Karen Mastroianni: Scalia off-base on religion

Regarding the Jan. 3 news brief “Scalia dismisses idea of religious neutrality”: Did Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia really say that religious neutrality is not grounded in the country’s Constitution and that “God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him”? What exactly did he mean?

I wonder how the Native Americans would describe the U.S. government’s past behavior as honoring God? What about slavery? What would slaves say about the U.S. honoring God? And the slave trafficking that continues today in the U.S and elsewhere? Also honoring God?

I’m just wondering, does this mean that the poor in Calcutta do not honor God and this is to blame for their unbelievable suffering? Or are people born in worn-torn countries – or with far less luxury, food or even clean water – because of not honoring God before their birth? Or did God just decide not to be good to them in case they didn’t honor him? I’m just curious.

I encourage Scalia to read the Dalai Lama’s book on secular ethics, “Beyond Religion,” and then explain how anyone in a country as great as ours wouldn’t agree on all the points made, including alignment grounded within our Constitution.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Karen Mastroianni: Scalia off-base on religion."