229 years ago our Declaration of Independence was signed by men whose leaders were largely not Christian, by men who had learned through bitter experience—the English Civil War and the reprisals after the Restoration which had driven many of their recent ancestors to the New World, where sectarianism continued and in some ways and places worsened as formerly persecuted religious minorities found themselves in power—that religion and government in collusion always result in tyranny. On this anniversary of that day I am deeply grateful to the men and women who have fought for and defended, with words and with guns, the principles of that Declaration; and I am deeply saddened that religious sectarians are in a position to nominate and approve one of their own to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Although I sometimes disagreed with her, I honor her as a fierce defender of religious liberty against encroachments from the state and of political liberty from the encroachments of religion. I am not good at occasional poetry, but Paul Goodman was:
On the Resignation of Justice Black
Sad news, age and its ills have made him quit,
curator of our curious document
the bastard of the French Enlightenment
and English history. We cannot trust it
to the others, for they do not have the spirit
(good Lord, I hate to think of his replacement!)
conservative precisely of the ferment
that surprisingly is seething in it yet
—sometimes.
When some bureaucrat
bugs me to affirm the Constitution,
I am indignant at his asinine
inquisition, but I sometimes sign
"providing it is the interpretation
of the Constitution by Hugo Black."
4:25:46 PM 
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