based on national-security concerns. But this new window dressing cannot conceal an unassailable fact: the words of the president and his advisers create the strong perception that the proclamation is contaminated by impermissible discriminatory animus against Islam and its followers.”
The Trump/SCOTUS ruling is reprehensible; it spreads and promotes old/new religious hatred that 18th century America hoped to abolish. The ban will bring untold suffering on Muslim American citizens. It will cut them off from their kin in the banned countries, and will make them vulnerable to attacks at home. As Justice Stephen Breyer noted in a dissenting position, the Court’s ruling on Tuesday was “evidence of anti-religious bias.”
America in the 18 century offered, what Alexis de Tocqueville called, “equality of conditions” for white people. The country has since taken some necessary steps to be inclusive. This president wants to back away from every democratic gain America has been struggling to implement throughout it history.
Five justices won the day for Trump and betrayed America. As Justice Sotomayor said, “a reasonable observer would conclude that the proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus.” Her five fellow justices dumped Washington’s promise that the government will give “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Two branches of government have now brought back bigotry to America and it is up to us to reject it. We must, as Republicans George Will and Steve Schmidt argue, make the third branch, the House and the Senate democratic. We have no other choice.
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