The Scalia Supreme Court Five Bong the Constitution

In a story that appeared in the Austin American Statesman newspaper June 28 the Texas State Supreme Court ruled against holding the Colleyville, Texas church of Pleasant Glade Assembly of God liable for injuries and trauma against one of its congregation’s members, Laura Schubert. The court’s 6-3 ruling concluded that finding the church liable "would have an unconstitutional chilling effect."

The Texas Supreme Court threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters.

In a related example of judicial activism in the U.S. Supreme Court, a June 25, 2007 ruling involved First Amendment free speech rights, Deborah Morse, et al., Petitioners v. Joseph Frederick. The case was also referred to by the media as Bong Hits for Jesus.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion which, in essence, declared that a sign that Frederick unfurled across the street, on public property, Bong Hits For Jesus, could result in "substantial disruption" (which it did not), and therefore, Joseph Frederick’s First Amendment free speech claim was not protected.

"The incident occurred in January 2002 just outside school grounds when the Olympic torch relay was moving through the Alaska capital on its way to the Salt Lake City, Utah, Winter Games." The principal of the school, Deborah Morse, who had been feuding with a student, Joseph Frederick all during the day, claimed that she had a right to control Frederick’s message, even though he was not even on the school campus.

Although he was standing on a public sidewalk, the school argued Frederick was part of a school-sanctioned event, because students were let out of classes and accompanied by their teachers."

Former independent counsel, Kenneth Starr of Bill Clinton impeachment notoriety, argued for the principal that a school "must be able to fashion its educational mission without undue hindsight from the courts."

Morse, who attended arguments in March, told CNN at the time: "I was empowered to enforce the school board's written policies at that time aimed at keeping illegal substances out of the school environment."

Further muddying this right wing ideology and anti-U.S. Constitution stance, the majority Republican phalanx consisting of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia (RATS) plus one so-called swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, accepted the argument that "Bong is a slang term for drug paraphernalia."

True, bong may be used for drug paraphernalia but bong is also a term used for chugging beer. Beer bong: funnel with a tube attached and if highly advanced, has a ball valve at the end to close when beer is gone and only foam remains."

One wonders if these activist, Republican judges would be so quick to reject the free speech argument if Budweiser beer was the defendant instead of a teenager who had a run-in with his teacher.

Justice Stevens wrote in his dissenting opinion, "This case began with a silly nonsensical banner, (and) ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message." He was backed by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In the Texas Pleasant Glade Assembly of God case, "Laura Schubert testified in 2002 that she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after the church members' actions in 1996, when she was 17. Schubert said she was pinned to the floor for hours and received carpet burns during the exorcism", the Austin American-Statesman reported. She also said the incident "led her to mutilate herself and attempt suicide. She eventually sought psychiatric help."

In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God's First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a "hyper-spiritualistic environment."

Texas, of course, is home to the largest number of mega churches in the United States. Therefore, it should not be surprising that many of their courts not only defer to, but also are swayed, by religious extremists who often dictate their political beliefs and demands to the like-minded members of the Republican-controlled state legislature, most of who are all too willing to comply.

Recently, the polygamy-practicing Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) sect Yearning For Zion in Eldorado, Texas succeeded in bringing the state’s Child Protection Service (CPS) to its knees by withholding critical information in which FLDS members were implicated in serious charges of pedophilia and child abuse.

Their leader, whom most of their members refer to as their Savior and Prophet, Warren Jeffs, is in prison, convicted in Utah of being an accomplice to child rape.

By switching identification bracelets assigned by the CPS personnel and refusing to name which children or parents belonged to whom, the FLDS congregants managed to get national attention and sympathy while exploiting the botched investigation by the CPS when they collectively rounded up over 400 children, placing them in foster homes throughout the state.

Texas Supreme Court chief justice Wallace B. Jefferson, without even waiting for DNA testing and critical evidence from the DPS, ruled in favor of the FLDS polygamists and pedophiles. The FLDS children were to be returned to their presumed parents.

A Republican, Jefferson was appointed chief justice in September 14, 2004, by Gov. Rick Perry, replacing Justice Alberto Gonzales who resigned to become White House counsel to President George W. Bush. Although Jefferson was elected to the chief justice position in 2006, he ran unopposed.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ sad record at Justice, of course, speaks for itself. As head of the U.S. Justice Department, he made it totally transparent that the justice he was practicing was meant to represent George W. Bush and his executive decrees, not the people of the United States.

As for exorcism, I think we know this religious practice is frowned upon by most sane people. But, included on John McCain’s list of potential vice president running mates is the current Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal who not only believes in exorcism, but he’s actually participated in it.

With these two decisions we now have the guidelines for judicially-endorsed religious practices by state Supreme Courts and free speech provisions being set by the increasingly activist and partisan judges on the Republican top-heavy U.S. Supreme Court.

"Omniscient" thinkers like Chief Justice John Roberts and "Originalist" thinkers like Antonin Scalia have used the highest court in the land, as Justice Stevens stated, to "invent out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs."

Exorcism, yes, but Bong Hits, no!

It seems to me that the former activity carries a greater danger of being a "substantial disruption" than the latter.

Finally, voters will have a golden opportunity when they go to the polls on November 4 to put the brakes on this Republican judicial-activism-run-amok.