Greenberg: Supreme Court rules that America is still America
The Supreme Court building in Washington, Monday, June 30, 2014, following various court decisions. The court ruled on birth control, union fees and other cases. Credit: AP
It was a good week for the rule of law in the never-ending case, challenge and general struggle of U.S. v. Obama, which is sure to be continued. Last Thursday the Supreme Court of the United States ruled -- unanimously -- that a president of the United States can't make recess appointments while, as it happens, Congress is not in recess.
How about that? The justices must have read the Constitution of the United States at some point during their distinguished legal careers and, even more impressive, decided to heed it. Which is more than one can reliably say about Current Resident,1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,Washington, D.C.
What next? Will the high court rule that the chief executive officer of the United States of America must faithfully execute the laws? Instead of rewriting them whenever they prove inconvenient. Even if they're laws like his signature failure, aka Obamacare, that he himself insisted on passing. So keep the good thought. And hope the high court continues to keep faith with the Constitution of the United States.
The moral of this story: No matter how long deferred, there's always hope. Just hold on till January 20, 2017. Help is on the way, or at least the end of this president's term is in sight. Even though there's no guarantee the next president of the United States won't be just as heedless of a little detail like the law of the land. Our Lady of Benghazi, H.R. Clinton, already waits in the wings. This long, long presidential term may be only the first act of an extended tragicomedy. Strength.
Thursday was also the day the Supreme Court struck down the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' law limiting free speech on a public sidewalk -- if it happens to run past an abortion mill. Excuse us, abortion "clinic." That makes the score Constitution 2, President 0. Which is a more heartening result than any reported out of the World Cup last week.
Just what were these incorrigible Christians doing on that sidewalk that so upset the abortion lobby and its friends in the Massachusetts legislature?
They were trying to save the babies their mothers wouldn't, and even the mothers themselves from the lifetime of remorse so many women who have abortions know all too well. Forgive them, for despite all those folks on the sidewalk, they may not know what they do.
In this Culture of Death, women abort their perfectly healthy babies -- babies who would be welcomed by other families, or the kind of orphanages and churches and homes for unwed mothers who would embrace these little ones with open arms and an open heart. These children might even be welcomed by the mothers themselves if only they were given more time to think about what they were doing, even pray about it.
How can one blame the mothers, who are under constant assault by the spirit (or spiritlessness) of these times? And misled by a whole vocabulary of euphemisms for child sacrifice. No, we may no longer sacrifice to Baal or Ashtaroth, for today's just as demanding gods may go by much more attractive names. For example, economic necessity or choice or just convenience.
For these modern gods shape-shift with the ever-changing times. It's not so much that the times change, it's just that the idols change their names. In nature there is protective coloration. In ideology, there is nominal coloration. The abomination may remain the same, but it adopts a new name.
It shouldn't be necessary to recite some list of eminent personages who were born without first having taken the precaution of making sure their parents were wed in order to oppose abortion. For all of us are created equal, and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, first among them the right to life, or so our founding declaration declares. That right doesn't have to be earned; it's a gift outright. God-given.
Now, with July the Fourth just around the corner, the Supreme Court has given us a couple of more reasons (NLRB v. Canning and McCullen v. Coakley) to celebrate the day all those meddling editors in the Continental Congress stopped fiddling with Thomas Jefferson's still shining words and decided to send them off to the printer's, the country, and the whole world.
Last week they shone anew, burnished by a Supreme Court that showed it still respects those words even in these not always life-affirming times. Take heart.
Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
