Beacon Broadside

A Cross or a Crossbeam?

Frederick S. Lane is an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He is the author of six books, including The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court, American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right and the just-released Cybertraps for the Young.

As any sports fan will tell you, even the best umpires and referees sometimes blow a call. Every Red Sox fan over the age of 40 remembers the name Larry Barnett and can tell you how his inexplicable failure to call Ed Armbrister for interference helped cost the Sox the '75 series. But hey, blown calls are part of the game. Regrettably, as in sports, so too in punditry.

There are few members of the media that I admire more than Jon Stewart. For the past 15 years, he has nearly single-handedly waged war against the forces of ignorance and stupidity that have all but overwhelmed the so-called mainstream media, Washington, and much of American society. Even better, he was kind enough to invite me on his show in August 2006 to discuss my third book, The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American. For a struggling and (still) largely unknown writer, that's the equivalent of a Papal benediction; even five years later, it's usually the first thing that people mention when they introduce me to a lecture audience.

As a smart, passionate, and unabashedly scatological moral arbiter of American society, Stewart calls 'em like he sees 'em, and to this resident of the People's Republic of Burlington (VT), his accuracy is pretty impressive. But during his show on August 4, 2011, he made a mistake of Joycean proportions. In a segment labeled Culture War Update, Stewart lambasted the American Atheists organization for filing a lawsuit to prevent the installation of a cross-shaped fragment of steel beams at the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Here's the beginning of his diatribe:

"[A]theists, why do you give s**t? That cross is an artifact. It was found at Ground Zero. It has come to mean something to people who view it as a symbol of comfort. If it really bothers you, why not just think of it as a metal t-shaped thingy? Or purely in architectural terms: it's not a cross, it's a crossbeam. Don't think of it as an ode to Jesus, the Christian savior; think of it as an homage to Jesus, the Canaanite with the relatively unsuccessful carpentry business. But you know what, that's fine, that's fine. That's our system. You can file lawsuits. Just because there's a lawsuit doesn't mean that it will be successful. Everyone's entitled to their day in court. It's not like the atheists are being total dicks about it. [Segue to Fox News clip featuring an inflammatory quote from American Atheists president David Silverman.]"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Culture War Update - The Dividening of America - American Atheists vs. Ground Zero Cross
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Any one who has watched Stewart regularly over the years knows that he feels particularly strongly about issues surrounding the events of 9/11. He has been heroic in his advocacy for medical coverage and compensation for the city's first responders, and I couldn't agree more. To paraphrase one his more poignant lines, I don't care if a first responder spends the rest of his or her days sipping asbestos martinis while sitting unsunscreened on frayed vinyl chloride beach chairs downwind from a nuclear plant, all the while using copies of Silent Spring to put a nice dark char on their hormone-laden t-bone steaks -- if they get sick, they deserve full medical coverage regardless of the cause.

But Stewart's reaction to the atheist lawsuit against the Ground Zero cross demonstrates the peril of allowing emotion, however justified, to trump logic and reason. It's precisely the same impulse that led Congress to hastily pass the Patriot Act, which in turn has led to secret and unchallengeable domestic surveillance, FBI raids on library records, and invasive TSA pat-downs of senior citizens and toddlers (all of which Stewart and his colleagues at the Daily Show, needless to say, have ruthlessly and justifiably mocked).

I'm not an atheist (I'm actually more of an agnostic tree-hugging polytheist with a fondness for Yiddish), but having studied these issues in depth for my book The Court and the Cross, I think I can answer Stewart's fundamental question.

Atheists give a s**t because in matters of religion (or race, gender, national origin, creed, etc.), our government is not supposed to take sides or express a preference.

The very first clause of the First Amendment makes this perfectly clear: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." There were no professional sports teams kicking around in the late 18th-century, but the Founding Fathers implicitly understood this basic premise: the arbiters of society -- whether referees, umpires, judges, or even bureaucrats -- are supposed to neutral and even-handed.

Stewart seems to be arguing that the atheists should simply figure out a way to ignore the seventeen-foot-high, multi-ton cross, much in the same way that the Supreme Court has ordered them to ignore the use of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust" on our currency, or the daily benediction that (somewhat futilely) opens Congress each day.

I'm closer to the absolutist end of the First Amendment spectrum than not, but I don't have much of an issue with a little benign deism in American political life. When I was chair of the Burlington School Board, I cheerfully led the Board and attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance. And every Fourth of July, I re-read Jefferson's magnificent Declaration of Independence, including the optimistic phrase "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence." Just as the rebels did then, we need all the help we can get right now.

