All snide comments from me aside, what the Court really announced yesterday is that it finds no principle in such cases that a solid majority subscribes to. Which translates as: send us more cases.
In fairness, it must be admitted that conservatives on the court caused this problem in the first place. When the first freedom of religion cases wound their way to SCOTUS in the 1940s, "Liberals" on the court --such as William O. Douglas-- were prepared to completely do away with any reference to God in any form. To prevent this result, Justice Jackson and others came up with the concept of "secular purpose." Their intentions were good, but what they gave us was a Court that yesterday invented what I called the "hypocrisy clause" --you can post religious symbols if nobody believes in them. Of course, this was an example of conservatives making bad law trying to achieve a right result --or in other words, of right-wing judicial activism.
Of course, the Court erred grievously in taking up such questions in the first place. It is no business of the Federal Government what is on the walls or grounds of any state government building. The right answer to this question, ladies and gentlemen, is federalism. The problem here is not that the Court didn't find a good standard for judging what religious symbols offend the 1st amendment. The problem is that the Court thinks it should find a standard at all --and thanks to stare decisis-- "our" side is more or less stuck arguing "secular purpose." (We're fighting tooth and nail, Your Honors, but we don't really believe this stuff.)
