Original Sin and the Supreme Court

Miguel A. De La Torre is an acquaintance with whom I have had delightful personal conversations and whose written work is always thought-provoking as well as (to me) questionable. “Rejecting Original Sin,” his article posted on Good Faith Media (here) on May 13, is no exception.*¹ 

“We must reject the heresy known as ‘original sin’.” Upon reading those opening words of De La Torre’s brief essay, I decided to write this blog article about it, but last week I altered considerably the content of what I planned to say in the envisioned article.

What Miguel rejects is primarily the traditional interpretation of original sin by Augustine in the early part of the fifth century and then by the Protestant reformer John Calvin in the sixteenth century. Both believed in the historicity of a literal Adam and Eve and the biological transmission of sin.

I agree with Miguel’s rejection of original sin as propounded by Augustine and Calvin. However, he did not deal with the neo-orthodox theologians such as Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr. They affirmed original sin but rejected the idea that it is a hereditary trait passed down from Adam.

Niebuhr emphasized the paradox of human nature, where humans are both created in the image of God and yet profoundly flawed. This duality explains why humans are capable of great good and great evil. I think that is a correct assessment—and it may not be so different from Miguel's point.

“I argue not for human depravity but simply for their stupidity.” Those are the striking words with which De La Torre ends his essay. Upon reading that, I wrote in the margin of my printed copy, Is he replacing original sin with original stupidity?

Perhaps we humans are not born sinful as declared by traditional Catholic and Calvinist theology nor born “righteous” (basically good) as asserted by much contemporary liberal theology. Maybe we humans are just born stupid.

Just as original sin doesn’t mean that all humans are equally sinful in how they manifest their sinfulness, neither does acknowledging “original stupidity” mean that all humans are equally stupid. Rather, we are all prone to think, say, and do stupid things.

And that is what led me to think seriously about the U.S. Supreme Court. Back on April 30, my blog post began with the adage called Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” I conjectured that many of Trump’s followers may not be guilty of either.

But in analyzing the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, perhaps they were made not because of malice stemming from “original sin” but because of stupidity.

A “dangerous political heresy” were the words used by the new Republican Party regarding the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision issued in March 1857. That ruling by Chief Justice Roger Taney is widely regarded as the worst Supreme Court opinion ever.

In recent years, though, the Supreme Court has made a series of “stupid” decisions, beginning with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). Jimmy Carter called that ruling “the most stupid decision that the Supreme Court ever made.”

Back in November 2022, the eminent Robert Reich posted a Substack article titled ”Why I still think John Roberts is the worst Chief Justice since Roger Taney.”*² He says that Roberts was “the moving force” behind Citizen’s United.*³

Last month, on June 28, the Supreme Court issued an opinion that overturns Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That same day, environmental journalist Jameson Dow (here) wrote, “Among many incredibly stupid opinions the court has issued recently, this is among the stupidest.”

But just three days later, Donald J. Trump v. United States, a stupider decision was handed down, and especially because of that ruling, Roberts may well replace Taney as the worst Supreme Court Justice ever.

Decided by a 6-3 vote on July 1, Roberts wrote the majority opinion, holding that presidents could expect absolute immunity for acts related to key powers granted under the Constitution.

If because of the desire for power (an aspect of Eve’s “original sin”) of political agencies, domestic and foreign, and because of the ignorance of the voting public (“original stupidity”) of U.S. citizens, Trump is re-elected President, the nation will most likely soon see the disastrous effects of the Court’s ruling.

May it not be so!

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*¹ For biographical information about De La Torre, see this helpful Wikipedia article. As noted there, Miguel completed his Ph.D. at Temple University in 1999. My daughter Karen was also doing graduate work in religious studies at Temple at that time and received her Ph.D. the following year. It was through her that I first became acquainted with him.

In a December 2018 blog post, I was somewhat critical of De La Torre's emphasis on hopelessness. I was intrigued, then, by Brian McLaren’s quite positive reference to De La Torre’s ideas about hope/hopelessness in “Hope Is Complicated,” the fifth chapter of Life After Doom, which I wrote about in my June 29 blog post.

*² Reich (b. 1946) worked in the administrations of presidents Ford and Carter and was a Cabinet member of presidents Clinton and Obama. In 2008, Time magazine named him one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the century. His Substack post can be found here.

*³ In 2013, Roberts wrote for the court’s conservative majority in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting the Voting Rights Act’s requirement of prior federal approval for voting changes in states with a history of discrimination. For those of us who believe that voter rights should be protected for all, that also was a “stupid” decision. 

