The self-styled originalists on the Supreme Court cheerfully ignore the Constitution’s original meaning when it collides with the agenda of the contemporary religious right.

The Establishment Clause is an illustration of the new phony originalism. It is now an open question whether a state could place crucifixes in classrooms.....

If government gets to say what God commands, we will shortly learn that what God wants above all else is the reelection of incumbent officeholders. And the officeholders will necessarily have an instrumental and manipulative relation to the religion that they promote, thinking of God primarily as a potential political ally.

Thomas Jefferson despised “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others.” The court isn’t assuming that kind of dominion, but it isn’t bothered by it, either. In that respect, the justices evidently think they are smarter than the Constitution.

[msn.com]