Sebastian Kubas: The Christian Right, Judicial Review, and the Exploitation of Religious Passions
Channel: GIRES-Global Research Institute
Date: 09/08/2021

FULL TITLE: The Christian Right, Judicial Review, and the Exploitation of Religious Passions: Hidden Sources and Possible Jurisprudential Effects

Sebastian Kubas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Constitutional Law at the Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland). His main area of interest include: the U.S. constitutional system, election law, parliamentary law, pedagogical endeavors, and the critical reflection on the constitutional law. Over the last few years the latter seems to him depressingly self-evident. In 2004 he published the first book in Polish on the Scottish Devolution. His most recent book deals with deconstructing the founding myth of American judicial review. 

ABSTRACT
The interconnection between religion and power is as old as the civilization itself. It can be argued that the concept of liberal democracy evolved from certain religious attitudes but also and mostly in opposition to the previous religious order, which it supplanted. The tension between democratic principles and religious doctrines has long been a subject of scholarly inquiry. In recent years, when “religion is back with a vengeance” and there are serious religious overtones of the current illiberal upsurge, the issue of exploitation of religious passions for political ends requires renewed and sustained scholarly attention. Therefore, political efforts and successes of Christian Right in the United States should be a major contemporary field of inquiry especially if one considers the faith-based reality divide within the American society.
This paper explores two rather hidden sources of the exploitation of religious passions in the U.S. constitutional practice: white supremacy in the post-Civil War era and the New Deal constitutional revolution. I suggest that a peculiar symbiotic relation has developed between the Supreme Court and the Christian Right. I also discuss three possible jurisprudential effects of this relation: 1) the enhanced legitimacy of the Supreme Court in religious affairs; 2) the Supreme Court as a channel of institutional access of churches and religious groups to policy making; 3) some unintended consequences of religious exemptions from the law.

CONFERENCE INFORMATION
"Religion and Politics in the United States"
Organizer: GIRES-Global Institute for Research Education & Scholarship  
Date: 17-18 July 2021
Place: Amsterdam (Virtual)
More information: https://www.gires.org/activities/conferences/religion-and-politics-in-the-united-states/