THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CRISIS DEEPENS

Sat., 9 January 2021, 1:00 p.m. 

The crisis in our American government is getting more serious by the hour. As a lifelong student of history, I am fascinated, horrified to be sure, but still mesmerized by the recent dramatic and historic events in our country. I am trying to keep up with the news of what is happening and endeavoring to put matters into perspective as we go along. I am trying to understand what is occurring and what it may mean. Writing this blog helps me sort out my thoughts and I hope it helps you sort out yours too even if you may disagree with me. I have several observations to share with you today based on the latest news:

---The assault on the Capitol last Wednesday was much more serious than we first believed. It was an attempted coup d'état, that is, an overthrow of the constitutional government. It was not just a demonstration, march, or appeal to the Congress. It was an outright attempt to overwhelm the constituted authorities in the Capitol and force a reversal of the recent presidential election. The goal was to keep Trump in power even though he had been rejected by the people. 

The assault was also more violent than we first thought. We have only to look at the sickening videos commonly available on the Internet to see just how horrifying it was. A police officer was killed and at least 50 others were injured. At last count, 5 people were killed in the attack.

The mob crushes a police officer against a steel door.

The invaders brought in weapons. They intended to do personal violence. Outside, they had erected a hangman's noose. Inside the hysterical mob screamed for Vice President Pence as they searched high and low for him. If they had found him, they may well have killed him before any forces could have rescued him. (In the French Revolution, the mob would have torn him to shreds, cut off his head, stuck it on a pike and propped it up outside for all to see.) They also intended to take hostages as one mobster carried a handful of zip ties to bind hands and feet, obviously of the Congresspeople. If the mob had actually kidnapped Representatives and Senators, the outcome could have been catastrophic.

I am willing to speculate that the invaders had some sort of guidance inside the building. If you have ever visited the Capitol, you know it is a vast and bewildering maze of seemingly endless halls, stairways, and rooms on numerous levels. One needs a map to get around there. Yet, the invaders seemed to have no trouble finding the most important parts of that massive building. 

Finally, we know well now that this insurrection was planned. Trump himself kept saying there would be a big march on the Capitol on January 6. It had been advertised openly on the Internet for weeks. A major question now is why the authorities were caught woefully under-prepared for a mob assault that everyone knew was coming. 

We know now too that the invaders have declared victory. They have been crowing about their success ever since the assault. They even are reveling in their arrests. There are new credible reports that the far-right gangs are planning violent actions in Washington on Jan. 17, 19, and 20. If the authorities are not prepared next time, shame on them. They will have had plenty of warning.

---The public response to the attempted coup of the 6th reflects the deep division of the country. A recent YouGov poll shows that 63% of Americans opposed the attack on the Capitol. However, the same poll shows that 45% of Republicans supported the attack. Think about that for a moment. Nearly half of Republicans believe it was a good idea for a mob to try to overthrow the government. This is shocking. Moreover, only 27% of Republicans viewed the insurrection as a threat to democracy. Huh? The reality is that it was a attempt to overthrow democracy. If that was not a threat to democracy, what would be? Of course, the majority of Republicans also believe the big lie that that Trump actually won the election and it was stolen from him by the Democrats. There is absolutely no evidence to support this fantasy, yet most members of one of the two major parties in America continue to believe it.

---The Republicans' favorable views of Trump, the lie of the stolen election, and the attempted coup go a long way to explaining the reactions of the Republican Representatives and Senators since the insurrection. Trump has refused to resign. Vice President Pence has refused to call the Cabinet to consider invoking the 25th Amendment that would suspend Trump from office. Mitch McConnell, majority leader of the Senate, has just announced he will not call the Senate to reconvene until January 19, the day before Trump's term ends. This kills any chance that Trump can be removed from office by constitutional means. The House can and will impeach, but only the Senate can remove the President from office (by 2/3 vote). It appears now that the only punishment for President Trump will be a second impeachment by the House of Representatives. This is better than nothing, but still much less that is prudent for the long run. 

Only a handful of the 52 Republican senators have spoken out to criticize the president even after everyone has recognized that he incited a violent insurrection against Congress. Some Republican senators and representatives are speaking out against any punishment of Trump. SC's Graham says impeachment would do more harm than good. Actually, the harm would be in doing nothing about people who tried to overthrow our government. It was Edmund Burke who said the only way for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

---Some Republicans, and their media friendly outlets as Fox News, are spreading the falsehood that the attack on the Capitol was the work of Antifa infiltrators and not pro-Trump demonstrators. This is another big lie. Law enforcement officials have flatly refuted this fiction, yet it continues to be promoted. Thanks to cell phones, we know who the guilty parties were.

---Twitter has deleted Trump's account. My guess is the company suddenly realized it could be legally culpable. After four years of letting Trump say whatever he wished, it is a bit late now suddenly to cry foul. 

---Trump has announced he will not be attending Biden's inauguration on the 20th. One should bear in mind that a president cannot be indicted while he is in office but can be once he is out of office. At 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 20, Trump will be out of office. Can't you picture a swarm of FBI agents handcuffing the former president, on the podium, on live TV, with the world watching? It makes good sense for Trump to stay away, maybe even in another country.

So, where does this leave us at this point? A monumental political crime has been committed. There must be punishment to fit the crime. The future of the country depends on it. As of now, it appears that the only punishment of Trump as president will be an impeachment but not a removal from office. We do not know yet what charges await him once he is out of office. 

Last Wednesday's attempt to overthrow the constitutional government is the most serious political challenge to the nation since the Civil War, 155 years ago. First, we have to recognize the gravity of the situation. Then, we must bring to justice the people who caused and participated in this insurrection. Finally, we must take measures to ensure such an event cannot happen again. All of these measures must be taken to guarantee the strength and stability of our constitutional, democratic republic. The U.S. Constitution, despite its flaws, was a work of genius. It has served us Americans well for more than two centuries. Now it is our turn to serve it well.

I expect to keep a running commentary on the events of the next 11 or 12 days. I invite you to come along. This will be too important for all of us to miss however disturbing it may be. May God help us in this the hour we were given to live. Peace.

 

CIVIL WAR

Jan. 6, 2021. The Capitol, Washington D.C. Do you recognize the portrait on the left? It is John C. Calhoun. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. (Click on image for photo enlargement.)

The battle of Washington yesterday was vivid evidence of the state of civil war that now exists in America. Here are my thoughts on the day after the battle.

America is deeply divided. At base, the division rests on race. White people have always seen this country as the white man's own country. Now, the white man is being overtaken by non-white social elements in America. Within a generation, white people will be a minority of the population of the United States. The U.S. will be made up of minorities. Yesterday's mob violence was a vivid expression of white supremacy (look at the Confederate flags paraded in the Capitol).

This racial conflict is forcing America into a crossroads. The country will move in one of two directions. The first is the continued evolution of democracy, that is, equality and inclusion of all people and peaceful majority rule. This is the historic trend of the country for the past seventy years. The Great Democratic Revolution, that started in earnest in the 1950's gave us tremendous strides in equality and empowerment of social elements long ignored and marginalized. Blacks, women, and homosexuals have been the principal recipients of the GDR. However, this democratization has inspired great fear among many whites, particularly white working class men, white evangelical Christians, and white southerners. The fear is that they will be overwhelmed by non-white people and will lose control of "their" country. We have seen a vast upsurge in white supremacist groups in recent decades, especially in the last few years. Racial fear is the driving force among these people.

