The lefty legal freakout over the Supreme Court’s Carson v. Maykin ruling continues. This time it’s Noah Feldman.
The Supreme Court Has Just Eroded First Amendment Law – In an important church-and-state decision, the justices have effectively ended the centuries-old constitutional ban on direct state aid to the teaching of religion, Noah Feldman/Bloomberg.
In an extremely important church-and-state decision, the Supreme Court has held that if the state of Maine decides to pay for a child’s private education in lieu of a public one, it must allow its tuition money to be used at religious schools. The 6-3 decision, Carson v. Makin, profoundly undermines existing First Amendment law.
It represents the end of the centuries-old constitutional ban on direct state aid to the teaching of religion. And remarkably, it does all this in the name of religious liberty, giving the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment primacy over the establishment clause found in the exact same amendment.
As Feldman knows quite well, Carson v. Maykin doesn’t ‘establish’ religion. All it does, like most church-state legal decisions, ban discrimination against religion.
What does establish religion is Sharia law. And Feldman famously endorsed Islamic theocracy in a New York Times Magazine article titled, “Why Sharia”.
“To many, the word “Shariah” conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed,” Feldman bemoaned. “In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world “
“In the Muslim world, on the other hand, the reputation of Shariah has undergone an extraordinary revival in recent years. A century ago, forward-looking Muslims thought of Shariah as outdated, in need of reform or maybe abandonment. Today, 66 percent of Egyptians, 60 percent of Pakistanis and 54 percent of Jordanians say that Shariah should be the only source of legislation in their countries. Islamist political parties, like those associated with the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, make the adoption of Shariah the most prominent plank in their political platforms. And the message resonates. Wherever Islamists have been allowed to run for office in Arabic-speaking countries, they have tended to win almost as many seats as the governments have let them contest. The Islamist movement in its various incarnations — from moderate to radical — is easily the fastest growing and most vital in the Muslim world; the return to Shariah is its calling card,” Feldman gushed.
“For many Muslims today, living in corrupt autocracies, the call for Shariah is not a call for sexism, obscurantism or savage punishment but for an Islamic version of what the West considers its most prized principle of political justice: the rule of law.”
In Feldman’s world, Sharia theocracy is a wonderful Islamist democratic constitutional movement, but religious equality in America is a theocratic threat.
SKA says
These dhimmi Shariah-idolaters deserve dhimmitude.
PMK says
Even ‘religious’ schools in America must be accredited. Religion is just one subject in a curriculum that focuses primarily on the three R’s, along with history, geography, etc.
gravenimage says
I attended an Episcopal school for first and second grade. Religion was only one subject. Moreover, you could skip this class–and Chapel–if you so desired. We had a couple of Jewish kids; they just spent time in the library and could read whatever books they wanted during religious instruction.
revereridesagain says
For practical purposes the aid to religious schools is useful these days because of the better education and rejection of dangerous “woke” cultural Marxism. But yeah, it’s a violation of the First. What else is new at the SCOTUS, where they are about to remove the sovereign right of a woman over her own body in order to please your gods?
Adaptively Emergent says
Well put. I feel the same way about this. I understand that the public education system has become nothing but a Woke re-education/indoctrination system and people now have limited options. The problem is that Islamists will use this exact same ruling to their advantage as well, using public funds to radicalize young children in Islamic schools.
gravenimage says
You *are* right that this is a concern, Adaptively Emergent.
somehistory says
The Amendment says that the government cannot establish or deny/oppress a religion.
This is neither…and it certainly does not “establish” any particular religion. According to the law, any school will be eligible for the money.
This does not “establish” any religion; it just means the parents have a choice of where their kid goes to school and the school…which will teach the fundamentals of STEM …gets the necessary money to take care of these needs.
If the school is Jewish, and another kid is going to a school set up by someone from one of the many Christian denominations, or a Buddhist, etc. they all get treated the same. The fact that most schools are run by those choosing Christ as their Leader is what chaps the hide of those opposing this ruling.
Those fools who want mozlums to dominate us…in every avenue of life…just don’t want people to have different choices. Any one who wants the foul, evil, demonic commands and demands of the book of adherence to satan to be the *standard* is no good.
Just witness all of the ‘schools” in the U.K. run by mozlums and the demands put upon the teachers and kids to adhere to the evil rules the mozlums dictate. Would the feldman fool have a problem with that here?
gravenimage says
+1
somehistory says
Most universities were set up by religious people….and many are paid the tuition by loans from the government. It should be no different with the funds that would be paid to a school for the little kids, if the parent chooses one of the schools set up by religious people..
Adaptively Emergent says
“All it does, like most church-state legal decisions, ban discrimination against religion.”
Isn’t it obviously necessary to “discriminate” or even “ban” aspects of religion that threaten our wellbeing and go against the basic foundational principles of a free society? This “ban” on “discrimination against religion” can easily be used against us in my view. I think we all understand that Islam cannot be allowed to be fully practiced here in the West. We currently DO and must continue to discriminate and effectively suppress Islam in our Kafir societies in order to survive as free societies. We have to discriminate against Islam and treat it differently. Banning “discrimination against religion” prevents us from being able to effectively defend against it, especially Islam which will take full advantage of this to indoctrinate and radicalize more children using state funds. As I see it now, I disagree with this ruling.
mortimer says
Beautiful summary by Greenfield: “In Feldman’s world, Sharia theocracy is a wonderful Islamist democratic constitutional movement, but religious equality in America is a theocratic threat.”
