OFFICIAL SECULARISM may well be a moral as well as a practical necessity in a religiously diverse country, including believers of many different religious traditions, from the many indigenous ones to the ones imported from everywhere else in the world to the religious traditions that deny they are religious, be those the many religious traditions of atheism and agnosticism and the largest of all those, unthinking indifference. The necessary coercion, if not violence, necessary to enforce the privileges of an established church is an immoral thing, especially true of the moral teachings of Jesus and his followers who wrote the New Testament. So, from that you can conclude that official secularism in secular government would probably be a good thing in the most religiously uniform of polities, as well.
Official secularism, part of what the putrid Sandra Day O'Connor may have included in her putrid formulation of "civic religion," may be merely a practical necessity in practice, excluding any moral content because secularism has no especial basis for morality within it, it being merely agnostic and not a positive statement of morality. It is compatible with a mere non-consideration of such things that cannot do without moral consideration and practice. I have come to believe that the official secularism of many so-called "liberals" is of that kind, any vestiges of morality contained within them what Nietzsche ridiculed as the "shadow of the Buddha," a mere habit of moral thought or, at least words, growing ever fainter with each passing generation as that habit is replaced by an absence of any deep or effective moral consideration or, even more so, moral practice. I've lived long enough to see that happen in three generations of families I've known, the grandchildren devoid of any of even the civic virtues of their grandparents, as the Trumps and other established crime families of the rich demonstrate, amorality is a far more reliably vital aspect of such family traditions than the much harder to follow morality of revealed religion.
While you may find genuine morality in some agnostic or atheist, such morality is borrowed from elsewhere, there being nothing in their ideology which provided that to them, it being supported by nothing except habit inherited from their parents or from somewhere when it isn't merely a product of them conforming to the vestiges of that in others habits of thoughts or its vestiges in the law which may impinge negatively on them if they violate what is allowed by the civil law. As I have often pointed out, materialism, whether you call it the vulgar "lives of the rich and famous sort" or the intellectual face of that in academic babble, has no such morality as a logical or even volitional necessity. And in the American legal system under the influence of such ever broadening amorality, especially in regard to money and its acquisition by those with the ability to hire the most amoral lawyers and the kind of amoral lawyers who are versed in how to interpret the often morally lax civil law to the benefit of those who will benefit them (the kind of lawyers who are promoted by the Federalist-fascist society and which the American Bar Association don't filter out by their standards of assessment) those are who are most likely to be named to the various state and federal benches and elected in our money-corrupted politics. That money corruption being kept in place by Supreme Court "First Amendment" interpretation, standing as emblematic of the tendency of corruption under our official, civic secularism. Our official non-establishment of religion would keep any such financial amorality from being restrained by what the Law the Prophets and the Gospel out of any consideration. I can get into how sexual morality has traditionally not been handled in such a hands-off way by the legal system and its relation to facilitating the far more dangerous amorality of wealth some other time.
Of course, the history of established churches, established under the secular powers of the past and present prove that the same corruptions possible under official civic secularism under disestablishment are possible in the name of religion. That is true whether or not that is polytheistic or monotheistic. That possibility, perhaps inevitability, under an established church in the Hebrew monotheistic tradition which consists largely of countering moral commandments against that in every one of the three branches of it, the Jewish and Christian and Islamic traditions, should lead to the logical conclusion that it is even far more dangerous when those commandments are removed from government under amoral secularism. The example of Saudi Arabia and Iran are good examples of how that can be rigged under the most elaborate and extensive of the trappings of monotheistic morality to make the super rich ever more filthy rich as they use sexual morality of the poor and unprivileged as a weapon against the many. As have been Western monarchies or, in fact, monarchies anywhere in the world. Egalitarian democracy is about the only form of government which has a chance of preventing that, "liberal democracy" as we can see in everywhere it is in effect, as in the United States, is fully capable of that kind of rigging for the super-rich.