The Supreme Court's tolerance for the use of "God" in the pledge and on currency stems in part from the fact that the word is open to interpretation. When we pledge that we are "one Nation, under God," each of us can can insert our own working definition of "God." (Atheists are SOL because of the historical practice argument -- since our nation has invoked a higher power in one form or another for two centuries, the Court says, it's part of the fabric of our lives.)

As Stewart's own comments make clear, however, a cross is not a benign symbol of a inchoate national Deism opposed by only the most cantankerous First Amendment absolutists. His own description of the so-called "artifact" underscores the precise problem that atheists and most other non-Christians have with the installation of crosses on government property. It's not just a t-shaped metal thingy, and it's not merely a crossbeam (after all, it's not as if a "+" sign, or an "x" would generate as much enthusiasm). Regardless of whether one views the cross as a enduring symbol of one man's martyrdom on behalf of a sinful humanity, or merely as a homage to the world's most-quoted rabbi, it is still intended to represent Jesus Christ, the central figure of one religion.

By its very nature, the installation of a cross at the Ground Zero memorial is an exclusionary act, one that implicitly suggests that the sacrifices of some victims deserve more recognition than those of others. Nearly 150 years ago, when President Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he closed his remarks by noting that the sacrifices made there were to insure that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." He did not say "of Christians, by Christians, for Christians."

If the Ground Zero memorial is truly intended to honor all of the individuals who died on that tragic day, then it should reflect our highest ideals -- equality, fairness, liberty, and justice for all. The Supreme Court has made it clear (and I agree) that our government does not have to be faithless, but it can't favor one faith over all others. Let's find a new, non-governmental home for the cross, and let each visitor to Ground Zero bring their own personal beliefs to honor the dead and find increased devotion to the task of making this a more just and tolerant nation.

The Top 5 Things Representative Anthony Weiner Can Teach Your Children

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He is the author of six books, including American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right and the just-released Cybertraps for the Young.

The scandal that cost Anthony Weiner his seat in Congress may seem to many parents like yet another reason to turn off the news. That's an understandable reaction: parenting is challenging enough without the added burden of explaining why a Congressman would want to send an explicit photo of himself to someone he didn't really know.

But believe me, your kids already know a lot more about sexting than you might suspect (or like). After all, former-Rep. Weiner is hardly the first high-profile sexter, and your children don't have to be news junkies to know that Rep. Christopher Lee, ex-quarterback Brett Favre, celebrity mechanic Jesse James, and golfing legend Tiger Woods have all been caught with their cell phones down. And it's even more likely that your kids have followed the sexting exploits of celebrities closer to their own age, like "Hannah Montana" alter ego Miley Cyrus or "High School Musical" star Vanessa Hudgins.

In middle schools and high schools around the country, it's common knowledge among students that some of their classmates take and exchange nude photos. The exact percentage of kids engaging in this behavior is a matter of debate (1 in 10? 1 in 5?), but the fact that it happens and that large numbers of kids know about it is not.

That's one of the main reasons that I wrote my newest book, Cybertraps for the Young." It is designed to educate parents and teachers about the legal trouble that kids can get into online. Whereas most Internet child safety books approach the topic from the perspective of the child of victim, I think that the time has come to seriously discuss the potential dangers of the child as perpetrator.

So rather than turn off the news in disgust or try to change the channel, parents should embrace the Weiner scandal for it what it is: a great opportunity to educate their children about the risks of online behavior. The conversation obviously need to be adjusted to reflect each child's age and maturity level, but here are some basic concepts that every child should be taught if they're using electronic devices, regardless of their age:

1. It's WAY TOO EASY to Be Stupid Online
Rep. Weiner is actually one of the more technologically-savvy members of Congress. But as Bianca Bosker of the Huffington Post Tech page pointed out, he got into trouble because he made a simple, careless mistake: typing the "@" symbol instead of "D" for "direct message," which meant that the photo of his briefs went to the general Twitter feed rather than directly to his intended recipient. The so-called "direct message fail" is merely one of the seemingly endless number of ways your child can be tripped up online. Everyone makes mistakes, of course, but what kids need to understand is that if they make a mistake online, the consequences can be much more far-reaching and longer-lasting than they realize.

