For Supreme Court watchers, late May and all of June are flood season. In this period, the heretofore trickle of released decisions turns into a raging river of majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions.
Some of these opinions concerns matters so mired in legalese that only a lawyer could take interest. But others touch upon issues known by and important to all citizens — questions regarding religion, liberty, and our structure of government.
Here’s a guide to the coming torrent, with some of the biggest cases and what big principles are at stake in them.
Public Role of Religion
The case: Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association. Here, the court will determine whether a more than 90-year-old World War I monument violates the Establishment Clause because it take the form of a cross.
What’s at stake: The role religion should play in our public life. The case’s oral arguments, despite deep divisions, showcased a unified movement toward greater secularization in the public sphere. The justices most inclined to remove the cross emphasized its religious meaning. Justice Elena Kagan, in particular, pointed to the cross as a symbol of the sectarian claims of Christians to the divinity and resurrection of Jesus. The justices seemingly favoring its preservation downplayed such meaning. Instead, they emphasized an evolving tradition that empties crosses of particular religious significance, instead symbolizing patriotic values of courage and honor. Thus, while divided in outcome, the justices seemed to agree that claims of religion’s importance as a shaper of public morality and thereby public happiness, claims common to the Founding generation, seem no longer welcome before the Supreme Court. Read more Read more