The other direction is to move to minority rule under a fascist-oriented state. This would keep the whites, soon to be a minority in the U.S., in power. In order for the minority to keep power, it would have to resort to police/military force. It would also have to veer away from the evolving democracy and overthrow, or seriously alter the U.S. Constitution. Sociologists have told us for a long time that a third of the American people favor a fascist state rather than a democracy, as long as the fascist state serves their perceived self-interests. That means an awful lot of Americans do not believe in or support democracy.

Yesterday's battle was an expression of the second trend. The President of the United States is a demagogue, always has been. He understood innately that race was the key to his power and so he stoked white racism to gain the White House. His "base" is about a third of America. They see Trump as a saviour figure who will "save" America for the white people like themselves. They want a white-controlled fascist state. About 50,000 of them descended on Washington and flocked to a rally to hear their saviour figure exhort them to march on the Capitol promising to join them (he did not, instead, having lit the fuse, got into his warm car and raced back to the safety of the White House). Hence, the violent mob invasion and desecration of the Capitol. Blood flowed. Mayhem and vandalism ensued. 

There are two elements of the insurrection. One is the ego of Donald Trump. His personality cannot accept his electoral defeat and so he has created a fictitious world in which he was not defeated and he is inciting the violent mob to enforce this delusion. Trump himself is not necessarily driven by white supremacy. His niece, Mary Trump, says he is probably a sociopath because he has spent his life emulating his father whom she declared outright to be a sociopath. A sociopath is one who is entirely self-centered without any ethical or moral principles or concerns for other people. Sounds about right.

The other element of the insurrection is Trump's "base" who are clearly willing to use violence to promote their view of society and government. They are white supremacists. So, there is a symbiotic relation of Trump and the mob. He gets his ego stroked and they get white power. The explosive result of this is the likes of what happened in Washington yesterday.

So, as I see it America is at a crossroads. Either we continue developing democracy or we veer to fascism. My sense as a student of history tells me we will follow the first path. However, even if we keep on this path we have a major problem with the third of the country that is violently resistant to that path. We are deeply and dangerously divided as a civic society. Our challenge now is to keep that society cohesive. How we go about that is the big question of the day.

For starters, it would be wrong for us to ignore the insurrection staring us in the face. This is a domestic war between democracy and fascism. We must view it that way now. The President of the United States tried to subvert the constitutional government of the United States. He should be removed from office as soon as possible. He must be stopped. He must be held accountable. So too must be the political office holders who aided and abetted his anti-democratic and anti-constitutional words and deeds.

My sense tells me democracy will win out because it is the tide of history. However, it will win only if the people who love it are committed to protect and defend it. This is the time to stand and fight the war that has been forced upon us.

_____________________________

ADDENDUM, 1:30 p.m. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, today called on the Vice President and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment in order to remove President Trump from office. In the absence of this, she said she would consider moving forward with the impeachment of Trump in the House of Representatives.

PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE TODAY

President Trump spent an hour this morning inciting a crowd of thousands of his devotees, some armed, in Washington to march on the Capitol. After he finished, the mob promptly marched on the Capitol, stormed the building and took occupation of the Senate and House chambers. This is an attempt to overthrow the constitutional government. This cannot be tolerated. President Trump must be removed from office now. He has another couple of weeks in office. If he is left in place, the constitutional government may not survive. This is a national emergency. Congress must act to remove this president.  

 

COUP ATTEMPT UNDERWAY

6 January 2021, 1:00 p.m. The Trump mob has just invaded the Capitol in Washington. The crowd of thousands had been incited by Trump to march on the building. The mob breached the doors and flooded into the building. At this moment, the police seem helpless to stop it. The Senate and the House and in recess. Their doors are locked. No one knows where this goes from here. This is obviously an attempt to overthrow the presidential election and keep Trump in power. This is a civic emergency. 

AN HISTORIC MOMENT

Two earthshaking events should get our attention now. In one, a Deep South state has chosen an African American and a Jewish American at the same time as its new U.S. Senators (some news outlets have declared one the winner and the other is ahead and almost certainly the winner). One has to be a southerner of my age range (over 70) to fully appreciate the significance of this monumental event even though Warnock is not the first black man elected to the U.S. Senate from the south. If someone had told me as a child that a black man and a Jewish man would be elected by a majority of the people in a southern state over two white conservatives, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Unimaginable in the Jim Crow south of my youth. No more. It has actually happened. This is a colossal accomplishment for American democracy. I cannot emphasize this enough.

The other enormous event of the day is that the U.S. Congress is set to certify the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice-President today (or tomorrow). This will happen over the shocking attempt of Republicans to overthrow the clear-cut legal and legitimate democratic election. President Trump and a band of his anti-democratic followers are trying to overthrow our constitutional democratic republic in favor of minority rule. The anti-democratic agitators will make an ugly show today but in the end cannot stop this monumental event of American history.

I for one am taking a pause to say a prayer of thanksgiving and for protection of our democratic nation-state. Too, I am celebrating an enormous victory for human rights. In time, we can analyze all of the historical aspects of these two huge historical happenings in this great moment in time.

The great democratic revolution of the Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries has just won a tremendous victory over the forces of reaction and counter-revolution. And, it was my fellow southerners who played a key role in making this happen. I could not be more proud of my region of America today. 

NOTES,  4 JANUARY 2021

Today is Monday, January 4, 2021. Happy New Year to you. Here is a wish that all is well with you and yours as we enter a new calendar year in our lives. What will this year hold? It is hard to imagine it could be as bad as last year, but then no one knows. It is not given to humans to know the future. I have always believed that was a good thing. If we knew all the bad events that were going to happen to us in the months ahead, we would not want to head into them. 

It is time to check in on the crises we have been following for months now. Today we focus on the two outstanding ones of the hour, the pandemic and the political.

PANDEMIC.  The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread at alarming rates worldwide, particularly in America. According to our usual source of data, Worldometers, in the last week (December 28-January 4), nearly 5m new cases of infection have been reported in the world (4,718,661) for a total of 85,935,986. Nine million of these occurred in just the last two weeks. This is a rising weekly rate of 6%, up from the 5% of the earlier week. As for deaths in the world, there were 84,241 last week for a total of 1,857,966. This is a rate of 5%, up from the 4% of the previous week. In the world, more than 150,000 people have died of the plague in just the last two weeks.

Figures are even more alarming for the United States that continues to be the epicenter of the pandemic with no hint of change. The U.S. reported 1,669,460 new cases last week, a rising rate of 9%, up from the 7% of the preceding week. The U.S. is reporting a total of 21,243,307 cases, app. 25% of the world's total. Deaths are also soaring in the U.S. Last week, the U.S. reported 20,178 deaths, a rising rate of 6%, up from the 5% increase of the week earlier. In the last two weeks, over 36,000 American died of the plague. The total of U.S. casualties now stands at 361,316. This is about 1 in 6 of the world's deaths. Remember that the U.S. is by far the richest and most powerful nation-state in the world. The failure to respond well to this pandemic is a national disgrace and scandal. It is a black mark in American history.

Our local states in the southeast are part and parcel of this national disaster. Last week, South Carolina reported 29,293 new cases, by far the largest number ever recorded in one week. This was a rise of 10%, up from the 8% of the previous week. SC is now listing 325,472 cases of covid. Death numbers are also alarming. Last week, SC reported 329 deaths from COVID-19, a rising rate of 6%, up from the 4% of the earlier week. SC is now listing 5,484 deaths from the pandemic. In the last 14 days, SC has seen a 20% rise in new cases, 60% rise in deaths, and 50% increase in hospitalizations.