2. Just Because You Can Do Something Online Doesn't Mean You Should
Technology makes it all too easy to take inappropriate photos or type inappropriate messages, and share them with the entire world. Often, it's only a couple of clicks of a button, which can make it incredibly tempting to do. But just because something is easy doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Tell your child to THINK!! and then to ask herself, will posting something online hurt her family, friends, or future?

3. If It's Digital, It's Public
As the Weiner fiasco painfully demonstrates, if your child digitizes something, it is virtually inevitable that he will lose control of it. That's even more true if he shares it on a social network site or via e-mail. Even if former Rep. Weiner had typed his tweet as he no doubt intended, the simple fact of the matter is that he was still sending a digital file to someone who could save it, re-tweet it, post it to the Web, or sell it to a news outlet or blogger (most of which happened). As Stewart Brand once said, "Information wants to be free."

4. Employers, Colleges, and Journalists Will Find Out
All major employers and most of the better colleges are looking at social media sites when they review job or college applications. If your child has posted an embarrassing or inappropriate image of himself on a social media page, the odds are very good (regardless of his privacy settings) that it will be seen by someone making a decision about his future.

5. They're Called "Privates" for a Reason
Your child (or your boyfriend, for that matter) may think it's hysterically funny or irresistibly flirtatious to take explicit self-portraits and distribute them online, but it is stupid, embarrassing, and dangerous to do so. Rep. Weiner may be an adult, but if your child is under the age of 18, he or she is violating state and federal child pornography laws by following his example. The potential penalties are severe, including expulsion from school, incarceration, and/or registration as a sex offender. None of that looks good on a college or job application.

In my previous book, American Privacy: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, I describe in some detail the corrosive impact that technology has had on the concept of personal privacy. The core value in the concept of privacy is the ability to control what information you release and to whom, and to control how that information is used. The value of individual control over one's personal information is infused into the Bill of Rights, and is essential not only to our individual safety and freedom, but also to the long-term well-being of our democracy. We may laugh at the late-night jokes told at Anthony Weiner's expense, but they mask the far more significant issues raised by the relentless collection of information about our shopping habits, our preferences, our opinions, and our beliefs.

The time to talk to your kids about these types of issues (particularly the avoidance of criminal activity) is always about three years before you think they're ready. It may be five years before YOU'RE ready to have these conversations, and that's understandable. If you just don't think either you or your child is prepared to discuss this right now, don't worry: there'll undoubtedly be other high-profile cases for you to discuss in the months and years to come. But remember, the goals here are not only to help your kids avoid serving as an object lesson for some other generation of kids, but to help them understand the importance of personal privacy in our democracy. They'll thank you for it someday.

“You Have the Right to Remain Silent”

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book is American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right.

Almost thirty years ago, a young Justice Department attorney was assigned to assist Sandra Day O'Connor in preparing for her upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

"The approach," John Roberts said in a memo written in the summer of 1981, "was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the Court." In effect, Roberts was advising O'Connor that she had the right to remain silent, because anything she said could and would be used against her. It is an approach that has been followed religiously by Supreme Court nominees ever since, including Roberts himself during his 2005 confirmation hearings to succeed the deceased Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

For conservatives, it is clear that silence has been golden.

Frederick S. Lane: The Nudists Were Right

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book is American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right. For additional information, visit www.FrederickLane.com

On Christmas Day, Yemeni student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallib nearly blew up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit using three ounces of the explosive PETN sewn into his underwear. Only a faulty detonator prevented more than 300 people from perishing. As is so often the case in instances like this, the only real casualty of the abortive terrorist attack will be personal privacy.

Just a few days after the attack, the Dutch government announced that all passengers emplaning for the United States will be required to go through a "full body scanner." The more technical term is a "backscatter X-ray," a device that uses high energy X-rays to scan under an individual's clothing and reveal whether they are concealing any weapons or contraband. If Abdulmutallib had been required to go through such a device, security experts say, it is likely that technicians would have detected the presence of the PETN in his underclothes.

Since the 9/11 tragedy, the Transportation Security Administration has been pushing for the installation of full body scanners around the nation, but the roll-out has been slow. Currently, just 19 airports are using a total of 40 machines, although TSA has another 150 ready for installation in the coming year. The agency is also planning to buy an additional 300 machines, each of which costs between $130,000 and $170,000.

The devices have sparked opposition from a variety of quarters, chiefly due to the fact that the backscatter x-ray technology is capable of producing highly detailed images of the body of each person who steps into the machine. The images are so accurate that the American Civil Liberties Union describes the experience as a "virtual strip search." A European child rights advocate believes that the images are so revealing, in fact, that scans of teens and pre-adolescents could qualify as child pornography.