The Good and the Bad in the U.S. Constitution

Saturday, September 17, is Constitution Day, a yearly “federal observance.” And posters in the local library announce: Constitution Week September 17~23. Across the country, many school children will be taught good things about the Constitution. But most won’t hear about its bad aspects.  

“Our original Constitution was both brilliant and highly flawed.” So spoke Harvard law professor Alan Jenkins in a Sept. 15, 2021, interview with Harvard Law Today. He continued,

It beautifully articulated the notion that government’s power flows from the people, and that government serves the people. But it was fundamentally flawed in preserving and propping up slavery, that ultimate form of inequality.

Jenkins also averred that the Constitution was faulty “for excluding women, non-white people, indigenous people, non-property owners, from the definition of ‘the people.’’’ But especially from “a racial justice standpoint it was highly flawed.”

That was the basic self-contradiction of the original Constitution, which to a significant degree was based on the ideas/philosophy of John Locke, as I pointed out in my 8/30 blog post.

Most conservative Americans see and emphasize only the “brilliant” facets of the Constitution. In 1955, the highly patriotic Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) petitioned Congress to set aside September 17~23 annually to be dedicated for the observance of Constitution Week.

That resolution was adopted by the US Congress and signed into law in August 1956 by President Eisenhower. Then, Constitution Day was established in 2004, and this year marks the 235^th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

In a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Richard Land, a conservative Southern Baptist who is now the executive editor of The Christian Post, urged American Christians, regardless of their political persuasion, not to allow the Left to define how they see the United States.

“According to Land, the Left-leaning American media invented the hot-button phrase ‘Christian nationalism’ as a pejorative term that serves to undermine the fundamental relationship between Christians and this nation as defined in the U.S. Constitution.”

Yes, patriotic organizations such as the DAR and conservative evangelicals such as Land tend to see only the good aspects of the U.S. Constitution—and there certainly are such aspects that need to be seen and appreciated. But that is only one side of the picture.

Most “Left-leaning” USAmericans also see the “highly flawed” facets of the Constitution. That includes history professor and highly popular blogger Heather Cox Richardson.

“Right-leaning” people doubtlessly see her as Left-leaning, but she is a competent historian who deals with facts not ideological opinions. In my 8/30 blog post, I criticized her for calling the position of Locke and the drafters of the Constitution paradoxical rather than self-contradictory.

But to Richardson’s credit, she also uses the word contradiction in writing about the drafting of the first Constitution. For example, she begins the second chapter of her book How the South Won the Civil War with this assertion:

At the time of the Constitution’s [drafting] in 1787 it was not yet obvious that a contradiction lay at the heart of the nation's founding principles.

Richardson also concurs with Jenkins’s recognition of the “highly flawed” Constitution. She writes, “Without irony, Virginian James Madison crafted the constitution to guarantee that wealthy slaveholders would control the new government” (p. 21).

Although she does not mention maverick historian Howard Zinn, he wrote pointedly about that contradiction in his best-known book, A People’s History of the United States (1980). (Zinn, who died in 2010, was born in August 1922, and last month his centennial birthday was notably celebrated.)**

Zinn’s chapter on the Constitution is based partly on An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, an influential and controversial 1913 book by the noted historian Charles Beard (1874~1948).

According to this website, Beard interpreted the Constitution “as a conservative bulwark against the encroaches of liberal democracy.” That is a “bad” aspect of the original Constitution that is not widely recognized.

But unfortunately, that aspect of the 1787 Constitution may be what the “originalists” on the SCOTUS want to restore now.

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** Zinn’s seminal 1980 book was revised and published for younger readers in 2007 under the title A Young People’s History of the United States. That book cannot be used in many U.S. public schools now, for it is too closely connected to the Right-wing’s opposition to Critical Race Theory and related matters. 
     See here for “Howard Zinn Centennial Week Events” and here for “Howard Zinn at 100: Remembering ‘the People’s Historian,’” an informative article posted by The Nation on August 24.

The Supreme Court Then and Now: Reflecting on the Dred Scott Case

In recent years there have been a couple of bad U.S. Supreme Court decisions, namely, “Citizens United” in 2010 and the decision to gut the Voting Right Act in 2013. But it is widely agreed that the Court’s decision on the Dred Scott case 165 years ago, on March 6, 1857, was the worst ever. 

Dred Scott’s Suit for Freedom

Although it is an embarrassment to me, Missouri, the state where I was born and where I have lived again since 2004, was a slave state from its beginning in 1821, and the Dred Scott case was closely linked to Missouri.

