Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is under fire from liberal activists who are offended he thinks America must return to a “place of godliness.”
Here’s their problem: Justice Alito is completely right.
Liberal political consultant Lauren Windsor attended a dinner last week for the Supreme Court Historical Society, pretending to be a religious conservative. She struck up conversations with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito, secretly recording her interactions with them.
Trying to bait Justice Alito into saying something inflammatory, Ms. Windsor said that “as a Catholic,” she doesn’t think “we can negotiate with the left in the way that, like, needs to happen for the polarization to end. I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.”
Justice Alito responded,
I think you’re probably right. One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.
As recounted by The Wall Street Journal, “Ms. Windsor then suggest[ed] people of faith ‘have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.’”
Justice Alito replied: “I agree with you. I agree with you.”
So, where’s the scandal? What’s the problem with the justice’s remarks?
There isn’t one. Nothing Justice Alito said is remotely problematic or controversial – except to, perhaps, the small minority of liberal activists who find anything a conservative says controversial.
Despite the lack of any impropriety, that hasn’t stopped liberal elites – posing as media experts – from decrying the justice’s remarks.
For example, Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Senior Supreme Court Analyst, claimed Justice Alito’s comments “reinforce why people are skeptical of the Supreme Court.” She said his comments were full of “religious zeal” that has “long been evident in Alito’s statements and written opinions.”
Biskupic implies that Justice Alito’s faith – and his recognition of the deep partisan divide in our nation – undermines his ability to do his job.
But nowhere in the justice’s remarks did he say that his faith, or his political ideology, governs how he decides cases.
In fact, Justice Alito is committed to the judicial philosophies of constitutionalism and textualism.
Under these viewpoints, judges decide cases by examining what the Constitution, or the text of a statute, meant – and how society at large would have understood it – at the time it was written. Constitutionalists and textualists do not decide cases by what they want the Constitution or the law to say.
“I think history often tells us what the Constitution means,” Justice Alito once said, “or at least it can tell us what the Constitution doesn’t mean.”
Justice Alito’s own judicial philosophy is something that liberals, and left-wing media personalities like Ms. Biskupic, should applaud. It keeps judges restrained by their role as interpreters of the law and leaves the lawmaking to the people’s elected representatives.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78, “The judiciary … may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.”
Make no mistake. The real goal of many individuals on the left is to remove Christians and conservative from the public square entirely – an agenda our complicit media regime is all too willing to aid and abet.
Biskupic’s comments are reminiscent of former Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s remarks to Amy Coney Barrett during her Senate confirmation hearing to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept 6. 2017, prior to her elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Feinstein charged, referring to Barrett’s Catholic faith. “And that’s of concern.”
For the left, it is unacceptable for any Christian or conservative to hold a place of influential public office.
We must reject such intolerance.
Under the Constitution, Christians and conservatives have every right to serve in government. And when they do, they retain their right to free speech and to freely exercise their religion.
Justice Alito, by his wholly unproblematic comments, exercised both of those First Amendment rights. Those are rights that he – and all of us – should be grateful we enjoy.
To learn more about the Christian faith, check out C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity. You can also listen to Focus on the Family’s award winning Radio Theater: C.S. Lewis at War.
Related articles and resources:
Imagine – Supreme Court Justice Family Encourages an Appeal to Heaven
Justice Samuel Alito Warns of Declining Support for Free Speech and Freedom of Religion
Stop Making Good and Honorable Justices Casualties of the Culture War
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