Frederick S. Lane: C-Street, Privacy, and the Separation of Church and State

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book, American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, will be published by Beacon Press in November 2009. For additional information, visit www.FrederickLane.com

Few addresses have gained so much notoriety so quickly as 133 C Street SE in Washington, D.C. The slim brick townhouse, nestled on a quiet street behind the Madison Building of the Library of Congress, was recently outed as an enclave of fundamentalist Washington insiders by Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and a contributing editor to Harper's and Rolling Stone. (Editor's note: Sharlet is also co-editor, with Peter Manseau, of Believer Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith.) With typical Christian duality, C Street has reportedly been a place for some members of Congress both to hold assignations with non-spousal partners and to seek refuge from them.

Last month, I stayed half a block from 133 C Street while in Washington doing research for a book. It was like bumping into Dennis Kucinich in a DC bookstore (which also happened during my visit); buildings, like people, can take on a weird sense of familiarity when you've seen them repeatedly on television or the Internet. As I walked or jogged past the townhouse each morning, it occurred to me that C Street is neatly located at the intersection of my last two books, The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court and American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right. The recent spotlight shining through the curtained windows of C Street begs an important question: can we defend a pluralistic democracy from religious zealots without critically wounding core American values, such as freedom of religion and the right to privacy? Not coincidentally, that's a question that has become particularly pressing since 9/11.

Photo of the C Street house that is home to "The Family," taken by the author.

So just how far into C Street should the media (or governmental) spotlight shine? The answer lies in a bit of constitutional topology. In its various decisions on privacy, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is a zone of privacy that surrounds each of us, a zone limned in large part by the rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution. For private individuals, that zone of privacy is a portable sphere that surrounds us and protects us, to varying degrees, from unreasonable governmental interference. But for elected officials, like the Congressional denizens of C Street, the zone of privacy is more like a toroid, or doughnut, hanging around their midsection.

Frederick S. Lane: Bachmann's Anti-Census Fear-Mongering is Nothing New

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book, American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, will be published by Beacon Press in November 2009. For additional information, visit www.FrederickLane.com

During questioning by Senator Al Franken (what a pleasure to finally write those words!), Judge Sonya Sotomayor noted that the U.S. Constitution is a mixture of broad principles ("due process," "free speech," etc.) and specific commands.

While broad principles allow room for adaptation and interpretation, the specific instructions are meant to be followed. For instance, she said, the Constitution states that an individual must be at least 30 years old in order to serve in the United States Senate. There's not a lot of wiggle room in that provision.

Another example is contained in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution (and the 14th Amendment), which states that the members of the United States House of Representatives shall be apportioned among the various states "according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." "The actual Enumeration," the Constitution says, "shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct."

The use of the word "shall" is a pretty clear tip-off that the Framers meant what they said; the nation is required to conduct a head count each decade, and Congress is given the discretion to determine how the Census should be conducted. Initially, under the direction of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Census takers limited themselves to just six questions, all of which were designed to count various categories of people in a given household. Over the succeeding decades, however, Congress expanded the Census beyond a raw headcount by adding questions designed to collect a wide range of information necessary for creating and implementing public policy. The specific questions varied from decade to decade, but popular topics included levels of education, employment, property ownership, types of illness, national origin, and so on.

Not surprisingly, as the information collected by the Census expanded beyond mere enumeration, a tension arose between civic duty and personal privacy. In 1850, for instance, when Census takers began collecting information about individuals by name, the practice of posting Census results in public locations was stopped. By the time the 10th Census rolled around in 1880, Congress was sufficiently worried about non-compliance that it established a $100 fine for individuals who refused to answer a census taker's questions (the same fine still applies today). At the same time, it also created a $500 fine for census takers who disclosed an individual's private information without authorization. In addition, individual census responses are sealed for a period of 70 years; only the aggregate data is reported to Congress and the public.

A Decent Decision, But Fleeting?

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, author of The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His next book will be People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

Four and a half years ago, during the halftime show for the 2004 Super Bowl, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson set off a heated national debate about televised decency when Timberlake pulled off part of Jackson's bustier and revealed her right breast.