Dred Scott was an enslaved man who was born in Virginia between 1795 and 1799. Peter Blow, his enslaver, brought Scott and his other slaves to St. Louis in 1830 and soon sold him to John Emerson, a surgeon serving in the U.S. Army.

Emerson took Scott with him to Illinois and then to Wisconsin Territory, both areas where slavery was illegal. But then the doctor moved back to Missouri in 1840. Scott, though, claimed that since he had lived in free territories, he should no longer be considered enslaved—and he sued for his freedom.

He won his case, but after it was reversed by the Mo. Supreme Court, Scott and his wife took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court—and to their dismay and the dismay of many, the SCOTUS ruled against them by a vote of 7-2.

However, in May 1857, Dred and Harriet Scott appeared in the St. Louis Circuit Court and were formally freed— but he did not live to enjoy his free status very long as he died of tuberculosis in September of the next year.**

The Supreme Court in 1857

Of the nine members on the Supreme Court in 1857—all White men, of course—five were from the South and were slave owners. Two of the Northerners sided with the Southerners in voting against Scott’s freedom.

Roger B. Taney was the Chief Justice and wrote the infamous majority opinion of the Dred Scott decision. Taney (1777~1864) was born into a wealthy, slave-owning family in Maryland. He was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice in 1836 and remained the Chief Justice until his death.

(In an interesting but unrelated Missouri connection, a new county in south Missouri was officially organized in 1837 and named in honor of the new Chief Justice. Many years later the now widely-known resort town of Branson was incorporated in Taney County.)

In his infamous opinion, Taney wrote that the majority held that “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves,” whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have the standing to sue in federal court.

Ironically, as Chief Justice, Taney was forced to issue the presidential oath to Lincoln in March 1861, and to listen to Lincoln’s inaugural address, where he criticized Taney and the Dred Scott decision, but not directly by name.

After the Civil War, in 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision by granting citizenship to all those born in the United States, regardless of color or former enslavement.

The Supreme Court Now

From the beginning to the present, there have been 115 Supreme Court Justices—and all but seven of those have been White men.

It was of the greatest significance when Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American Justice in 1967, a full 110 years after the Dred Scott decision.

And now Ketanji Brown Jackson will likely soon be confirmed as the first Black woman to be seated on the Supreme Court.

Both Marshall and Jackson, as well as Justice Clarence Thomas, are descendants of enslaved people who were not and could not be U.S. citizens according to the Dred Scott decision of 1857.

But now the Supreme Court needs to act again to ensure that African Americans, whose full citizenship was acknowledged in the 1860s, can exercise their right to vote despite new Jim Crow laws currently encroaching on the voting rights of Black citizens.

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** Here is the link to a lengthy and informative talk about the Dred Scott case that was given by (now) retiring Justice Stephen Breyer in 2009.

Re-escalating the Abortion Wars

Today’s blog post was long planned to be an article about Junípero Serra, who was canonized five years ago on September 23. But then Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, and among other things, that has occasioned the re-escalation of the abortion wars. 

From De-escalation to Re-escalation

On September 5, I posted “De-escalating the Abortion Wars,” in which I contended that currently many Catholics and conservative evangelicals are talking about a wide range of important ethical social issues and not focusing primarily on abortion. I thought/think that was a good sign.

But then RBG died.

And DJT immediately announced plans to nominate her replacement—and in complete reversal to the stance most Republican Senators took after Justice Scalia died in February 2016, Sen. McConnell announced that the Senate would hold confirmation hearings before the November 3 election.

Consequently, there was quickly a re-escalation of the abortion wars.

Vilifying RBG’s Position on Abortion

In supporting DJT’s pledge to nominate a conservative, “pro-life” successor to Justice Ginsburg, some of his staunch supporters began attacking RBG’s position on abortion.

The most abhorrent Facebook post that I saw in that regard was on Sept. 24 by a woman who was one of my missionary colleagues in Japan—and a post that was “liked” by another colleague and longtime personal friend.

That post showed an image of Hitler, accompanied by the words, “Supported the murder of 11 million Jews.” Below that image was one of Ginsburg with the words, “Supported the murder of 60 million babies.” The woman who made that post commented with just two words: “Trump only!”

Sadly, the recently deceased Supreme Court Justice who was so highly praised by so many people across the country was vilified by conservative evangelicals, and others, in ways that were untruthful, unkind, and, yes, unchristian.

