Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you news,
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views, discussion,
analysis, up-to-date information
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on religious
liberty around the world
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and in the United States
often a special focus there.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
I'm editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest is
Gregory Hamilton,
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President of
the North Pacific...
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Northwest. Northwest.
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That's why I threw whistle.
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Northwest Religious
Liberty Association.
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You've been on this
program before and welcome back.
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Thank you.
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You and I were
talking about traveling a lot.
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And my family don't like it,
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but I'm traveling most weekends.
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And only a few weeks
ago, I was in Detroit.
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And Detroit
always for me is Motown.
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Oh, yes.
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And Motown always for me,
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when I was growing
up was the Supremes.
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And I can still
hear them singing.
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I hear a symphony.
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But, you know, when I
think about the Supremes now,
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it's not so
symphonic, no so nice a tune,
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because there's been
a lot of split decisions
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from our Supreme Court.
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The issue of
who's going to replace,
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who has become
incredibly contentious.
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And I think that the general
populace are being conditioned
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on the idea that
this is a very partisan,
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biased, proxy organization
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where the parties
can fight their battles
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and get their way with it.
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Is this all correct? Well, sure.
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Then how should we be
looking at this wrinkle?
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Well, if you're anti-abortion
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or pro-life,
that's the way to put it,
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and you are for the
free exercise of religion,
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but in a
Catholic definition of it,
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which means, the free
exercise of religion only,
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not the constitutional
separation of church and state,
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then you would be for
a Republican candidate,
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okay.
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We already have five
Catholics on the Supreme Court.
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Justice Scalia,
Antonin Scalia just died.
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We actually had six,
with three Jews on it.
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And so, you know, the likelihood
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of getting either
another Catholic or someone
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who has a Catholic
perspective worldview,
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so the speak, on natural law
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and in their view
of religious freedom,
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which by the way
is a very recent view
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going back to
1962 at Vatican II,
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put together by
John Courtney Murray,
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who is a Monsignor...
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Dignitatis humanae?
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Dignitatis
humanae, and his document,
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the first time
the Catholic Church
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accepted religious freedom.
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And that was interesting,
because in that document...
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I should...
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something Catholics
particularly watching much.
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Yes.
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Challenge that, but
I was at a conference,
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where Congressman Senator
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Cowden O'Dolan was speaking.
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And he stopped in
the middle of his speech,
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and he said, after he'd spoken
nicely about religious liberty.
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He said, "You
know, there was a time
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when we wouldn't speak
this way on religious liberty.
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We once held that
era has no rights."
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That was the default setting.
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And in the
following explanation,
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the Catholic
audience in attendance
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were told exactly
what you just said, it
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was Vatican II and Dignitatis
humanae that changed it all.
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Well, their church
law constantly butted up
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against our
American constitutional law.
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And they had the
hardest time with that,
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but they eventually
have adjusted to that.
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Yeah.
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And in fact, Vatican II
being more or less a document
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that made them more Protestant
than they were before.
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Yeah.
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So essentially,
liberalizing the church.
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And so now you have
a pope, Pope Francis,
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who clearly is trying
to carry on Vatican II,
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but he is getting
a lot of resistance.
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But back to the
Supreme Court factor,
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voting and the
Supreme Court factor.
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We've talked about voting
in the previous two segments,
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but the Supreme
Court is a major issue,
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because when a
president is elected,
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they have the right to
nominate and reshape the court.
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As vacancies occur.
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As vacancies occur.
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And what's interesting in
the constitution right now,
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at least, as
it's being interpreted
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by various scholars,
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is this idea that if the
Senate continues to block
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any chance of
hearing the nomination
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of Merrick Garland,
Judge Merrick Garland
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by President
Barack Obama, all right,
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in the current, his last term,
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so to speak as president.
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Clearly, President Obama
was elected by the people.
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So the argument that says,
"Well, we want for the people
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to decide at the election time."
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And then, the next
president should determine
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who the next
Supreme Court justice.
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That's not what
the Constitution says.
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No, there's
nothing about the people,
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the president nominates.
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Not only that but the
Senate does have the right
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in the Constitution
to advice and consent.
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But it says, the president
has a right to nominate, okay,
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and appoint and the
appointment comes at the end.
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The middle part of that says
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that the Senator has the
right to advice and consent.