In Charleston County, new case numbers are soaring while death rates are falling. Last week, the county reported 1,530 new cases for a total of 25,041. In the past two weeks, it has reported 3k new cases. As for deaths, the county listed 3 last week for a total of 323.

Alabama also reported soaring numbers. It listed 28,467 new cases last week, a rate of 8%, up from the 7% of the earlier week. AL is now reporting a total of 374,095 cases. As for deaths, AL listed 187 last week, a rising rate of 4%, down from the 7% of the previous week. The state is now reporting a total of 4,878 deaths from the pandemic. In SC and AL alike, hospitals are overrun with COVID patients.

All of the numerous charts available on the pandemic show a soaring spike in cases and deaths in the last few months. We are clearly in the worst part of the pandemic, at least so far. Fortunately, vaccinations are now being administered, but experts say it will be months before these may reverse the spread of the disease.

POLITICAL. America is now in its most serious political crisis since the 1960's and possibly since the Civil War. The President has rejected the results of the fair, free, and legal election. He claims the election of his opponent was fraudulent and that the election was stolen from him, the true winner. He and his backers have not produced one shred of empirical evidence to support this shocking claim. Yet, he and his "base," app. a third of the country, continue to assert that Trump won the election and that Biden will be an illegitimate president. They are promising a big demonstration of resistance on this Wednesday, when the U.S. Congress meets to officially certify the results of the Electoral College election in December. In fact, Biden has been duly and legally elected the next president. Yet, 140 Republican members of the House of Representatives and at least 12 Republican Senators say they will object to certifying Biden as the winner. This is a continuation of the attempted coup d'état that Trump and some Republican officer holders have been carrying on for the last several months trying to overthrow the vote of the people and keep Trump in power against all principles of democracy. It will not work but it will go far in de-legitimizing the new administration in the minds of at least a third of the nation. This is dangerously destabilizing to the whole structure of the American civic-state that rests on shared rules and majority vote. 

Just when we thought nothing Trump would do or say would shock us any more comes the news over the weekend of Trump's hour long rant to the (Republican) GA Secretary of State and his lawyer. Apparently deranged and delusional, Trump demanded they (illegally) "find" enough votes to make him the winner in GA and threatened arrest if they did not do so. Trump should be removed from office for this gross abuse of power, not to mention possible crime. It is beyond the pale for any president to do this. My hat's off to the GA Secretary of State for standing up to this outrageous behavior. He told Trump his data was wrong and refused to back down. Who would have thought that a Republican secretary of state in a Deep South state would be the one to finally sock the schoolyard bully? I say Brad Raffensperger is the hero of the hour.

President Trump has sixteen days to go in office. God only knows what he will do next as he gets ever more desperate. He is like a wounded animal. Thank goodness all of the living Secretaries of Defense just issued a strong letter that the military cannot be used for political purposes (as overthrowing an election). The courts too have tossed out Trump's entirely fictitious claims of election fraud. There is simply no credible evidence to present of election wrongdoing. Still, if we have learned anything at all about Trump in the last four years it is that he will go beyond all traditional bounds of law and order to serve himself. It is all but certain we will see a lot of chaos and turmoil in the next sixteen days. I would not be surprised to see a lot of violence too. I am looking out for Wednesday when Trump has called his armed followers to rally around him in Washington to protest and resist the legal and legitimate election, again, something that no president has ever done. Our constitutional democratic republic is in peril.

Meanwhile, there is an election of two senators in Georgia tomorrow. Conventional wisdom says the Republicans will win, but all bets are off now that Trump has thrown everything in Georgia (and the country) into chaos. The results will be close and I would not be too surprised to see the two Democrats win. If they do, the Democrats will have two of the three branches of the government, the executive and the legislative (House and Senate). And, if this happens, the Republicans can thank Trump for their political deaths. But then, they are the ones who selected him and enabled him all these wild years. Trump did not do all his destruction of constitutional norms by himself. He had a lot of help from Republicans who thought they could control this Frankenstein monster for themselves. Now he may very well be destroying them too on his way out the door. The Republican party is now badly divided and it is difficult to see how they survive Trump. 

Americans are in a bad place today. We are suffering through the worst public health crisis in a century as we struggle to hold the nation together under the constitution that we have revered for more than two centuries. We are badly and dangerously divided. We are seriously challenged to beat the virus and keep the civic society intact. The next few weeks will tell us a lot about how we respond to this double threat. May God help us.

As always, remember we are here for the living of this hour. We the people did not create these crises. They were thrust upon us, one by nature and one by human action. Nevertheless, the terrible challenges must be met and met with a resolve to prevail. Peace.  

REFLECTIONS ON THE YEAR 2020

Today is Thursday, December 31, 2020, the last day of the year, and what it year it was. I for one plan to stay up until midnight tonight not so much to see the new year in as the see the old year out. I am sure we can all agree to shout good bye and good riddance to 2020. I can honestly say it was the worst year of the seventy-seven I have been granted so far. Yet, if you are reading this, you survived. I survived. All is not lost, far from it. Our lives have changed, but not all for the worse, not by a long shot.

The opening paragraph of Charles Dickens's classic A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorite passages of literature: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." He was referring to the pre-French Revolutionary age. I think we can use that for 2020. It was definitely bad but it was also good. Let's start with the good.

In thinking of the good in the last year, three things jump into my mind right away. First and foremost is the arrival of vaccines against the coronavirus. In record time, several pharmaceutical companies produced vaccines for public use. This was a miracle of modern science and technology. Within the next few months, vaccines will be available to the general population. With this, the pandemic will decline and life can soon get back to "normal" whatever that may be. 

The second good thing may be the most important in the long run. Faced with its greatest challenge to its integrity since the Civil War, the American constitutional democratic republic held the line. Pushed by a president who knew no bounds of law and order, the old institutions of law and order prevailed as record numbers of Americans went to the polls to reaffirm their devotion to our democratic republic. They loudly and decisively rejected a would-be autocrat and defeated his attempted coup d'état. 

The year also saw a third movement that we should not forget, the re-awakening of racial justice. Following the police killings of several black people, countless thousands of ordinary American citizens in virtually every city and town spontaneously took to the streets to demand justice and equality for all people regardless of race. Along with the election, this was another way the people arose to reaffirm the basic principles of democracy in America.

Now for the bad in 2020. Here, obviously stands first the pandemic of the coronavirus, or COVID-19. This was the worst public health crisis since the great Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19. Then, 600,000 American died along with millions more around the world. In spite of the enormous progress of modern medicine, we are on track to equal this. Accord to Worldometers, as of today, 1,815,389 people in the world have died of covid. Of these, 350,845 were Americans. The U.S. has been since the first the center of this pandemic. While the U.S. has 4% of the world's population, it reported 24% of the world's cases and 19% of the world's deaths. This reflects the lack of national response to the plague. While many others countries successfully quelled the spread, the U.S. did not. In fact, the Trump administration lurched between denial, indifference, and malevolence. Worst of all, they made the pandemic into a political issue in an election year. In my view, President Trump will go down in history for two colossal moral failures, the separation of children from their parents at the border and the handling of the covid pandemic.

With the pandemic, we must consider many after effects of the health emergency. Millions of Americans lost their jobs. Unemployment is twice what it was before the pandemic. Thousands of businesses have closed. Eight million Americans slipped below the poverty line. Millions face hunger and residential evictions. 

