Three R's

I don’t really expect cogent arguments when it comes to the LA Time’s and this commentary maintains that consistency. The article titled "At risk: Roe, rights and religion" continues the screamfest about overturning Roe as if the majority of Americans were pro-abortion at all costs. In the last couple of days from Sen. Barbara Boxer down to many liberal pundits we have heard the cry of danger to abortion "rights" and they talk as if everybody is on their side and that everybody should be upset at this possibility. This is one instance when I hope that they are right and that our current abortion-on-demand laws are either seriously restricted or sent back for a state-by-state decision.

Getting back to the article of the three R’s I wondered how they were going to say that under Judge Roberts that religion was at risk.

Third, religion. Though O’Connor voted with the conservatives to allow school vouchers to fund religious schools, she joined the moderates in enforcing the separation of church and state in other areas. Roberts wrote briefs for the George H.W. Bush administration urging a less rigid separation between church and state and argued in favor of permitting prayer at high school graduation ceremonies, a position the Supreme Court later rejected.

To the extent his views match his former boss’, Roberts could provide the fifth vote to return prayer to schools, allow a significant expansion of government-sponsored religious displays and funnel more money to faith-based service providers. This agenda is crucially important to the religious right, which has been particularly aggrieved by O’Connor’s middle-of-the-road church-state jurisprudence. In many cases that jurisprudence turns on one vote.

It is worth noting that Roberts was acting as a Bush administration lawyer when he took his positions against Roe and in favor of school prayer, and it may be that they do not reflect his personal beliefs. Nevertheless, it is all we have to go on at the moment — our best indication of his thinking.

And after actually reading the pertinent paragraph I am still wondering where the argument was that religion was at risk. Is the argument that religion is at risk if prayer is returned to school or that faith based organizations work with the government? Gee I would have thought that it was the other way around. Or perhaps the thrust is that liberal religion is at risk. That the sacrament of abortion is under fire and that the high priestesses at NOW and NARAL are upset at this possible infringement. A liberal religion that has no use for a God that knew us before we were knitted in our mother’s womb. So if they are worried that a religion that worships a God who is down with aborting his individual unique persons is at risk, well it is always at risk without worrying about what Judge Roberts might do. This type of religion is always at risk in the light of day.