“Don't cram [that neutrality concept] down the throats of an American people that has always honored God on the pretext that the Constitution requires it.”For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
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-- From "Scalia: 'Don't cram' religious neutrality 'down throats of American people'" by Rebecca Kheel, The Hill 1/2/16
“God has been very good to us,” Scalia said at a speech at a Catholic high school in Louisiana, according to the Times-Picayune. “One of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor.”
On Saturday, he said the First Amendment prohibits the government from endorsing one religion over another. But, he added, that doesn’t mean the government has to favor non-religion over religion.
He argued that’s a more modern reading originating in the courts in the 1960s.
If Americans want to the government to be non-religious, he said, they should vote on it instead of courts deciding.
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From "Scalia at Rummel: God has been good to U.S. because we honor him" by USA Today Network Staff and wire reports 1/3/16
"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" he said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"
Scalia was speaking at Archbishop Rummel High School at an event sponsored by the school and Catholic Community Radio as an early commemoration of Religious Freedom Day.
Scalia said that his colleagues on the Supreme Court often spend a lot of time deciding if the government favors religion over non-religion in many of their rulings.
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From "Scalia says God is 'very good' to US because US honors him, dismisses religious neutrality" by Rebecca Santana, Associated Press 1/2/16
He also said there is "nothing wrong" with the idea of presidents and others invoking God in speeches. He said God has been good to America because Americans have honored him.
Scalia said during the Sept. 11 attacks he was in Rome at a conference. The next morning, after a speech by President George W. Bush in which he invoked God and asked for his blessing, Scalia said many of the other judges approached him and said they wished their presidents or prime ministers would do the same.
"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways," Scalia said.
"There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that," he added.
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From "Government can, should, support religion, Justice Antonin Scalia tells Metairie crowd" by Robert McClendon, The Times-Picayune 1/2/16
Government support for religion is not only justified by the Constitution, it was the norm for hundreds of years and it helped the United States become a free and prosperous nation, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday in Metairie.
The Constitution's First Amendment protects the free practice of religion and forbids the government from playing favorites among the various sects, Scalia said, but that doesn't mean the government can't favor religion over nonreligion.
That was never the case historically, he said. It didn't become the law of the land until the 60s, Scalia said, when he said activist judges attempted to resolve the question of government support of religion by imposing their own abstract rule rather than simply observing common practice.
At the time the Constitution was written, religion was ubiquitous. Scalia noted that Thomas Jefferson, who first invoked the idea of a "wall of separation between church and state," also penned Virginia's religious freedom law, founded a university with dedicated religious space and, in writing the Declaration of Independence, regularly invoked God.
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