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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS. OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Supreme Court should interpret Constitution ■ OUR OPINION: Highest court serves the nation best by enforcing, not making laws As mentioned in this space just two days ago, the U S. Supremo Court began its 1905-90 session on Mon day. So what? H«nv incredi bly boring. What could tei even vaguely interesting about nine people wearing stuffy and uncomfortable looking blat k robes, squirm ing as they trv to sit still in high-bar kod, hard, wooden chairs and mumbling to ea< h other in logalesn as they wade through piles and piles of boring legal papers and documents? In reality, this, the highest court in tin* land, makes decisions that affect our everyday lives This elite body of judges determines the outcome of the laws we live by today and the laws we vvi 11 have to adhere to tomorrow As long as the Supreme Court remains a neutral entity that interprets the Constitution rather than making law, it will l>e doing what it is supposed to do. Something to watch this court for will ire whether or not the conservative justices will once again stand together in their voting. Chief justice William Helm quist heads the court's con servative segment, made up of justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas In several key cases during the last session, conservative victories, often won by a single swing vote, were aid ed by the usually moderate votes of justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor justices Stephen Hreyer. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John i’iiul Stevens, and David Souler make up the liberal arm of the court While some members of the American Civil I.iiwrties lInion Itelinve the court's "moderate middle" experi enced an all-out collapse last year that forced justices to align themselves with either the left or the right, others detect signs of a more cooperative 191)5-96 session. One such signal is the court's definition of religion. The ( ourt has done Amer ican mm iety a huge favor in its interpretation of religious cases The court has begun to make decisions from the viewpoint of religion not being so much a belief in a supreme Iwing as much as it is .1 matter of metaphysics, i.e.. the right to debate and address questions such as Who are we, where are we from, and where are we going? This new approac !i to an old controversy allows new individual freedom of expression in the never-end ing battle over religion. As it now stands, the protection of human conscience from government coercion is intact. As long as the court con tinues to discover new ways of interpreting the Constitu tion based on the review of c asos already tested and proven through the jurisdic tion of lower court rulings, U.S, citizens will continue to enjoy the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without gov ernment intervention. 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'U^pei ‘MMiThil x*m*tan M*e l rc^ S*i*h M*A«* Muvom tam lAtgUlMdl J*™** Mm* t.-r* SH»M<n»n PvotfMfto* M* New Am -nt-iv* Ingrid WMt .tuvff.uw v\4«ra A2wa HachM Qrtfrngtem k «U.» OmMK Meow «•».-•'« !. c#?«e Airtn 1*f4 M..-4H Mtx'a.«U Cai1» JU* Wwcm Slorw. SarniM Mkhan »ow«o l»i‘*«i »a»> (Mm iutmwar JvOi Cot*K*r 0tttn**nm ,*n je*nu* John t of<g lewoon M4 S5U D<t|Uy MnmiiH J4A3712 •** *«« Off*?# MHU Ci*n**4 Umrtn>*t M4 4M3 f r thought I w£ jusr \S£TTLED THIS (Ml &,rt/4c , Ol v.1. I IK INK Wfv u JA^ir * JPUT ' QLaVON ‘Celebrating diversity’ should extend to all Do you rnmt!mlH*f that little ditty by John Mellencamp that went. "1 was Ixirn in n small town, and I lived in a small town"' Well, that's pretty much me: Gilroy, California. Not that Gilroy was a had plane to grow up, but once the childhood Joys of now tipping and toilet-papering expired, it came time for me to seek out new horizons, and I found myself in our beloved Eugene. Now, making my annual trek from Gilroy to Eugene at each summer's close, a sense of excitement enlivens me. I no longer have to lis ten to the small ideas that seem to dominate my small town And what better way to oinhark on another year of dwelling in the land of tolerant thinkers than to take part in the festivities at the Eugene Celebration ? Yes. from dancing the rnambo to drinking the micros, every kind of activity, affiliation and attitude is act opted here Now throw in a little Catholic hashing, and you've got diversity Eugone-style The defamation of St Mary 's Church during the Eugene Celebration parade sadly indicates that w hen it comes to so epting others, this community still has a long way to go The projudit e was expressed by a group called the The Righteous Ku kies As an entry in the annual parade, the 20 or so Ku kies masquer aded through i it\ streets as flying nuns, t ari«,a ttired monks anti pope-like clowns When the "holy" entourage reached St. Mary's Church, several of the Rickies ran onto the church steps, lifted their cassocks and habits, and proceeded to bow and prostrate themselves toward the i hurt h s Interior. For their w itty display of good-spirited fun, the Rickies were awarded set ond runner-up and a $200 prize The start ling aspect of this whole debut le is that the response from those who adhere the “Celebrate Diversity" sticker to their school binders, work cubicles and curtained Volkswa gen* lias been a concordant cry of, "What's the big deal?” Although it is disheartening to hear this ques tion even being posed, allow me to answer it in universal terms. We all have convictions that are deeply per sonal and are sometimes difficult to explain. But we have them, and we know that without them, we would Ih> missing something. Many Catholics look to the pope as their spiri tual leader It's not difficult to understand why these people would be offended by having this figure dressed as a clown. That is not to say that OPINION 1AHU11 *11 [(I Pope John Paul II and his decrees on such issues as sexual orientation and female clergy are not clown-like. Hut these issues should be addressed in the arena of fair, public debate and should not be held up to public mockery where differing beliefs are debased. Once the Rickies began genuflecting toward the inside of St Mary's, the attack moved from taste less spoof to bigoted defamation of a place of worship. There is one place, and one place only, to which Catholics genuflect: the tabernacle. For Catholics, the tabernacle is the receptacle of the holy Eucharist. which is believed to embody the living presence of Christ Whether you find this belief misguided, archaic or quaint is not the issue. Tlie worship Catholics give to Christ is their own and should be resins-ted, period. However, at present. Catholics in Oregon are being denied peaceful existence, let alone respect Since lust month's parade. Catholic pus tors have received anonymous, threatening phone calls One week ago, a statue of The Vir gin Marv was stolen from St Mary’s. Oist your, roadside billboards were posted in Portland and southern Oregon that associated the Catholic Church with the "masterpiece of Satan's power. But this is Eugene, not some podunk, close minded. southern Oregon community. This is the place where deviation from the norm is a way of life We wouldn't lie caught dead tx-ing confused with those fasc ists who dwell in the state's countryside. Why, then, must our community embrace the history and bigotry of the rest of the state with such complete and utter conformity? As we embark on the inevitable religious debates that appear so frequently on this page, perhaps we should keep a few things in mind: Rational dialogue is one thing, anti mean-spirit ed attac ks are quite another; some Catholics believe that structural change of church dogma can occur from within, and some of us tan revere the church and still recognize its faults. We all should be comfortable enough in our agnosticism, Judaism or Catholicism to allow other beliefs to coexist with our own. However, if that comfort level actually existed, wo would be living in the community of celebrated diver sity that s referred to in the rhetoric of so many, yet embodied in the actions of so few. Eeith Cunningham, a senior majoring in Eng lish. is a columnist for the Emerald