While we see that democracy held in America, the other side of that shows us that there was a very strong and residual movement in 2020 to overthrow the democratic republic. President Trump pushed the boundaries of power as far as he could. After the election, which was clear-cut against him, he tried to overturn the legal and legitimate result and keep himself in power. He failed but only because the courts blocked him. Even in view of four years of anti-democratic behavior, nearly half of the American voters (47%) voted for Trump which meant they voted for an overthrow of democracy. This is beyond shocking. And, the most disturbing point of this was the racial element. Some 60% of the whites voted for Trump while over 80% of blacks voted against him. We now have a country that is even more racially divided than it has been, at least since the 1960's. This is the legacy of Donald Trump who ran his whole campaign on racial fear.

Now that we have considered the good and the bad of 2020, we can ask ourselves: Was 2020 the worst year ever? The answer to that depends on our criteria of evaluation. These would have to rest on the measures of death and destruction as well as the trajectories into the future. I see the year 1940 as the worst, at least in modern history. It was in that year that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy secured control of continental Europe with every hope and expectation of indefinite domination. France fell in June after only six weeks of fighting. This left only Great Britain at war with Hitler. He was planning and preparing an invasion of Britain and the British were getting ready for it. To "soften up" the British, he launched The Battle of Britain, day after day of devastating bombing raids. Britain fell on its knees, literally and figuratively. To save themselves, the British relied on their control of the seas. The Americans were "neutralized" in Neutrality Acts, much to President Roosevelt's chagrin. The Russians were not neutral, they were actually friends of Hitler having agreed in their Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 to divide up Poland. In 1940, the Soviets took over the three Baltic states. Stalin was confident he would live peacefully with Hitler. So, as 1940 came to a close, there was every reason to believe Germany, Italy, and Japan would prevail as the new world dominant powers. If they had, the world would be a profoundly different place than it is now. So, 1940 gets my vote as the worst year in recent history.

Is the COVID-19 pandemic the worst plague in history? Not by a long shot. It is no where near as devastating as the Black Death of the Fourteenth Century when some 25 million people, a third of the population of Europe, died. Survivors at the time commonly considered this to be the end of the world. It was indeed the end of the word that they knew.

Is President Trump the worst president in American history? He gets my vote. There is a long list of wrong doing but we have to look no farther than his behavior after the election to prove the point. He tried to overthrow our democratic institutions. No president had ever tried to do such a thing.

So, who should be our Person(s) of the Year for 2020? Who are our outstanding heroes who helped us get through the nightmare of 2020? My vote goes to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Even under death threats, they never failed to tell us the truth, guide us on best response, and to give us hope for a better day. In my view, they are our national treasures of 2020. They were our guiding lights as we groped our way through the dark tunnel of the pandemic. They are my heroes of the hour.

As a student of history, I like to consider the big picture and try to make sense of where we are in time. Here is my view of this. We Americans are living in a moment of clash between forces of revolutionary change and forces of resistance. The Twentieth Century gave us two big legacies: that the government is responsible for the welfare of the people and that evolving democracy is the best political system. Starting in the 1950's, American began moving toward effectuating these two guiding principles. Blacks, women, homosexuals and many other maginalized/ignored social elements found the benefits of this Great Democratic Revolution. However, the traditional power structure, the white man, arose to resist this revolution which would displace him from control of the various power structures of America. Donald Trump became the pinnacle of the white  man's backlash to the evolving multi-cultural democracy in America. He was more than a dog whistle to white racists. He brought together the elements of anti-democratic resistance. He came close, but ultimately failed to stop the GDR. Democracy won but just barely and there will remain a very strong anti-democratic resistance for the foreseeable future. I expect this resistance actually to strengthen as it becomes clearer and clearer that white people will become a minority of American society. Demographic trends show this happen within a generation whether white people like it or not. White people have shown they will not "surrender" "their" country easily to the non-whites. I suspect there is much more trouble and violence ahead on this front. Trump did not cause racism in America. He was just the most recent politician to capitalize on it and just because he failed we cannot say the problem has gone away. Not at all. Racism is the original sin of America and until we come to terms with it we will continue to be dangerously divided as a nation.

Finally, what about the schism in South Carolina? What did the year 2020 mean for that? The former members of the Diocese of South Carolina who left the Episcopal Church started a legal war almost eight years ago when they sued the Episcopal Church for possession of the property they knew belonged to the Church under church law. Along the way in the last eight years, the state courts have been on both sides. The SC supreme court ruled for the Episcopal Church but before and after that the local circuit courts ruled in favor of the breakaways. We are now awaiting a judgment of the SCSC. The basic issue there is whether the justices will uphold the SCSC decision of 2017 or overturn it. Unlike the state courts, the federal courts have been clear on the side of the Episcopal Church. The federal district judge in Charleston recognized TEC as hierarchical and the Episcopal diocese as the one and only legal heir of the old diocese. His decision is on appeal with the U.S. appeals court. There is little chance the appeals court will change anything. So, after eight years and at least ten million dollars, we still do not have resolution of the legal war. However, we are much closer now than ever and I expect there is a very good chance both state and federal courts will issue final judgments in the year 2021. Even if they do, this may not be the end of the story as the breakaways have proven clearly that they will deny, delay, and sue until there is absolutely no possibility of legal action left. So, alas, even if the courts rule in 2021 that may not be the end of the sad history of the schism.

My best wishes to you and yours as we move into a new year. A new day is coming. It has to be better that what we are leaving behind. I am confident it will be. At any rate, remember we are here for the living of this hour, with whatever that may entail. Peace.

 

FORT WORTH SECESSIONISTS PRESENT ARGUMENTS TO U.S. SUPREME COURT

On yesterday, 23 December 2020, the breakaway contingent going under the name of Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, presented its written arguments to the United States Supreme Court. This was in opposition to the Episcopal Church's petition to SCOTUS, of 19 October 2020, asking the court to grant cert in order to review the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court that found all in favor of the secessionists in Ft. Worth.

Find the breakaway's brief of yesterday here .

The basic argument TEC had made was that the Supreme Court's Jones v. Wolf decision of 1979 was fatally flawed and needed to be clarified or replaced. The evidence was that states all over the country had arrived at widely different, even contradictory, decisions following Jones which had introduced the notion that civic courts could resolve church property disputes within a denomination by strictly adhering to state property laws neutrally. TEC had argued that this approach was a violation of the First Amendment that prohibited the civic state from interfering in the internal matters of a religious entity.

Not surprisingly, the secessionists argued in their brief of 23 December that the Jones decision was perfectly fine and needed no attention. According to them, neutral principles had worked well as evidenced by its wide application in numerous states. So, the basic point of contention between the two sides is whether the Jones decision should be left as is or should be reinterpreted.

Interesting to note that the breakaways' brief undercuts its own assertions in its Appendix which lists four groups of states responding to the Jones decision: those that adopted it, those that rejected it, those that were unclear, and those that had not addressed it. This actually substantiates TEC's case that the decision had led to judicial chaos and needed clarification.

Also interesting to note that the breakaways' brief completely ignored the South Carolina Supreme Court decision of 2017 that followed neutral principle and still found that TEC owned 29 of the 36 parishes in question as well as the Camp. 

In my view, the basic issue facing SCOTUS now is the interpretation of the First Amendment. Does the civic state have the constitutional right to settle property disputes within a denomination? If so, what are the exact parameters under which this may occur while adhering to the First Amendment? Even the breakaways admitted that the Jones decision and its "neutral principles" guide had led to wildly different outcomes in the courts.

TEC asked SCOTUS to grant cert and review the Ft. Worth case. I expect this decision will hinge on whether the justices see this case as one of the First Amendment or of the contemporary culture war. If the former, they will grant cert and side with TEC. If the latter, they will deny cert and allow the Texas Supreme Court decision to stand. 

