This post was originally intended for the Dialogical Coffee House, as a long update to my original post there about the arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday regarding the legality of the display of the Ten Commandments in public spaces.

Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has weighed in on this afternoon’s arguments about the public display of the Ten Commandments. Interestingly, it seems that Justice Scalia was the only person in the room to have spoken honestly about what these cases are really about:

Throughout the morning it becomes increasingly clear that Scalia is the only member of the court who is being truly honest. His position: Sure, the display is religious and not secular. Let’s put up some crosses, too, and have a revival meeting. In this sense, Scalia represents the vast majority of the protesters outside. They are not venerating the historical secular influence of the commandments, whatever the lawyers inside the courthouse may say. They just really like God.

While legal hucksters on the side of people like Roy Moore have tried to legitimize the display of religious symbols in public spaces via their historical value, Scalia tells like it is. And Scalia had no time for these arguments: “But it’s not a secular message! If you’re watering it down to a secular message I can’t agree with you.” Even Lithwick gets it:

I wish there could be two Frays tonight: one for the law professors and scholars who truly believe in the commandments as a purely secular foundational document, and one full of the brave Scalia-like souls willing to admit that this case is about whether or not to welcome religion to the public square, pure and simple. I’d rather party with the second group.

I had to fight the urge to raise a pint for Scalia. Here he is, saying what he believes and (apparently) fighting for religion in the Public Square. But then, I think about what the cases are really about — symbols of the Old Testament covenant between God and His people (even Justice Ginsburg knows this and points it out). We really shouldn’t be staking our space in the Public Square with a hunk of granite. Our presence in the Public Square needs to be much more substantive.

Posted on 3 March 2005