Pop quiz

[rivkat]

Without knowing anything else about him, can you discern whether Justice Scalia is a member of the dominant religion?

[Scalia] looks particularly queasy when Peter Eliasberg—the ACLU lawyer whose client objects to crosses on government land—suggests partway through the morning that perhaps a less controversial World War I memorial might consist of "a statue of a soldier which would honor all of the people who fought for America in World War I and not just the Christians."

"The cross doesn't honor non-Christians who fought in the war?" Scalia asks, stunned. "A cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity, and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins," replies Eliasberg, whose father and grandfather are both Jewish war veterans.

"It's erected as a war memorial!" replies Scalia. "I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead."

Eliasberg dares to correct him: "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew."

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead," thunders Scalia. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion!"

Aside from the awesomeness of the choice of ACLU lawyer here, I ... got nothing.  How is one to communicate across this divide?

Comments

I know this isn't really what you're asking, but...

[pocketmouse]

*tilts head* I can't remember if it was in an anthro class or an art history class, but I remember seeing a study on the evolution of the gravestone markers/styles in the New England area in I think the 1880s-90s or possibly earlier. Back when it was cherub heads or skulls with wings, and the like. Might take giving him dry reports like that to get it through his head.

Also bears wondering if he's ever had to pick out a gravestone for someone? I assume elements such as a cross vs something else would be a question asked.

[giandujakiss]

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

[giandujakiss]

And I'll just add - I wonder if Ginsburg and Breyer will try to educate him, or whether the fact that they're likely to decide this on procedural grounds means they won't even bother.... I have never been so grateful there are Jews on the Court.

[jadelennox]

I have never been so grateful there are Jews on the Court.

Do you know that at Brandeis University, Justice Brandeis' trousers are on display in a glass case in the archives?

I know that's not the point, but they make me happy.

[giandujakiss]

That's ... a little disturbing, actually.

[the_future_modernes]

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead," thunders Scalia. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion!"


WHAT.

[batdina]

:::where is that aclu membership renewal form anyway:::

Nothing quite like a reminder of why I'm a member in the first place.

[sothcweden]

Reading the article made me stop, wrinkle my nose, and ask, "Is he serious?". Unfortunately, it seems he is.

I found this while poking around on my Network. Thank you for pointing me at this article, and for making me think. I have very little 'net time (access is at work on breaks) and I spend too much of that time in fandomland rather than the real world. I've looked through your latest entries and found them interesting for both the thinky and SPN content. Would like to subscribe, if that's okay.

[rivkat]

Welcome!

[alexseanchai]

(this is how much SPN has eaten my brain: all I can think of is Dean's gravesite having a cross even though Dean as of S3 is religious only for exorcisms and holy water and such things he's seen proof of the efficacy of)

(of course it was Sam did the funeral services and Sam's Christian)

I'd say that lawyer should be applauded, except that's what all the lawyers should be saying, including Scalia.

[vylit]

Scalia is a moron. I could live with that if he didn't have the power to make decisions that affect millions of people.

[amonitrate]

Holy Crapola. I. I. Have no words.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

*adds one more item to the list of reasons that Scalia is not only someone I disagree with, but an actual douche*

[blacksquirrel]

Wow - it's kind of hard to believe he's really an adult, much less a Supreme Court Justice

[minim_calibre]

Scalia boggles my non-Christian, not-raised-by-them, not-represented-by-crosses mind.

The inability to see outside of his experience is just heartbreaking, considering his position.

[xenacryst]

I got nuthin' 'sides my icon.

[without_me]

I really, really want to hit Scalia sometimes. (Pretty much only when I hear about something he's said or written; the rest of the time he's safe.)

Not that I need to say it here, but I think the distinction he's missing is: the cross may be intended to honor all the war dead. That doesn't mean the survivors of the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, and other non-majority-religion fallen soldiers appreciate the gesture.

Of course, I wasn't on law review, so maybe that's not a distinction that makes a difference.

[rivkat]

It's the same as "virtual representation," used to justify allowing only white male property owners to vote: their perspectives were neutral, and thus they were fully capable of representing the interests of everyone else! I wouldn't even put the intent that way--no one thought about the non-Christian war dead, but if they did, they'd have said that those should be just as honored (Jesus Christ died for their sins too, after all). But yeah, what the cross says to Scalia and what it says to me are very different things--he sees an open door and I see a closed one.

[copracat]

So, not only doesn't have the ability to question his assumptions (is this not a required or at least useful skill for a lawyer or a judge?) he doesn't have the sense to think before he speaks (ditto).

[rivkat]

He doesn't need to question his assumptions. He has the power to make his assumptions reality, which is what privilege is. In fact, I suspect he does think before he speaks most of the time: he wants to remind us of where we all stand, him and you and me.

[jadelennox]

My head and my desk just had an intimate tête-à-tête. Or tête-à-pupitre, I suppose.

[damned_colonial]

Randomly: "tête-à-pupitre" == TEH AWESUM.

[(Anonymous)]

Seconded.

-- caia

[cathexys]

Angry and speechless!!!! *grrr*

here via giandujakiss

[wembley]

Head, let me re-introduce you to your dear friend, Desk.

[true_statement]

Wow.

[watersword]

Oh, my God. My God, who is very much not Scalia's God.

[softestbullet]

I just wish this were a story about someone's dumbass friend, not a justice on the Supreme Court. :((((

[flourish]

O_O

There are many times when I feel like "I love Jesus, I just hate his followers," and this is one of them. Sigh. Plz to stop giving us a bad name you incredible idiot Scalia...

[mswyrr]

How did Scalia get so far whilst being so deeply, deeply incapable of reasoning out something simple like cross = Christian symbol?

[rivkat]

He knows that--he just thinks that's neutral, because it's dominant.

[mswyrr]

...I don't get that. By that logic every dominant power dynamic would have to read as neutral?? The idea that he's just been on the dominant side of so many of these dynamics that he's stopped realizing his foot on other people's throats actually causes them pain is amazing to me.

I kind of want to smack him.

[brownbetty]

lkfdjdkf

Someone is being outrageous. His logic is so non-logic to me it's like he's speaking some other language.

[seekingferret]

My feelings on this are confused. If it were a World War II memorial or a Vietnam memorial, I think there's no question I'd be opposed to it just being a cross. But World War I... My great-grandfather alav hashalom served in that war, and I have a suspicion he'd have expected his memorial to be a cross. Not his tombstone, but if his unit earned a memorial, it would feature a cross and not a magen david. Because that's the way the world worked, and because it would mean he was accepted as part of the unit and implicitly as an American. The Jewish assimilatory impulse has evolved greatly over the last century. A memorial I might find inappropriate now may have been the one my great-grandfather fought to belong on. I'm hesitant to make changes, and I'm hesitant to ascribe exclusively Christian significance to it.

And that's where I come to "I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead." from. His point doesn't seem so outrageous to me. I appreciate that the law is against this position, but I think memorials are a place where we sometimes have to throw out the rule of logic in service of bigger and more complicated ideals.