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Grand Inquisitor Scalia?


Silencing Dissent Near Ground Zero
Stephen Chapman writes about a protestor who was arrested in New York for "disorderly conduct": handing out leaflets that said, "America is getting paid back for what it's doing to Islamic countries."

Scalia: Stuck in the Past
If Catholics followed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's originalist logic on the death penalty, the church would "still tolerate witch hunts and holy wars," Anne Thompson writes.

Why Blacks Support Vouchers
The debate over school vouchers shows "how far out of touch the black governmental class is with its black constituency," a majority of whom support the idea, Michael Leo Owens writes.

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Reader Comment From The Fray:

Scalia is certainly doing a selective reading of the Bible and Church tradition to muster support for his position in favor of capital punishment. In the chapter before Scalia's quote, Paul says "recompense no man evil for evil" and quotes the scriptural passage indicating that vengeance rests with the Lord, not man. Also, while there have been cases where the Church over the years permitted and even implemented the death penalty, the current opposition is not an entirely new phenomenon. Part of the dispute between Thomas a Becket and Henry II was over the use of capital punishment.

The real irony of Scalia's originalist view of Christianity is that Christ Himself was hardly an originalist. He opposed (or at least reinterpreted) Mosaic law about stoning adulteresses, performed miracles on the Sabbath and committed other acts that ran afoul of tradition. Why, He was practically the Earl Warren of 1st century Palestine. I suspect that if Justice Scalia were there at the time, he would have sided with the Pharisees.

--Neal

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