Meese Attacks Supreme Court Religion Rulings : Scores Reaffirmation of Governmental Neutrality

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III bluntly criticized the Supreme Court on Tuesday, saying that the justices’ reaffirmation of strict governmental neutrality toward religion would have struck the nation’s founding fathers as “somewhat bizarre.”

Meese, appearing before a meeting of the American Bar Assn., made a far-ranging and largely disapproving assessment of the court decisions on religion, criminal law and states’ rights in the term that ended last week.

“Too many of the court’s opinions, on the whole, have been more policy choices than articulations of long-term constitutional principle,” he said. “The (court’s) voting blocs, the arguments, all reveal a greater allegiance to what the court thinks constitutes sound public policy than a deference to what the Constitution--its text and intention--may demand.”

Rare Criticism

Meese’s remarks--received by the ABA delegates with polite applause--came as a surprise, because attorneys general in recent times rarely, if ever, have criticized the court in such direct fashion. Meese is the second Cabinet member in recent days to do so. Education Secretary William J. Bennett last week called rulings barring public school teachers from conducting remedial classes in parochial schools “terrible,” reflecting “a hostility toward religion.”

Meese also assailed a 60-year-old court doctrine applying the Bill of Rights to the states--a doctrine that has resulted in countless decisions extending the scope of federal constitutional authority. The Bill of Rights, as originally designed, was to apply only to the national government, not the states, which had their own bills of rights, he noted.

The extension of the Bill of Rights rests on an “intellectually shaky foundation,” Meese said, “and nowhere else has the principle of federalism been dealt so politically violent and constitutionally suspect a blow.”

The attorney general said the Reagan Administration, in future cases before the court, will continue to try to “resurrect the original meaning of constitutional provisions and statutes as the only reliable guide for judgment.”

“It is our belief that only the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation, and only the sense in which laws were drafted and passed, provide a solid foundation for adjudication,” he said.

Meese asserted that the justices had used “bewildering, Catch-22 logic” in the school aid cases. The court said that sending public school teachers into private schools impermissibly “advanced” religion, while close supervision of such instructors--to make sure they steered clear of religion--impermissibly “entangled” government and religion.

‘Moment of Silence’

Meese also expressed dismay with a court ruling striking down an Alabama law that authorized a “moment of silence” in public school classrooms for voluntary prayer or meditation. The court, in a 6-3 ruling, emphasized that government must pursue a course of “complete neutrality” toward religion, protecting the individual’s “right to select any religious faith or none at all.”

The attorney general approvingly cited a dissent by Justice William H. Rehnquist in the prayer case that said that the framers of the Constitution intended only to prevent government from favoring one faith over another.

“Strict neutrality between religion and irreligion would have struck the founding generation as somewhat bizarre,” Meese said. “The purpose of (barring government establishment of religion) was to prohibit religious tyranny, not to undermine religion generally.”

Federal Wage Laws

The attorney general also voiced displeasure over a ruling in which the court, reversing a 1976 landmark decision, permitted the application of federal wage and hour laws to state and local government employees. “Such instability in decisions concerning the fundamental principle of federalism does our Constitution no service,” he said.

Meese credited the court with rendering several decisions giving law enforcement authorities more flexibility in detaining and searching criminal suspects. If such authority is “used wisely,” he said, the court trend is likely to continue.

He pledged to continue the “vigorous enforcement” of civil rights laws and an “all-out war on drugs--both supply and demand.”

In other developments, members of the ABA House of Delegates, the policy-making body of the 350,000-member organization, turned down by 161 to 152 a resolution urging federal, state and local governments to prohibit discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and public accommodations.