For me, Sharia theocracy means removing the human rights and civil liberties of women and non-Muslims.
Mr. Feldman, you are wrong. Islam is NOT ‘benign’ as you mistakenly assume. Look more deeply into the abuses of Sharia.
mortimer says
Legal scholars have noted that the States entered the American federation with the ability to have an established religion which a number of them did have.
In principle, there is no constitution impediment for any state deciding on matters of religion, since such laws would not be under the jurisdiction of the federal congress which does not have the right to establish a religion. I guess this might be called a ‘residual power’ retained from the colonial days.
The only thing lacking for a particular State to independently legislate religious matters is the will to do so. States, in principle, still retain the right to do religious legislation and they could endorse parochial schools if they chose to do so.
(I am no constitutional lawyer, and the law profs in the forum may have other ideas about states’ rights.)
PMK says
Mortimer,
I’m just a C-SPAN watcher, not a lawyer or legal prof. It’s true that the Bill of Rights was a check on federal power, that changed with the Civil War and the ratification of the 14th Amendment. The 14th resulted in the Bill of Rights being applied to the individual states as well as to the federal government. There were ‘state’ churches at the time of the founding, but no more.
From Cornell Law school site:
The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine through which the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution (known as the Bill of Rights) are made applicable to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. .
PMK says
mortimer,
Regarding parochial schools, I can only speak from my own experience but I would guess that most localities today include parochial schools in their funding, that would be available to eligible students / programs, since those who send their children there are also taxpayers. Way back when, we had to pay for busing to the Catholic school, which was not within walking distance. After a few years, the town paid for busing to all schools within its jurisdiction, both public and private.
mortimer says
Most Muslims who say they want Sharia have likely not experienced it. They have no idea what they are asking for from state-run ‘hisbah’ control freaks who administer spontaneous beatings and other punishments without court trials.
Asking for more Sharia actually means asking for repression of personal freedoms and the repression of all women and non-Muslims.
Mr. Feldman pretends that full Sharia does not resemble the societies of the Taliban and ISIS and Boko Haram.
THOSE GROUPS ARE IMPOSING FULL SHARIA.
What does Feldman give as an example of what he fantasizes as ‘real’ Sharia?
There is ‘full’ Sharia or there is ‘partial’ or ‘lax, loose’ Sharia, but there is no such thing as a ‘benign’ Sharia or a ‘benign’ Islam. Sharia law is ‘real’ Islam, Mr. Feldman, and it is very repressive.
Roland says
Feldman’s nuttery aside, advocates of public funding of religious schools should be careful of what they wish for. If a thousand Islamic madrassas conform to public laws in the United States, they may be funded as readily as Catholic, Lutheran, Dutch Reformed Church, or Jewish schools. Little you can legally do about it.
Hoi Polloi says
Feldman is clearly paid well to insist that islam as written and practiced does not institute the “horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed.” His assertion that because these horrors are becoming more popular and widely desired among adherents, is that this means they don’t exist?
Can he raise his fork to his mouth or does it repeatedly fill his ear, what with this level of inversion of normal thought processes?
SKA says
Purse versus dagger: He i$ well paid.
Hoi Polloi says
The Times: “Charles accepted €1M cash in suitcase from sheikh…former Qatari prime minister.”
Hoi Polloi says
Others quote the article as noting an additional €2M handed over to Charles in shopping bags.
gravenimage says
Sharia Supporter Accuses Supreme Court of Eroding Separation of Church and State
…………………………..
This would be hilarious if it were not so bizarre. And it is also false–allowing Americans to use their own tax money to attend a parochial school is *not* the state establishing religion.
And note that Feldman doesn’t actually say how those who fear the horrors of Shari’ah are wrong–because of course he can’t.
And he didn’t just write an article for the NYT–he is so wedded to the horrors of Shari’ah that he has written an entire book on the subject: ”The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State”.
He claims that Muslims have turned to Shari’ah as a reaction against autocratic rule–without appearing to realize that Shari’ah supports autocratic rules, so long as it is also Islamic.
He bemoans the influence of constitutional law in the Muslim world–even though the vestiges of this influence are the only reason that places like Pakistan and Nigeria are not even worse than they are. He also bemoans Mullahs not having *even more* influence than they do in the Muslim world.
And her he is, on the terrible Jihad mass murder at Charlie Hebdoe in 2015:
https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-france-terror-web-20150107-column.html
He does not condemn it–he just cites horrors like mass murdering journalists and cartoonists as a useful tactic. And this is not is only apologia for Jihad terror. Just sickening.
somehistory says
https://islamism.news/2022/06/24/terror-supporters-and-child-abuse-enthusiasts-to-benefit-from-expanded-federal-program/
“For a number of radical groups with established terror ties and long-held extremist ideals, DHS’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program has, for many years, been an important source of hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal funding as well as the all-important legitimacy of a government contract.
“In 2019, for instance, $100,000 was handed out to the Washington branch of the Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation, a leading U.S. component of the Deobandi sect. A key institution run by the Foundation is the Shariah Board of America. Its rulings include instructions that Muslims may not marry Jews or Ismailis.
More alarmingly, in one fatwa, when asked if it is permissible for teachers to hit students, and told of Islamic schools where students were beaten so brutally they were left with permanent damage, “ruptured eardrums” and “profuse bleeding,” the Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation cleric responded that “it is permissible to beat them three times by hand.” It is noteworthy that the Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation runs several prominent schools in the United States.”