Traditionally, SCOTUS has shied away from Episcopal Church cases. Time and again it has refused to accept property cases from TEC. However, the new 6-3 conservative majority in SCOTUS has loudly signaled its devotion to the rights of churches against the state. The recent Cuomo case was a prime example of this. In this, the court said the state could not discriminate against churches in imposing attendance limitations even under the health emergency of the covid pandemic. If the court continues this hard swing in favor of the First Amendment rights of churches, it stands to reason it would want to review the Ft. Worth case. This is certainly what TEC wants. On the other hand, if the ultimate goal of the conservative justices is to bolster traditional conservative cultural and social institutions in America, they might see the Ft. Worth case as a chance to strike back against the socially and culturally progressive Episcopal Church. This would work to the breakaways' favor.

Now, we wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to grant cert. This will be by vote of the justices and will likely occur in the next few months. If they deny cert, the matter is over and the TX SC decision stands in finality. If they grant cert, they will take up the case and issue a decision upholding or overthrowing the TX SC decision and this would probably happen by July of 2021.

NOTES,  21 DECEMBER 2020

Good day to you, blog reader. Here is a wish that all goes well with you and yours on this, the 21st day of December of 2020. It is Monday, and time for the weekly check in on the crises we have been tracking for months, the pandemic, the litigation, and political. So, where do we stand now on these issues?

PANDEMIC. We are now in the worst phase of the year-long COVID-19 pandemic and matters are getting even worse by the hour. All metrics show alarming trajectories of cases and deaths. 

Consulting our usual source, Worldometers, we find that in the last week (December 14-21), there were 4,527,981 new cases in the world for a total of 77,264,853. In just the last two weeks there were over 10,000,000 new cases in the world. As for deaths in the world, there were 80,935 last week, a rising rate of 5%. This brings world deaths to a total of 1,701,599. In just the last two weeks there have been over 150,000 deaths from COVID-19. This represents 10% of the entire mortality of this pandemic. Numbers are skyrocketing. 

The United States continues to be, as it has been since March, the world's epicenter of the plague. America has by far the most cases and deaths in the world. Last week, the U.S. reported 1,530,312 new cases, a rising rate of 9%. This gives a total of cases of 18,267,579. Over 3,000,000 of these new cases were reported in just the last two weeks. As new cases continue to run at around 10% a week, deaths from COVID-19 continue to hover around 6% weekly. Last week, 18,410 Americans died of the plague. In all, 324,869 people have died from the coronavirus in the U.S. Of these 36,000 happened in just the last two weeks.

The pandemic continues to sweep South Carolina and Alabama as it has in the last few months. In SC, there were 21,200 new cases last week for a total of 273,406. In the last two weeks, over 41,000 South Carolinians have contracted the virus. As for deaths from the virus, there were 196 in SC last week for a total of 4,935. The death total of the last two weeks was 370. Alabama continues to be hard hit. In AL, there were 26,821 new cases last week for a total of 322,452. There were over 50,000 new cases in the last two weeks. As for deaths in AL, there were 287 last week for a total of 4,389. The coronavirus is spreading out of control in our southeastern states as in much of America. 

Charleston County continues to see surging numbers as well. It reported 920 new cases last week, and nearly 2,000 in the last two weeks. Deaths in the county are up to 313, and rising at a 9% weekly rate. 

While we are in the midst of a terrifying winter surge of the pandemic, there is great news at hand. Two new vaccines are now available and will be offered to the public in the next few months. The light is at the end of the tunnel, as far as the pandemic goes.

LITIGATION. We are still in a holding pattern in the court cases. We are awaiting two briefs in two important cases. The first is the brief of the Anglican Diocese of SC in the South Carolina Supreme Court. The Episcopal diocese appealed to the SCSC to overturn Judge Dickson's outrageous order and submitted its brief (written arguments) to the SCSC last month. The ADSC brief (counter arguments) will be presented in the near future but I am uncertain of the exact date.

On 23 December, the breakaway faction in Ft. Worth is due to submit its brief in the United States Supreme Court. The Episcopal Church has asked SCOTUS to grant cert and accept its appeal of the Texas Supreme Court ruling that found all in favor of the secessionist contingent in Ft. Worth. After the breakaways turn in their brief, the justices of SCOTUS will decide whether to grant cert. This should occur in the new few months. 

POLITICAL. I am preparing an end-of-year review of the political crisis in America and so will skip this for now. I will return with my thoughts on this soon.

Meanwhile, as a gardener, I always look forward to this day, the Winter Solstice. This year it falls on today, Monday, December 21. For nature, the winter solstice is a turning point. This is the darkest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. From here on, the days will lengthen and the sun will brighten in the sky. Typically, the worst of winter weather is yet to come, but the rising light portends all the great promises of spring and new life. 

In prehistoric and ancient times, people universally marked and celebrated the "rebirth" of the sun after the winter solstice. As they saw the sun declining in the sky, they feared it would die, and its death would extinguish all life. Thus, there was always great rejoining when the sun began to lift on the horizon in what is now late December. Nowadays the Christian world celebrates new birth at Christmas. The four gospels do not provide the time of year in which Jesus of Nazareth was born, so early on it seemed fitting for Christians to put it in late December (in the cult of Mithras, widely popular in the Roman Army, Dec. 25 was the birth day of the mythical saviour-figure Mithras). So, today I am rejoicing at the passing of the Winter Solstice and the impending celebration of birth, this Friday. Welcome new sun, welcome new life.

The Winter Solstice today provides a metaphor of this whole year. This is the darkest day of the darkest year of my lifetime. Yet, in this fearful moment, there are many signs of new life as there is every reason to hope and expect a better day ahead. Things will be better. We have to believe that. Always remember, we are here for the living of this hour. Peace.

AWAITING CHRISTMAS

Greetings blog reader. It is just a week until Christmas Day. I do not know about you, but I can hardly wait for that day to arrive. I may be reverting to my long-ago childhood, but did we ever need Christmas more? This has been the year from Hell. We need the arrival of the Divine Presence now more than ever, at least in out lifetimes. So, I say, hurry Christmas, hurry the arrival of the new light. 

Many blog readers noticed I did not make a posting last Monday as I usually do. I had just learned that my 81-year-old brother in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, had contracted the coronavirus. That means his wife, along with my sister, probably have gotten the virus, or will get it. Right now, he is at home taking OTC meds. It is a good thing he has a relatively mild case, at least so far, because there is not one ICU bed left in the entire state of Mississippi. That state has been overwhelmed. It seemed that all the heaviness of the year fell in on me at once and I did not have the heart to write anything on the computer last Monday. 

Perhaps you too have family members and friends who have acquired the virus. The plague is spreading rapidly and people are falling sick all around us. It is hard to keep up a good spirit in this seemingly ever darkening night.

We must not, will not, let the night vanquish us. One way we can keep our heads above water is to relish the small acts of kindness that we can do for each other. Let me share with you a few recent examples that will lift your spirits as they did mine.

For 25 years, my local parish has provided a free Thanksgiving Day meal for the community. It started out small and has turned into a major event, especially for a small church. In spite of the pandemic, this year the parish went all out and served a record-breaking 675 meals. And this year, we had only pick-up and home delivered meals. We packed in extra food for people to use for days. 