The global exposure of Jackson's breast was remarkably brief -- roughly half a second -- but more than long enough to send the nation's moral watchdogs into orbit. The following morning, Federal Communications Chairman Michael Powell (the son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell) made the rounds of the morning television talk shows and promised a swift and thorough governmental investigation. The Timberlake/Jackson "flash dance" proved to be a political boon for many in Washington: the controversy enabled Chairman Powell to divert attention from his failed and much-criticized efforts to promote media consolidation, and the FCC's new-found willingness to punish indecency was a boost for President Bush's re-election campaign. Much more detail on the political fall-out of the half-time show is available in the opening chapter of my 2006 book, The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture (Prometheus Books 2006).

The Perils of Parables

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, author of The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His next book will be People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

It is no secret that the evangelical wing of the Republican Party has some strong reservations about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain. The "agents of intolerance" charge that McCain leveled at Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell during the 2000 primary, for instance, has not been forgotten. Nor were evangelicals pleased when McCain so quickly disavowed two prominent evangelical preachers, the Rev. John Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley, for making controversial statements about Islam, Hitler, and the Holocaust.

The coolness of evangelical voters towards Senator McCain is so pronounced that his opponent, presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama, senses a rare political opportunity. Despite some profound policy differences, the Obama campaign believes that it can make some inroads in the evangelical community. Senator Obama has a lot of room for growth: a recent Calvin College poll gave Senator McCain a 57%-25% edge among evangelicals.

Two separate initiatives are under way to help Senator Obama narrow the evangelical gap. A couple of weeks ago, David Brody of the Christian Broadcast Network (home of Pat Robertson's The 700 Club) announced that the Obama campaign was planning to launch a grassroots initiative dubbed "The Joshua Generation" to target young evangelicals and Catholics. The phrase hearkens back to the Bible's Book of Joshua, in which the Lord spoke to Joshua and said "Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel."

What Were They Thinking? United States v. Williams and Free Speech

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, author of The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His next book will be People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

Roughly a month ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in United States v. Williams that upheld the consitutionality of the Prosecutorial Remedies and other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (The PROTECT Act). The 7-2 decision is the latest in a disturbing line of Congressional actions and Supreme Court decisions that cloak encroachments on the First Amendment in the pious garb of protecting children.

A little background is useful in understanding the implications of the Williams decision. It is fair to say that the United States is unparalleled among the nations of the world in its tolerance of speech. From the instant it is uttered, virtually all speech is presumed to be protected by the First Amendment. That presumption can be overcome, but only if a prosecutor or plaintiff can prove that the speech falls into one the recognized exceptions to the First Amendment: libel or slander, for instance, or obscenity.

There is only category of speech that does not enjoy the presumption of First Amendment protection: child pornography, which has traditionally been defined as sexually explicit visual depictions of individuals under the age of 18. If a prosecutor can prove that the subject of a sexually explicit photograph, for instance, is under the age of 18 then, regardless of how artistic or socially significant the photo may be, it is still "obscene" and not protected by the First Amendment.

The Petrification of John McCain

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, author of The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His next book will be People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

The Religious Right has successfully spent the last thirty years putting the fear of God into Republican presidential candidates. Those who deviate from the evangelical political liturgy are threatened with the special purgatory of corporate golf games and Viagra ads reserved for unsuccessful Republican nominees. And of all the hymns aspirants are required to memorize, none is more sacred than "A Mighty Fortress Are Strict Constructionists."

If there was one candidate who gave the impression that he could carve his own path to the nomination, it was Senator John McCain. The Senator, after all, is a bona fide war hero whose military service and survival of years of imprisonment is eloquent testimony to his personal courage. Eight years ago, when contesting the nomination with George W. Bush, Senator McCain spoke and acted like a candidate confident he could prevail without kneeling at the altar of religious or political extremism.

But McCain is 71 years old now, and is showing all the symptoms of Stage III Potomac Fever, a highly contagious disease that typically infects Senators, Governors, and the odd (occasionally VERY odd) billionaire or Ohio Congressman. Stage I is that moment when someone looks in the mirror and says "I could be President!" In Stage II, the trappings of power or wealth lead to a slow ossification of creativity and political idealism. But Stage III is the saddest development: outright petrification, marked largely by the grinding fear that the White House might be slipping away.

Happy Birthday, Justice Stevens

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, author of The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His next book will be People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

This past Sunday, April 20, was the 88th birthday of Justice John Paul Stevens, the oldest member of the United States Supreme Court. Stevens, who was appointed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford (on the recommendation, incidentally, of Ford's chief of staff, Dick Cheney), has become one of the stalwarts of the Court's liberal wing. At the time of his appointment, a number of Senators expressed concern about his health—just a few years before his nomination, Stevens had open-heart surgery. But only one justice has served at an older age than Stevens—the "Yankee from Olympus," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who retired not long after turning 90.