The official legal system of the United States was born just such an officially morally neutral secular system, explicitly in the founding text of the Constitution. And after a vague and pious preface to that document any such morality is largely absent, replaced by the slavery-perpetuating content, the scheme of those framing aristocrats, largely consisting of lawyers brought up in the 18th century English law, Moral neutrality naturally favors slave-holding and aristocratic wealth accumulation. Not wanting to pay for the support of an established church not their own, not willing to take the chance on being dominated by a church hierarchy not their own, they inserted a practical official secularism in their document. No doubt if they hadn't they could never have arranged its adoption in the religiously diverse states. Many of the dominant figures in the original Constitutional Convention were under the influence of the fashionable 18th century "enlightenment," already denying and destructive of Christianity, something which was already well established in even the nominally Christian churches, the resulting system can hardly be blamed on the words of Jesus, Paul, James, etc.
To be a lawyer under the secular system of the United States, even as a self-defined Christian, is to make professional peace with the frequently anti-Christian content of the law of the United States. Those today in nominal Christian "christian nationalism," be they "evangelical" or "traditional Catholic" or Mormon or whatever, being some of the most attached to the anti-christain content of the civil law, which, under both amendment by the regular actions of adoption of law or by court fiat, is a code enabling gangsters, the wealthy who the legal system service as a regular part of their business.
When I heard last year that the average corporate lawyers make an average salary that figures in the millions a year, that they were the best paid class of lawyers, that they dominate the profession, be it practicing lawyers or those odd secular, civic theologians, the "legal scholars," in law schools financed by millionaires and billionaires to produce that class of servants of wealth, I have come to believe my understanding of that profession, including the judges, is far more complete as I once had.
The double-counterpoint of American lawyering, which enables the likes of such Catholic religious fanatics as Amy Coney-Barrett to claim allegiance to Catholic morality, which includes the truly radical official Catholic social teaching since Pope Leo in the late 19th century as well as the far more radical Gospel of Jesus, the teachings of Paul, James, etc. to service the wealth that Jesus identified as a serious moral impediment and Paul declared to be the root of all evil, as she does exactly what she should know as evil, is a consequence of her indoctrination in the secular law of the United States. I'm sure it is what she and her fellow legal professors at Notre Dame teach as well as those at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Georgetown. It is certainly not the social teaching of even those arch conservative popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI which informs her activities on the Supreme Court. It certainly doesn't enter into the thinking or inclinations of the rest of such professors of Christianity as comprise the six Republican-fascist, Trump enabling "justices" on the Court, all of whom pretend to be Christians, as well. Such as who have done everything they so-far dare to do to help the nominee of their Republican-fascist party to get away with obvious violations of the civil law, even the most blatantly stated intentions of the Constitution, to form a government that promotes the common-good, the protections of all of us from just such as Trump promises to deliver if he gets power a second time. They have already done more to that end than even the corrupt lower court under Aileen Cannon has gotten away with doing in taking the case they're due to decide today on whether or not Trump had dictatorial powers from 2017 to 2020 and, really, well after he left office. That they didn't refuse to take the case and consider that he did, in fact, enjoy such exemption from the civil law of the United States means that they are entirely comfortable with the possibility that they will claim that he did. As a number of commentators have put it, they have already given Trump a win on that in the most important consequence, this years presidential election, by their vile and amoral delay in judging those questions, questions that the lower appeals court had already and ruled on with faultless logic and moral discernment. Whichever of the "justices" chose to take that case, no matter what they might put their names to in their decisions, they are already all-in on letting him get away with the range of crimes up to and including mounting a putsch against the validly elected winner of the 2020 election, including the attempted murder of members of Congress and his own Vice-President.