Another act of kindness. My good friend from childhood lives in downtown Chicago, near Lincoln Park. A few years ago, he was hit by a truck while crossing the street and ever since has struggled to get around. He has to have a walker to go anywhere. Well, on the day before Thanksgiving he was crossing the street and out of the blue a woman he had never seen appeared at his side to help him across. On the other side they struck up a conversation about what they were going to do on the next day, Thanksgiving. He told her he had hoped to go to his favorite restaurant a few blocks away but would not do so this year. The woman immediately said she would go to the restaurant, pick up and pay for his favorite meal, and deliver it to him on tomorrow, Thanksgiving. She did. At noon she appeared at the door, tote bag in hand. My friend was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. A person he had never seen spent her Thanksgiving Day going to great lengths to see to it that he had a good day. Many people would say things like this just do not happen in big cities but they would be wrong.

Another act of kindness. Once a month my local parish has a "Beans and Rice" day to distribute free beans and rice to anyone who wants them, no questions asked. You might be surprised at the number of people who arrive to collect just these basic staples. We have a local food pantry in town but it screens its patrons. Our local Daughters of the King chapter decided to make December's Beans and Rice day a free food day. And so, they found enough money to buy bags and bags of food to hand out to anyone who arrived to collect the beans and rice. My wife, Sandy, was the driving force behind this project, I am proud to say. The Daughters prepared hundreds of bags which they handed out to the surprised and delighted patrons on this months's Beans and Rice Day.

St. Luke's parish house, Jacksonville AL. Sandy Caldwell looks over the room full of bags of food assembled by the DOK for distribution on Beans and Rice Day, Dec. 12.

And finally, I like to go back to my favorite Advent hymn, "Lo he comes with clouds descending." This is one of the most beautiful hymns in the hymnal and I always look forward to it at this time of the year. We need it now more than ever. My favorite rendition is the one by Richard Jensen on Youtube. There are many other versions available on Youtube. Any one will do. I invite you to listen to one of them today.

So, it is with little flickers of light that we banish the darkness of the night in which we find ourselves. We are here for the living of this hour, as hard as it may be. Peace.

    

NOTES,  7 DECEMBER 2020

Greetings, blog reader, on this Monday, December 7, 2020. Today is a somber day in many ways; and it is time to check in on the crises we have been tracking for months now.

PANDEMIC. It is clear to everyone that we are in the midst of the worst health crisis in our lifetimes. In fact, we are in a once-in-a-century health emergency. People are falling ill and dying by the thousands all around us. Moreover, right now we are in the worst part of this awful plague; and all signs indicate it will only worsen for the new few months as winter sets in. At nearly 300,000 Americans dead, we are looking into twice that number by next February, at least according to the experts. In the great flu epidemic of 1918-19, 600,000 Americans died. We are on track to match that, in spite of the great advances in medicine in the last century.

Looking at our usual source, Worldometers, the data of cases and deaths are soaring in almost every category. There were 4,318,335 new cases last week, December 1-7, for a total of 67,493,569 cases in the world. In just the last two weeks, there were over 8,000,000 new cases in the world, a record. As for deaths in the world, there were 76,475 last week for a total of 1,543,627. This was a rising rate of 5%. In the last two weeks, nearly 150,000 people have died of COVID-19.

The figures for America are even more grim. The U.S. continues to be the world's epicenter of this pandemic. Last week, the U.S. reported 1,408,192 new cases, for a total of 15,159,529. This was a rising rate of 10%, a record. In the last two weeks, some 2.5m Americans have contracted COVID-19, again soaring numbers. As for deaths in the U.S., there were 15,805 reported, for a total of 288,906, a rising rate of 6%. In the last two weeks some 25,000 Americans died of the plague. All the charts show these to be record numbers on a skyrocketing trajectory. Infections and deaths will only get worse in the next few months.

Our local southeastern states continue to be "hot spots" for the virus. Last week, South Carolina reported 15,880 new cases, for a total of 232,009. This was a rising rate of 7%, up from the 5% of the previous week. In the last two weeks, SC reported 25,000 new cases. As for deaths, SC reported 207 last week, for a total of 4,560. According to the New York Times, in the last two weeks, SC saw a 48% rise in new cases, 25% increase in deaths, and 23% jump in hospitalizations. 

As for Charleston County, there were 856 new cases last week, for a total of 20,783. In the last two weeks, the county reported over 1,500 new cases. As for deaths, the county listed 8 last week, for a total of 301. It is clear, the disease is spreading rapidly in Charleston County although at a slightly lesser rate than Richland and Greenville, if this is any consolation.

Alabama's figures are even more alarming. Last week, the state reported 22,648 new cases for a total of 269,877. There were 37,000 new cases in just the last two weeks. As for deaths, the state reported 312 last week, for a total of 3,889. This was a rising rate of 9%, up from the 3% of the earlier week.

In spite of the exploding numbers, virtually nothing new is being done to mitigate the pandemic, at least in our local states. All eyes are on the vaccines that are on the horizon. Two, Pfizer and Moderna, are on the cusp of approval and distribution. However, distributing these will present huge problems. Availability will be prioritized and the lower levels may not have access to them for many months to come. The first to be vaccinated will be the most vulnerable, particularly the medical personnel who have to deal with the virus every day. The second tier will be older people (I am going to be the first in line of this group). Meanwhile, the coronavirus is spreading as wildfire and will continue as such for the time being. The worst is yet to come.

LITIGATION. Nothing new to report here. We are waiting on two court developments. The first is in the South Carolina Supreme Court. TEC and the Diocese of SC are appealing Judge Dickson's outrageous decision of June 19, 2020 purporting to reverse the SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017. The Church side submitted its brief to SCSC on Nov. 12. We are now awaiting the new diocese's brief. Then, the SCSC will consider the case and decide whether to hold a hearing or go straight to a written decision. 

The second concerns the U.S. Supreme Court. On Oct. 19, TEC and its diocese of Ft. Worth filed for "cert" in SCOTUS to appeal the Texas Supreme Court decision of May 22, 2020 that found all in favor of the breakaway contingent. The Church side filed its brief; and seven entities have filed "amici curiae" briefs in support of the Church side. We are now awaiting the brief of the breakaway side. It is due on Dec. 23, 2020. After that, the nine justices will decide whether to grant cert. If they do not, the case is over. If they do, they will review the TSC decision and rule on it. In my view, this is a landmark case at the heart of the bedrock principle of the separation of church and state, that is, the First Amendment. If the nine justices see it that way, there is a reasonable chance they will grant cert.

POLITICAL. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly. They rejected Donald Trump as president. Trump has rejected the judgment of the people and continues to assert entirely fictitious claims of election fraud. However, the institutions that he had counted on to help him make a coup d'état  refused to go along with his madness. The legal system, headed by AG Barr, and the federal courts all upheld the law. Although Trump can continue to do a lot of damage to American democracy on his way out, his days are numbered. Sanity and decency are on the way. In both the health and political crises, the cavalry is on the way, thank God.

Finally, we must pause and remember Pearl Harbor Day, the Day of Infamy. All those years ago now, the world changed forever. I was not alive then but my parents told me how they reacted that day. They had chosen that day to move from rural south Alabama to Pensacola where my father had recently landed a good job. A few weeks earlier they had bought a little house on west Cypress Street, a short distance from beautiful Pensacola Bay. As they were moving their household items into their "new" house at mid-day, a paper boy ran up and down the streets shouting "Japs attack Pearl Harbor." Everyone ran out and bought the special (Sunday) edition and turned on their radios. My parents had wildly mixed reactions, happiness at their new home but great fear and foreboding at what would come. My mother sat on the front steps and wept. After all, Pensacola was a major naval point. There would be a great deal of change to come in their immediate world. Little did they know at just how much the world would change locally and globally. 