It is disconcerting to note that every one of the Court's more liberal members is eligible for Social Security: Stevens (88), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (75), Anthony M. Kennedy (72), and David Souter (68). Only one conservative justice, Antonin Scalia (72), and the more moderate Stephen Breyer (70) are in the same club. Chief Justice Roberts (51) and Justices Clarence Thomas (60) and Samuel Alito (58) are all significantly younger.

The unusually strong correlation between age and ideology on the Supreme Court has gotten remarkably little attention, particularly in the increasingly-vapid presidential debates. It is a sad commentary that the mainstream media is increasingly comic, and our comedians are increasingly the primary source of serious news.

Charlton Heston and the Separation of Church and State

Frederick S. Lane is an expert witness, lecturer, and author who has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fourth book, The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court , is forthcoming from Beacon Press this spring; he is beginning work on People in Glass Houses: American Law, Technology, and the Right to Privacy (Beacon 2009). For additional information, please visit www.FrederickLane.com.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for the Ten Commandments. The big news, of course, was the death of actor Charlton Heston, best known for his leadership of the National Rifle Association and his 1956 portrayal of Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's epic film, The Ten Commandments.

Attracting somewhat less attention was the announcement by the United States Supreme Court a few days before Heston's death that it had decided to review the ruling in the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, a long-running legal battle over the public display of the Ten Commandments in a city located 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City. But the two events, surprisingly, are not unrelated.

"Mission Accomplished": O'Reilly Declares Victory in the War on Christmas

by Frederick S. Lane

Forty or so years ago, a U.S. Senator from Vermont by the name of George Aiken wisely advised both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon that the United States should simply declare victory in Vietnam and bring its troops home. Unfortunately, neither listened to him. His advice, sadly, is still relevant. When President George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 and declared "Mission Accomplished," he only got it half right; he overlooked the bit about bringing the troops home.

And then there's Bill O'Reilly, the bombastic host of Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," and a cultural warrior who finally seems to have taken Aiken's advice to heart. In the December 13 episode of his show, O'Reilly announced that Fox News had won the so-called "war on Christmas." Well, that is a relief. The only question is whether O'Reilly will follow all of Aiken's advice and call home the Fox troops scouring the countryside for the last signs of the anti-Christmas resistance.

"The far left secular progressive community is furious, furious, I tell you about losing the war on Christmas…. [A]ll over the country, the sights and signs of Christmas are on display. Few department stores are telling employees not to say a 'Merry Christmas.' And the Taliban-like oppression of the holiday has largely ceased, but the SPs are not happy about that."

Romney: "Ich bin ein Kennedy"

by Frederick S. Lane

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney traveled to College Station, Texas, to deliver a major address on faith to an audience at the George H.W. Bush presidential library. Given the fact that the speech was so clearly an attempt to emulate President John F. Kennedy's famous speech on faith forty-seven years ago, it's a little surprising that Romney didn't deliver the speech at the Kennedy Library in Boston instead. But context is everything, and the backdrop of the Boston skyline would not have been reassuring to Romney's true audience—Christian evangelical voters who have grave reservations about electing a Mormon (and former Massachusetts governor)—as president.

It is not likely, however, that Romney's speech will resonate as deeply into history as Kennedy's has. That's not entirely Romney's fault, of course: Kennedy was a particularly charismatic speaker, and no candidate since, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, has had such eloquent speechwriters. But Romney and his campaign are certainly responsible for his speech's two main failings: its timing, and its content.

Romney enjoyed little of the drama surrounding Kennedy's speech to Greater Houston Ministerial Association (GHMA) on September 12, 1960. The hotly-contested election between Kennedy and the Republican nominee, Vice-President Richard Nixon, was less than two months away. Kennedy was vying to become the nation's first Catholic president, and had endured months of insult, including repeated charges that the Kennedy White House would be subject to the orders of the Pope. Kennedy's stirring affirmation of his independence and America's commitment to religious freedom were a stern reminder to the nation's Protestant majority in general and the GHMA in particular that no one in this country should be the target of religious intolerance. And unlike Romney, who chose a safe venue for his oration, Kennedy strode onto a stage in front of some his most skeptical critics.