If anything the bulk of the behavior of that florid and public poseur of nominal "christianity" Mike Pence, in which he acted in regard to the letter of the law for one day, January 6th 2020, but who has been, otherwise, all in with Trumpian fascism for his own chance of benefiting from it, pretending to be a figure of morality all the time is as perfect an example of how dim the shadow of Jesus is in that kind of Christianity, in that case it was the mere letter of the secular, civic law that he went along with, no doubt, because he figured he might not get away with doing what Trump and his goons wanted him to do. I doubt anything higher than that came into it. It is too dangerous for us to depend on that in the future because his good intentions lasted exactly as long as he didn't figure he could profit from acting against those ever since. That is a product of secular ethics, which is certainly morally inferior to Christian morality. Trump stealing children from their destitute, desperate parents and putting them in concentration camps with plastic sheets to sleep on concrete floors should have been only one of any decisive breaks of the "christian" Mike Pence from Trump and it would have come far earlier than his one day of ethical behavior on January 6th. But, then, he was far from alone with that, many a member of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops never parted company from Trump, nor many a leader in "evangelical christianity" or others who make religion into their business. Though many a Christian, many Jews, many Muslims, many members of other religious traditions never took up with him on the basis of his fascist, oligarchic immorality. You can't say that the secular law has broken with him because, other than about four courts in New York and Washington, DC, they're still indulging him and his delaying lawyers at every turn.
As I said to objections the other day, you can entirely exempt Christianity from the immorality of professing Christians by going back to the foundations of Christianity, the teachings of the New Testament and the relevant and consistent parts of the First Testament which support the teachings of Jesus, Paul, James, etc. Those define Christianity, they are the authority which defines Christianity, ultimately. No secular order which is dependent on ever fluctuating parts of the civil law has such a life-saver which can rescue it from moral blame. Anything which Christianity is rightly to be faulted with must be found in the declared teachings of Jesus, ultimately, and Christianity must be answerable to that, anything claimed for Christianity which is not consistent with the teachings of Jesus is not legitimately Christian. Jesus taught to do to others what you would have done to you, to give the destitute and poor economic justice, ample sustenance and love, to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that if you want to be more perfect you must sell all you have and give the money to the poor, for those who would be preachers of his Gospel to be the least, the servants of all, to not have fancy clothes or even shoes (though as Hans Kung has pointed out, what might be possible in that regard in the geographic regions such as Palestine don't work much for places that get cold weather and snow). The secular order has no such moral foundation, as the Roberts Court has entertained, it can't even reliably reject the idea that a president doesn't have the right to murder his opponents to retain power illegally. That last point even being entertained by the Supreme Court impeaches their moral authority, it identifies that Court as one that is willing to entertain that as a possibility, no doubt coming up with some transparently false Constitutional blather to make that the lawless law of the land. They have declared that there is a right to lie, after all, and a thousand other atrocities flowing out of transparent lies they told about things such as the meaning of the 14th Amendment to legalize conning, cheating and grinding oppression of workers and, very recently, the 8th Amendment to say the poor have no right to even sleep. Such is the moral vacuity of secular "civic religion."
For more you can read this article published today. Apparently Gavin Newsome is a supporter of the ruling I slammed yesterday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom praised the Supreme Court's decision and said in a statement it provides state and local officials "the definitive authority to implement and enforce policies to clear unsafe encampments from our streets."
I've got a real problem with "liberalism" that could support such cruelty to the least among us, considering that ruling enables the likes who rule in the Republican-fascist dominated states as well as California and Massachusetts. I would vote for him if I had to but I don't trust that kind of liberalism. I'm old enough to remember when homelessness and destitution were considered national shames, not annoyances to those above them on the economic scale.
The article notes:
Gorsuch wrote the Eighth Amendment "focuses on the question what 'method or kind of punishment' a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place." He also said the fines and jail sentences in the Grants Pass case do not do not "qualify as cruel and unusual."
There is, apparently nothing cruel or unusual in making a person sleeping, a biological necessity and, eventually involuntary act, something punishable by criminal law. Easy for a pampered, rich, white, straight guy whose mother was an affluent Reagan administration criminal, the product of an elite education and who probably never had any prospect of being destitute himself to say. I doubt he's ever known someone who had to live on the street. Though I'd be surprised if his partner in Constitutional cruelty, Thomas had not, not that it makes any difference to that moral atrocity. Make those amoral bastards on that Court give a full and competent legal representation to the least among us as a condition of them holding office or a law license. Lawyers should all have that obligation imposed on them as a condition of their professional status. Otherwise they give rise to all of the moral atrocities in the law.