Today, it will help us to put things into historical perspective.We are in a hard time, no doubt about it. Our hearts break at the sickness and deaths all about us. Sometimes, we may want to sit on the front steps and weep, and maybe we should. However, on the whole, our travails pale in comparison to those of our parents and grandparents, the generation of the Great Depression and Second World War ("the Greatest Generation"). Just as we, they did not know the future, yet they did their best through it all. In the end, the world that developed, that they helped create, after the war was far more wonderful than they could have imagined. I think what sustained them through the darkest of hours was family, community, faith, and nation. After all, it is the basics that count the most in life; and I think we should remember that truism this day. The darkest day in American history since the Civil War may have seemed almost unbearable to the people at the moment, but it was not. This is worth remembering today, Pearl Harbor Day.

Finally, always remember we are here, as our ancestors were here on Pearl Harbor Day, for the living of this hour. Then, as now, the people had no choice of what was forced on them. So today, let us take inspiration from how our forebearers prevailed over adversity, moving on with our lives while facing fearful odds. Peace.  

  

 

SIX RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS BACK EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN U.S. SUPREME COURT

On October 19, 2020, the Episcopal Church and its diocese of Ft. Worth officially petitioned the United States Supreme Court to take its appeal of the Texas Supreme Court decision of May 22, 2020. That decision found all in favor of the breakaway entity in Ft. Worth. Find my blog post about this here .

Soon thereafter, six religious denominations and one think tank filed "amici curiae" (friends of the court) briefs with SCOTUS in support of the Episcopal Church position. Collectively, these present a strong case for the Church side. TEC is asking the high court to grant "cert," that is, to agree to accept an appeal of the case from Texas Supreme Court. If they agree, the nine justices would review and render a judgment on the TSC decision. If SCOTUS should grant cert, the justices would hold a hearing and then render a written decision in which the majority of the nine would either uphold or overturn the TSC decision.

The basic argument of TEC is that the Jones decision of 1979 has done more harm than good in American jurisprudence. It created an impossible approach called "neutral principles." This has produced only widely contradictory and confusing court decisions, in short, chaos. Moreover, the First Amendment precludes the civic state from interfering with the internal affairs of a religious organization. TEC is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the TSC decision in favor of the principle of the separation of church and state.

Six national religious denominations have filed amici briefs:

---the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, on Nov. 18.

---the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)  Nov. 23, 2020

    the Reformed Church in America

    the United Methodist Church

    the Moravian Church in America

    the United Church of Christ

In addition, the Rutherford Institute, of Charlottesville VA filed an amicus brief on Nov. 23, 2020.

In general, all of the amici briefs support TEC's position on the Jones decision, that is, the "neutral principles" rule that courts have used is unworkable and the First Amendment protects the rights of religious denominations against interference by the courts. The denominations also emphasized that SCOTUS should clarify the enforceability of trust provisions established by the national churches. This has been an enormous problem. 

As we know, the courts in South Carolina issued diametrically opposed decisions on the applicability of the Dennis Canon. The SC supreme court ruled that the Dennis Canon was in effect and that 28 of 36 parishes acceded to it. The circuit court purported to overturn that and declared that none of the 36 had acceded to the Dennis Canon. Thus, while the SCSC recognized TEC ownership of the 29, the circuit court recognized that TEC had no interest in any of the 36.

All of the amici briefs are available on the SCOTUS website. Find them here .

There could be more amici briefs supporting the Church side.

The breakaway side in Ft. Worth has until December 23, 2020, to file a reply brief with SCOTUS. After that, we can expect amici support for that side.

In all likelihood, in early 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to grant cert. If they deny cert, the TSC decision stands as final. If they grant cert, SCOTUS will rule on the issues of the case. If they grant cert, we can expect a ruling from SCOTUS by July of 2021.

Of course, no one can predict whether SCOTUS will grant cert, or if they do, will side with TEC. However, the recent ruling in the Cuomo case was a strong statement on the inviolability of the First Amendment. Since this principle is the heart of the TEC case, it stands to reason the high court would look favorably on the TEC appeal. However, if the justices see the TEC case basically as part of the broad culture war in America, the 6-3 conservative court could seize this as an opportunity to bolster traditional social conventions.

U.S. SUPREME COURT RULES

ON FIRST AMENDMENT

On yesterday, November 25, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision regarding the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This could possibly indicate the court's attitude toward the Episcopal Church's petition for the court to consider the appeal of the Ft. Worth case. In the Ft. Worth case, the Texas Supreme Court declared that, even though the Episcopal Church is hierarchical, neutral applications of state laws must leave the secessionist faction with the legal entities and rights of the Episcopal diocese. The breakaway faction says neutral principles gives them the rights to the old diocese. In other words, state law trumps church law. In contrast, the Episcopal Church says the First Amendment precludes civil courts from interfering with internal church affairs. Thus, one side argues state law and other argues the First Amendment.

Find yesterday's Supreme Court decision here .

Find a CNN article about the decision here .

As background, Governor Cuomo, of New York, had place restrictions on numbers of people allowed in public gatherings, including religious ones, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Two groups sued over this, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel, a Jewish entity. They argued that the restrictions violated the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of religion.

The court ruled 5-4 in favor of the plaintiffs, the religious groups. This was the first time the court ruled against such restrictions during the pandemic of this year. As a sign of the importance of the issue at stake, the court took the unusual step of presenting six opinions. To support the majority opinion, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh presented their own explanations. Gorsuch (who attends an Episcopal church) wrote, "Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis." Kavanaugh, a Roman Catholic, wrote that the government actions violated the First Amendment. 

The four justices in the minority were led by Chief Justice Roberts. They contributed three separate opinions. In general they agreed that the government had the right to impose restrictions as long as they were not discriminatory against churches and that the government had the greater responsibility to protect the welfare of the citizenry. Yet, they too unanimously defended the First Amendment. Justices  Sotomayor and Kagan wrote, "Free religious exercise is one of our most treasured and jealously guarded constitutional rights. States may not discriminate against religious institutions, even when faced with a crisis as deadly as this one."

All nine justices arose to defend the First Amendment. The difference of opinion between the majority and the minority was whether the state had discriminated against religious institutions. The majority said yes. The minority said no. 

The Episcopal Church case will depend on whether the U.S. Supreme Court justices see the Texas Supreme Court decision as a matter of state law or of the First Amendment. The whole argument from the Episcopal Church is violation of the First Amendment, that is, the state unconstitutionally intruded into the affairs of a religious entity. Specifically, the Church lawyers argued in their recent brief to SCOTUS that the 1979 Jones decision had produced vastly different outcomes because it lacked sufficient protection for religious institutions. The lawyers called on the court to redefine Jones.

Yesterday's decision from SCOTUS tells us the court is overwhelmingly concerned about protecting the First Amendment. All nine justices were adamant about this. If this concern carries over to the Episcopal Church case from Texas, it could mean a favorable tilt to the Episcopal Church side. 

First, the Supreme Court has to grant, or deny, "cert." The Episcopal Church is asking for cert. If they deny cert, the matter is over and the Texas Supreme Court decision stands. The breakaway faction will be left as the legal heir of the pre-schism diocese. If SCOTUS grants cert, they will review the Texas SC decision, hold a hearing, and render a decision either upholding or overturning the Texas SC decision. If they do grant cert, we could expect a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court by next summer. If they do grant cert, it will mean the justices see the Texas case as one of the First Amendment and could well foreshadow a ruling favorable to the Episcopal Church.

As of now, it looks as if chances are slightly better for the court to grant cert. It is still a long shot, but less so today than yesterday.

