Regarding walls

As with most strict constructionist interpreters of the United States Constitution and conservative  American Christians, I was pleased by the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case last week. That pleasure was marred somewhat by comments on the case I read and heard in news sources to the effect that this decision lowered the wall of separation between Church and state.

I've never been entirely satisfied with Thomas Jefferson's "wall" metaphor as a description of the First Amendment's religion clauses, not least because of its origins in the campus of a university in Virginia other than the one from which I graduated. Still, it's somewhat useful, but only if one understands what a wall is. To point out the obvious, a wall keeps whatever is on its two sides separate from one another. To the apparently architecturally-challenged commentariat, however, it seems a wall is intended only to keep the interests of the one side from influencing the other, while permitting the other side to infringe freely on the interests of the one side.

In my opinion, the Hobby Lobby case was rightly decided because it put the federal government back on its side of the wall, and denied it the power to force religious persons to act contrary to their consciences. The commentariat, and now Colorado Senator Mark Udall, apparently believe the federal government is being conscripted into religious endorsement when it does not force religious persons to act contrary to their consciences. I find this is a somewhat peculiar understanding of the separation doctrine.

What's even more stunning, of course, is that the federal government is now forcing private citizens to take certain actions, and private institutions must sue in the courts to preserve their basic constitutional rights. I cannot imagine any clearer evidence that the American Republic, as founded and constituted, no longer exists on the shores of our shining seas.