Certainly not a new position for him, but Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia used the occasion of an interview with Hamodia (via Religion Clause ) to reiterate his view that the Constitution allows the government to favor religion. (my emphasis)
I will say this. It has not been our American constitutional tradition, nor our social or legal tradition, to exclude religion from the public sphere. Whatever the Establishment Clause means, it certainly does not mean that government cannot accommodate religion, and indeed favor religion. My court has a series of opinions that say that the Constitution requires neutrality on the part of the government, not just between denominations, not just between Protestants, Jews and Catholics, but neutrality between religion and non-religion. I do not believe that. That is not the American tradition.
In Scalia's view, the Constitution does not require the state to honor the freedom not to believe in the same way it honors the freedom to believe. This is not only discriminatory in a way that violates the spirit of the First Amendment's religious freedom clauses, it is a perspective that would threaten the integrity of religious belief as well. Our freedom to believe is made whole by the equal opportunity to make an opposite choice, without coercion or advantage emanating from the state.
Government favoring religion tips the scales. It adds transactional value to the sanctity of personal belief. It undermines soul freedom and lessens the authenticity of the individual decision at the heart of true faith.
Justice Scalia believes that because America has a long history, and maintains a tradition, that acknowledges God in various ways, the state is therefore justified in crafting a favorable stance toward religion as a guiding principle of government. In that, he is mistaken. That is not the freedom that our Constitution, and my faith, demand.