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But if the Senate
doesn't follow through
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with their
constitutional duty to advice
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and consent by
holding a hearing,
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it suggests in that article,
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I think it's an article to
the powers of the presidency.
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It suggests that the president
has a right to go ahead
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and appoint anyway.
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Now that obviously
won't be taken seriously
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by any
congressman, but the point is,
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is that a number of
scholars are bringing this up.
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And I doubt if
President Obama will do that.
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He'll probably assume that
Hillary Clinton will be elected
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and Hillary Clinton would
either go on and nominate,
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continue to
nominate Merrick Garland,
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which I think she would or
a more progressive candidate,
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which I would
hope she would not.
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I would want a centrist, okay,
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that believes both in
the free exercise of religion
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and the constitutional
separation of church and state.
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But back to this Catholic
document Dignitatis humanae
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by John Courtney
Murray at Vatican II.
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The statement promotes the free
exercise of religion and says,
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"We believe in the
free exercise of religion,
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but it's
purposely silent, in fact,
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even dismissive of the
constitutional separation
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of church and state
in the American model.
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Well, there's a certain irony.
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Yes, I agree with
you in this ambiguity,
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but it's a total document,
it's a great improvement
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on the Council of
Trent certainly...
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Certainly.
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Which was consciously
against Protestantism
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and free choice and so on.
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There's an irony at the
moment that the religious
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Protestant religious
right are not just dismissive,
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they're the venom toward
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the First Amendment
separation of church
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and state is
palpable and stated regularly.
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So as far as
separation of church and state,
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the politically
active as Protestant factions
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don't believe in it.
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The Catholic Church
openly state that they believe
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in the separation
of church and state.
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So what you're
saying is somewhat true,
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but not by what they say,
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because it's their
qualification is dangerous,
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they believe in the
separation of church and state.
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But on the
principle of subsidiarity,
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and that the state is
subsidiary to the church.
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Right.
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Well, to me, that's just the old
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Middle Ages view
stated differently.
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That yes, they are separate,
but when push comes to show
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if the church is superior,
and the pope in his speech
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the other day did
spoke about mutual.
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Oh no, not mutual, oh,
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what was the word, but
reciprocal subsidiarity.
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I mean that's quite dangerous
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when the church
and the state are...
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Instead of dominating,
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it's church and
state working together.
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Working together,
that's the Middle Ages.
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Right.
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So these are
important principles,
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but it's not as
simple as the Catholic Church
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isn't for the
separation of church and state.
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We have a very
muddy playing field
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I think from all
religious factions at the moment
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in maintaining a true
separation of church and state
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and religious
freedom in the United States.
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Oh, absolutely.
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These are dangerous times.
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And you're right,
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the Supreme Court has
become the big chessboard
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for a lot of what's
going on with the parties,
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and the different factions.
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But it troubles me, you know,
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I shouldn't keep
reminding people.
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I live longer in the U.S.
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than most everybody,
but I came from Australia,
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and I still sort of look
at it from a different point,
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and I don't see
the Supreme Court
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as intended to be a
political playing field...
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nor do. You know...
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why is this rush to, you know,
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to get a balance
or to put progressive,
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conservative, so whatever on.
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And at least in the
long sweep of history,
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there's not a
clear correspondence
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between the faction
that put that person
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on the court and how they voted.
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So we're assuming
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that they go under the
court now as Protestant.
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But it hasn't
always functioned that way,
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and it clearly
wasn't intended to be,
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it was part of
the three elements
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of the government with
the checks and balances.
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Well, that's true to a
point, but you have to remember
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when Sandra Day
O'Connor retired,
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Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor and William Rehnquist,
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the chief justice died.
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George W. Bush,
President George W. Bush
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had an opportunity...
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He stacked the deck a bit.
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Huge, he stacked the
deck with the chief justice
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with John Roberts
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and then with the
appointment of Samuel Alito
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both Catholics, devout Catholics
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and really stacking the court
in terms of a conservative tilt
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with Justice Antonin
Scalia leading the way,
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making it more
or less a five four
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conservative majority,
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but with Anthony
Kennedy being the swing vote
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tending to go
liberal, most of the time,
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in fact, he was the swing vote
in the over Felecia decision
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which gave a same sex
marriage, legalized it,
00:10:55.58\00:10:58.75
based upon the
fourteenth Amendment's
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Equal Protection Clause.