EPISCOPAL CHURCH ASKS U.S. SUPREME COURT TO TAKE CASE FROM FORT WORTH

The Episcopal Church and its diocese of Fort Worth have asked the United States Supreme Court to accept their appeal of the decision of the Texas Supreme Court on the Ft. Worth case. On October 19, 2020, TEC filed "Petition for a Writ of Certiorari" with SCOTUS for the Texas Supreme Court decision of May 22, 2020. That decision found all in favor of the breakaway faction that goes under the name of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

The breakaway side has until December 23, 2020 to present a reply brief to SCOTUS. One amicus curiae brief has already been filed in support of TEC, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, on Nov. 18, 2020. Other amici briefs are likely to be filed.

BACKGROUND:

---The Diocese of Fort Worth was created in 1983, explicitly acceding to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. The Dennis Canon had been adopted by TEC in 1979.

---In 2008, a majority of the clergy and laity left the Episcopal Church retaining the name "The Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth." The Episcopal Church reorganized the Episcopal (loyalist) diocese. Both groups used the same name.

---In 2011, the 141st District Court (state) ruled all in favor of the TEC diocese declaring "The Episcopal Church...is a hierarchical church as a matter of law." The breakaways appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.

---In 2013, the TSC, in a 5-4 decision, reversed the District Court decision. It declared Texas law overruled the Dennis Canon because the canon did not contain a provision that it could not be revoked. TSC remanded to the District Court with instructions to favor the breakaway side.

---In 2014, TEC and its diocese of Ft. Worth asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept an appeal of the TSC decision. SCOTUS denied cert.

---In 2015, the District Court implemented the remand from TSC favoring the breakaways. The TEC side appealed to the Texas Second District Court of Appeals.

---On April 5, 2018, the Court of Appeals issued a 178-page judgment finding TEC to be an hierarchical religious institution to which the civic court must defer even under neutral principles. The court found: the breakaways' actions of disaffiliation in 2008 were invalid; the TEC diocese controlled the appointments to the board of the corporation; titles to the properties were held by the TEC diocese; and the Dennis Canon did not impose a trust; however, this was a moot point because under hierarchy, TEC and its diocese maintained control of the property. The breakaway side appealed this to the TSC.

---On May 22, 2020, the Texas Supreme Court issued a decision reversing the Appeals Court decision. TSC declared that even though TEC is an hierarchical church, neutral principles required very strict construction of state laws. TSC found that the breakaways had followed state laws, had separated legally from TEC, and had retained all rights of the old diocese. In this view, state law trumped hierarchy. This is the decision that TEC is now asking SCOTUS to review.

TEC'S PETITION FOR CERT:    

TEC's October 19 petition to SCOTUS for cert is really a 37-page argument against the 1979 Jones v. Wolf decision. It calls on the Court to reconsider the entire decision which has led to a great deal of confusion and disagreement about how civil courts can address issues from churches.

Find the October 19 petition here .

The basic issue at hand is the First Amendment of the United States Constitution that established the principle of the separation of church and state. The Jones decision, however, allowed courts to rule on church issues of property as long as they followed "neutral principles," that is, only property laws neutrally. The basic problem with this has always been that there was no established boundary between the First Amendment and courts' rights to intervene in church business. And so, since 1979, court decisions have been all over the place, in other words, Jones has produced only chaos across the country. For instance, among the five cases where dioceses voted to leave the Episcopal Church, the Church has won in three instances while the secessionists have won in two although every one claimed to act under "neutral principles." How can the same guiding principle result in diametrically opposed outcomes? There is an inherent contradiction in the Jones decision that the civil court can respect a church's rights while ruling on a church's rights. Either the church and state are separate, or they are not. Jones was trying to have it both ways, an impossibility. This is the issue TEC is asking SCOTUS to take up anew.

The TEC lawyer advanced three primary reasons for SCOTUS to accept this case. 

1-To resolve the issue of the effectiveness of trust provisions for churches. 

As the lawyers pointed out in detail, courts all around the U.S. have varied greatly in how to interpret church-related trusts, roughly dividing on loose construction and strict construction. Loose leans to the church's rights to set up a trust itself. Strict leans to state law regardless of the church's trust. Texas held to a very strict construction holding that the Dennis Canon could be revoked because it did not have a provision preventing it from being revoked. Thus, it had virtually no standing under state law.

2-To resolve the issue of whether courts must defer to a church in determining who represents the church's subordinate bodies.

In Texas, the District Court and the Appeals Court had recognized TEC as hierarchical and therefore entitled to decide its local bodies. However, the Texas Supreme Court had declared that the breakaway side was the legal continuation of the Episcopal Diocese since, under state law, it had separated from the Episcopal Church.

In South Carolina, the state supreme court had ruled that the TEC diocese was the legal heir of the pre-schism diocese. This was reversed by the circuit court whose order is now on appeal with SCSC.

The issue of whether an hierarchical church has the right to determine its own structure goes right to the heart of the First Amendment.

3-To resolve the nature of the "neutral principles" rule established by the Jones decision.

Chaos among court decisions demands that SCOTUS define the exact boundaries between neutral principles and rights of religious institutions. The problem is that there is really no such thing as "neutral" decisions. Once a court moves into a dispute within a church it moves to one side by nature. Resolving a property dispute involves taking sides however one may want to rationalize it. Otherwise, the court would have to be Solomon splitting the baby 50/50. The First Amendment precludes the civic state from interfering in the internal affairs of a church. Yet, under Jones, neutral principles has been allowed to give the civic state a great deal of power over the internal affairs of a church. Only SCOTUS can resolve the meaning of the First Amendment. Given what has happened in the wake of Jones, this is something the nation desperately needs.

In my view, all of this goes back to the freedom of religion. The Episcopal Church must have the freedom to govern itself. This is guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Episcopal Church is an hierarchical institution. In fact, this has been established in federal law. On Sept. 19, 2019, federal judge Richard Gergel, in Charleston, ruled that the Episcopal Church was hierarchical. While his decision is on appeal, it is in effect, stays having been denied by Gergel and the federal appeals court.

It seems to me the Ft. Worth case brings to a point the disputes going on in many churches during the present culture war. The first phrase of the First Amendment is the most fundamental part of our civil liberties. It is time for the highest court in the land to tell us exactly what that Amendment means to us today. Giving cert to TEC would go a long way toward constructing a more perfect union.

Will SCOTUS grant cert? At first glance, probably not. It refused cert in 2014. Time and again it has avoided touching cases from the Episcopal Church. It does not get involved in state law, only in issues that directly affect the U.S. Constitution. On second glance, maybe they will grant cert, if they see that the most fundamental right in the Bill of Rights is in question. I say it is time for SCOTUS to tell us exactly what freedom of religion means. What constitutional issue could be more important than this?

What effect might all of this have on the litigation on SC? I doubt it will have much effect in SC. The issue before the SCSC now is whether to uphold or overturn the Dickson decision. If it upholds, the breakaways keep the 29 parishes and the Camp. If it overturns, TEC keeps the 29 and the Camp. Anyway, if SCOTUS grants cert, a decision would probably not be forthcoming until next summer. Of course, the last time SCSC had the church case, it took two years to issue a decision. So, who knows how long it may take this time?

Tired, exhausted, fatigued with all this? I expect we all are. Yet, it goes on and we must keep up with it. It will be over one day but God only knows when that will be. 

This legal war in SC has been going on for nearly nearly eight years. Think about that. What a shame. What a scandal. And all this to keep some people from enjoying the same human rights as others...