Religious Right author Jerry Newcombe said in a WND column this week that the Supreme Court and other “activist courts” have “helped turn America into a moral swamp.”
We have noted before that the Religious Right has been nursing a half-century grudge against the Supreme Court for rulings on school desegregation, separation of church and state, abortion and equality for LGBTQ people, and Newcombe’s column is an exemplar of the complaints that Religious Right activists hope will be solved by President Trump and Senate Republicans replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy with someone who shares their worldview.
“Who died and made the Supreme Court God?” Newcombe asked. He said the Supreme Court “has taken upon itself more power than King George III could possibly have lusted after,” saying that Kennedy “often experienced such power.”
Among the rulings Newcombe cites as examples of the Supreme Court’s “tyrannical” actions are rulings against official prayer, the posting of the Ten Commandments and devotional Bible reading in public schools and “equal time for creation science” in classrooms.
Roe v. Wade is on the list, of course, along with the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in Obergefell. But Newcombe also slams rulings that protected the basic rights of LGBTQ people, including Romer v. Evans, which held that that states could not single out gay people for disfavored treatment under the law, and Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned state sodomy laws that made gay people de facto criminals.