00:11:00.42\00:11:02.36
But right now with
the absence of a justice
00:11:02.39\00:11:07.56
with Antonin
Scalia's death in New Mexico.
00:11:07.60\00:11:10.20
This means split decisions
will become deadlock decisions.
00:11:10.23\00:11:12.47
Either split decisions or
it's like in the Zoobic case
00:11:12.50\00:11:17.84
involving the
little sisters of the road
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involving the whole
contraception mandate
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and Obama's healthcare law.
00:11:27.25\00:11:31.89
This idea that, you know,
00:11:31.92\00:11:33.36
they won't have to
comply with federal mandate.
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That whole issue has
been set by the Supreme Court
00:11:37.76\00:11:41.56
back to the federal
courts to discuss it
00:11:41.60\00:11:44.43
and basically
try to come up with,
00:11:44.47\00:11:48.60
you know, basically
more talking points,
00:11:48.64\00:11:50.87
more decisions for
them to feed on and chew on,
00:11:50.91\00:11:54.31
because it will circulate back
to the U.S. Supreme Court of...
00:11:54.34\00:11:58.11
Let me throw a real wild
card into the discussion,
00:11:58.15\00:12:00.18
but I read
enough to know my stuff,
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I bet it's not a wild statement.
00:12:02.52\00:12:04.52
I think greater
than the party bias
00:12:04.55\00:12:10.53
of the justices
is what's happened
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for a few decades
through the law schools.
00:12:13.46\00:12:16.63
There is a radical shift in how
they see religion particularly,
00:12:16.67\00:12:22.00
and even extremely activist view
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of the role of the judiciary
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that I think it's out of
line with the historical norms
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Well, they came to
that, because they thought
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that the Warren Court
back in the 50s and 60s,
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talking about Chief
Justice Earl Warren,
00:12:39.89\00:12:42.06
who was former
governor of California,
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former vice
presidential running mate.
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When he, you know,
sat on the Supreme Court
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very much became a
social justice type,
00:12:49.66\00:12:52.43
Supreme Court justice
gave us the civil rights.
00:12:52.47\00:12:55.97
Basically coincided with
the Civil Rights movement,
00:12:56.00\00:12:58.24
gave us Brown
versus Board of Education,
00:12:58.27\00:13:00.14
and the segregation in schools,
00:13:00.18\00:13:02.01
etcetera, etcetera.
00:13:02.04\00:13:03.38
And the Christian right
and the conservative right
00:13:03.41\00:13:05.75
didn't like that.
00:13:05.78\00:13:07.12
Justice Scalia who
was just an attorney
00:13:07.15\00:13:10.12
at a law firm in Cleveland
didn't like that at the time
00:13:10.15\00:13:13.02
and so on, so these
attitudes very much pervaded,
00:13:13.05\00:13:17.76
and they accused
them Justice Earl Warren,
00:13:17.79\00:13:20.80
Justice Brennan and others
of being judicial activists
00:13:20.83\00:13:24.87
so to speak, and so...
00:13:24.90\00:13:26.23
Yeah, that's
facades, but I think
00:13:26.27\00:13:27.60
from the law
schools that is the reality.
00:13:27.64\00:13:29.84
And so, really wouldn't matter
00:13:29.87\00:13:31.87
less and less what
faction they're from,
00:13:31.91\00:13:34.08
this is the growing
view of the judiciary.
00:13:34.11\00:13:35.94
Right. Right.
00:13:35.98\00:13:37.31
And my solution before the break
00:13:37.35\00:13:40.45
and some
interesting talking point.
00:13:40.48\00:13:42.95
Who says they have
to be judges anyway.
00:13:42.98\00:13:47.16
I've read the Constitution,
and I know the history,
00:13:47.19\00:13:49.52
there's been
people that are just
00:13:49.56\00:13:50.89
in public life being put on it.
00:13:50.93\00:13:52.26
Right.
00:13:52.29\00:13:53.63
And that could
bring it back more to a,
00:13:53.66\00:13:55.00
an ideological norm.
00:13:55.03\00:13:56.36
We'll be back after the break
00:13:56.40\00:13:57.73
to continue this
discussion of the Supremes,
00:13:57.77\00:13:59.97
not the musical group,
but the judges, the justices.
00:14:00.00\00:14:03.24