More than 200 years ago, the founding fathers of the United States of America created a unique system of government Constitution based on Enlightenment principles and a series of Amendments called the “Bill of Rights.” Although designed to protect individual citizens from government overreach and dedicated to equality under the law, their original Constitution perpetuated slavery and guaranteed equality only to male land owners. However, they also created elected legislative bodies that write laws and courts that interpret laws, mechanisms through which the People might adapt to changing times or oppose authoritarianism through political or legal action. The final arbiter of equal justice under federal law is the Supreme Court.

In 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision ruled that segregated “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional, leading to not only the eventual desegregation of the public schools, but also a wider civil rights movement, and the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965. Sadly, the Supreme Court has also made decisions that appear not to serve human equality, including the infamous 1896 Plessey vs. Ferguson decision supporting “Jim Crow” laws validating the racial segregation the Brown decision dismantled.

In 2014, citing prayers in the Continental Congress (rather than the strong opposition to those prayers at the time), the court ruled in Greece vs. Galloway that elected representatives can introduce personalreligion into official taxpayer funded governmental events, even with prayers predominantly favoring the dominant religion. When Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius is decided (any day now), corporations and business owners may win the “religious freedom” to deny employees and their families access to contraception and other forms of woman's reproductive health care under the Affordable Care Act, quashing the religious freedoms of the actual human beings they employ. The Schuette vs. BAMN decision appears to relegate previously enforced Constitutional protections of equality to a local vote.

Supreme Court rulings in the 21^stcentury increasingly appear to reverse previous gains by allowing corporations, organizations, politicians, and voters the power to overrule the individual freedoms and personal equality of actual human beings. While these decisions may at first appear to be victories to some, these decisions also appear to be “two-edged swords.” Just because politicians and voters choose prayers of the dominant religion today does not mean they always will. Similarly, a government with the political power to ban abortion, also has the power to force citizens to have abortions.

Just as in the Continental Congress, research suggests that citizen interest in praying with politicians at taxpayer funded events depends upon shared belief; if you share the dominant belief system, you probably support religion in government. If you have a different belief system, it appears you probably oppose religion in government.

So the next time that religion in government makes you feel good, included, relaxed, safe, and validated – perhaps when viewing an “I am the Lord thy God” monument outside of a government building - please imagine how that situation would feel if you were held different religious beliefs. How equal would you feel if Justice Anthony Kennedy said to you, “If you don't like [my preferred form of prayer in government], just leave the room” - and how equal will you feel if your boss, a corporation, or voters overrule your most intimate medical, religious, and reproductive decisions?

Equal Justice Under Law? By Groff Schroeder was originally published May 21, 2014 with the accompanying quotation below.