Many conservatives are elated over the 9-0 decision of the federal Supreme Court that overturned a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling.  The State Court had denied an exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau from a tax to support the unemployment compensation system, reasoning that the latter was not a religious organization.

Justice Thomas thoroughly demolished the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s argument, showing that the Catholic Charities Bureau is in truth a religious organization, and, therefore, is likely eligible for the exemption (though Justice Jackson’s concurrence muddies the water on that somewhat).  But having made that determination, we must ask an essential question, ‘Do the federal courts have jurisdiction in this matter?’

The answer is a resounding No.

The federal justices base their ruling on the First Amendment of the United States constitution, that the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated its Establishment clause.  However, as we have pointed out before, the First Amendment’s religion clauses are directed at Congress:  ‘Congress shall make no law . . . .’  The States are free to make religious arrangements per their own laws, traditions, constitutions, etc.  It is striking that Wisconsin’s own constitutional provisions regulating the relationship between Church and government (Article I, Section 18) are not mentioned at all in the federal Supreme Court’s ruling.  And the erroneous incorporation doctrine related to the US constitution’s problematic 14^th Amendment doesn’t help the federal justices’ case one bit.  So don’t bring that stinking fish carcass up in here; throw it back into the pond of unconstitutional theories out of which you dredged it.

This case should have ended with Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, with that Court’s decision being grounded in Wisconsin’s own constitutional text.  If the decision was found to be unjust, the voters of Wisconsin could have remedied that by replacing the justices who were in the wrong via elections.

What we have gotten instead is far worse than a controversy that would have affected only one religious organization in a single State:  We now have another federal Supreme Court precedent that could invalidate all State efforts to reinvigorate Christianity in public life.  Here are the key paragraphs from the unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Sotomayor:

‘“The clearest command of the Establishment Clause” is that the government may not “officially prefe[r]” one religious denomination over another. Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 244 (1982). This principle of denominational neutrality bars States from passing laws that “‘aid or oppose’” particular religions, Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 106 (1968), or interfere in the “competition between sects,” Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 314 (1952). The Establishment Clause’s “prohibition of denominational preferences is inextricably connected with the continuing vitality of the Free Exercise Clause,” too. Larson, 456 U. S., at 245. That is because the “‘fullest realization of true religious liberty requires that government’” refrain from “‘favoritism among sects.’” Id., at 246 (quoting School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 305 (1963) (Goldberg, J., concurring)). Government actions that favor certain religions, the Court has warned, convey to members of other faiths that “‘they are outsiders, not full members of the political community.’” Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U. S. 290, 309 (2000).

‘To guard against that serious harm, this Court in Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, set a demanding standard for the government to justify differential treatment across religions on denominational lines. See id., at 244–246. When a state law establishes a denominational preference, courts must “treat the law as suspect” and apply “strict scrutiny in adjudging its constitutionality.” Id., at 246. The government bears the burden to show that the relevant law, or application thereof, is “closely fitted to further a compelling governmental interest.” Id., at 251 (internal quotation marks omitted).

‘A law that differentiates between religions along theological lines is textbook denominational discrimination. Take, for instance, a law that treats “a religious service of Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . differently than a religious service of other sects” because the former is “less ritualistic, more unorthodox, [and] less formal.” Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67, 69 (1953). Or consider an exemption that applies only to religious organizations that perform baptisms, engage in monotheistic worship, or hold services on Sunday. Such laws establish a preference for certain religions based on the content of their religious doctrine, namely, how they worship, hold services, or initiate members and whether they engage in those practices at all. Such official differentiation on theological lines is fundamentally foreign to our constitutional order, for “[t]he law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma.” Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 728 (1872).’

Whether ‘a state law establishes a denominational preference’ is frankly none of the federal judiciary’s business.  This is a task they have unlawfully appropriated for themselves, and it once again brings to mind the many warnings of Anti-Federalists and of old republicans of the Virginia/Jeffersonian kind about the tendency of the US constitution’s judicial branch to silently arrogate more and more power unto itself until it becomes an all-powerful body.  From Thomas Jefferson himself:

‘The Judiciary of the US. is the subtle corps of sappers & miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric.  . . .  There is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming instrumentality of the Supreme court’ (Michael Boldin, ‘Thomas Jefferson’s Greatest Fear: The Federal Judiciary and the Death of Liberty,’ tenthamendmentcenter.com).

But even more concerning than this is what those paragraphs from the Catholic Charities ruling mean for State efforts to uphold and strengthen their various Christian cultures.  The federal Supreme Court aims to disallow any laws that show favoritism to Christianity vis-à-vis other religions.  Per their own words, from the text just quoted:  ‘A law that differentiates between religions along theological lines is textbook denominational discrimination.’  This statement is like Damocles’s Sword hanging over the States, a threatening weapon that could be used at any time to invalidate State efforts to post the 10 Commandments in public schools, to allow Christmas and Easter holidays, to allow Christian chaplains to pray before government functions begin, etc., if they do not likewise allow Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, wiccans, and all the rest to also post rules, celebrate holidays, or pray.  To not allow this is by the federal Supreme Court’s reckoning ‘textbook denominational discrimination.’

We are foolish to believe that the enemies of the Church won’t take advantage of this.  Rod Dreher, writing of his experiences with Islam in Dallas, Texas, in 2007 gives us a warning of what’s coming:

‘Indeed, my years of reporting as a columnist on the [Muslim] Brotherhood’s radicalizing activities in the region, including through Dallas Central Mosque, the largest in Texas, brought intense pressure from local Muslim activists on my newspaper to silence me. In meetings with activists, they tried to portray me as a bigot dedicated to demonizing Muslims who just wanted to be part of the community.

‘In fact, I signed up for an online listserv for local Muslims. They discovered my presence within a day, but not before I had downloaded a number of messages in which they discussed the need to appeal to Dallas religious leaders to join in a pressure campaign to “ruin” me. Their strategy was to present themselves as peace-loving minorities who were being victimized by a crusading right-wing lunatic.

‘ . . . So it goes. Islamist organizations know their enemies well. They know how to capitalize on the liberalism of Western institutional elites to bend them to their will. It works’ (‘The Barbarian Invasion of Our Time,’ europeanconservative.com).

Those last lines are full of foreboding.  One day, when Muslims and other non-Christian religions have gathered enough strength, they will use federal Supreme Court precedents like the one we have highlighted to attain political power for themselves.  European countries are undergoing this steady, piecemeal conquest as we speak, thanks to their own political elite (read the whole Dreher article for more on that).  It will not matter that the cultures of the 50 States are all descended from and rooted in Christianity.  To insist on adherence to a Christian culture is an impermissible act of ‘denominational discrimination,’ and the justices of the federal Supreme Court won’t allow that, being the good liberal relativists that they are.

What Jeff LeJeune has been stressing lately is correct:  Folks on the Right must stop judging things based only on surface-level impressions, court decisions included.  They must go deeper.  Because oftentimes the devil really is in the details.