Verifying ACB’s Position on Abortion

Last Saturday (9/26), DJT publicly announced that he was nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement on the SCOTUS.

The news media and social media have had a plethora of news articles and opinion pieces about Judge Barrett (ACB), so there is no need to duplicate information about her here.

But I want to focus on ACB’s position on abortion as that is partly what has re-escalated the abortion wars this month.

Democrats and many Independents, but perhaps only a few Republicans, are fearful that ACB’s confirmation to the high court will likely help overturn the Affordable Care Act. She might also help DJT win re-election, if the outcome of the Nov. 3 election is contested, as it may well be.

Further, since ACB is known for her “radical” proclivity to overturn laws rather than honoring them as precedents, her position on the Court could also endanger the right of same-sex couples to marry and the constitutional protections against discrimination based on gender that RBG championed.

But abortion is clearly the main reason many conservative Christians favor Judge Barrett’s confirmation to the high court now—even though a 9/24 poll indicates that a majority of U.S. voters think the winner of the Nov. 3 presidential election should nominate the next Supreme Court justice.

Barrett was a top contender for the empty seat on the SCOTUS in 2018, and of all those on DJT’s list as potential nominees, Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post called ACB (in this 7/4/18 opinion piece), “The Trump Supreme Court pick who’d pose the biggest danger to abortion rights.”

I was greatly saddened by the death of Justice Ginsburg for many reasons—and one of the main reasons was because of her death triggering the re-escalation of the abortion wars. What a shame!

Nice Isn’t Enough

Brett Kavanaugh seems like a nice guy. That is the impression I got Monday evening listening to DJT’s flowery introduction of his new nominee for the Supreme Court and from Judge Kavanaugh’s own remarks.  

BK, as he is already being called, seems to be a good family man and the kind of neighbor you would like to have. A family friend wrote in the Washington Post (here) that “Kavanaugh the carpool dad is one great guy.” Probably so.

Kavanaugh is also a civic-minded citizen and active Christian. He has tutored children at a D.C. elementary school, volunteered for charity groups, and is a regular participant in services at his Catholic church in Chevy Chase, Md., where he lives.

Being a nice guy, though, is not adequate reason for supporting Senate approval for his sitting on the high court. Please consider the following matters of serious concern.

(1) BK’s Position on Presidential Power

Perhaps the biggest problem with DJT’s pick of Kavanaugh is that, as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a press conference on Tuesday, the President “chose the candidate who he thought would best protect him from the Mueller investigation.”

While there may be some exaggerated statements regarding BK’s likely protection of DJT against indictment while in office (see this Fact Checker article), there is adequate reason to think that Schumer’s statement is basically correct.

It is also questionable whether any new nomination of a Supreme Court justice should be considered by the Senate as long as the President is under investigation with aspects of that investigation possibly being brought before the high court at some point.

(2) BK’s Position on Health Care and Women’s Reproductive Rights

In a statement following Kavanaugh’s nomination, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) declared, “He's demonstrated a hostility to the Affordable Care Act that the Trump administration is continually working to undermine.” (Remember, the ACA is a law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court to this point.)

At the same press conference mentioned above, Senator Schumer also said that Kavanaugh's selection would put healthcare protections in the ACA, such as protections for people with preexisting conditions, “at grave, grave risk.”

In addition, as the official blog of the Democratic Party says, “a vote for Kavanaugh would be a vote to . . .  deny women their constitutional right to make their own health care decisions.”

(3) BK’s Position on Church and State

On July 10, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU), an organization I have supported for decades, publically declared that Kavanaugh is “the wrong choice for the Supreme Court.” That was because of their perception that BK was not committed to the concept of separation of church and state. They wrote (here),

The separation of church and state is the linchpin of religious freedom. We can’t afford to have a Supreme Court that would undermine it. By nominating Kavanaugh to the court, Trump threatens the vision of religious freedom for which Americans United has fought over the last 70 years. That’s why Americans United must oppose him.

On the same day, AU issued a five-page report (see here) on BK’s record and stated that he is a “threat to church-state separation and religious freedom.” 

For these, and other, reasons I insist that Brett Kavanaugh being a nice guy is by no means reason enough to support his appointment to the Supreme Court.

Many of you who live in States with one or both Senators possibly inclined to vote to approve Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court may likely want to contact those Senators and express your reservations about his suitability.

His being nice isn’t enough reason for approving him for the SCOTUS!

Is Legalized Polygamy Next?

The Bible reading at the first church service June and I attended in Tucson last month (at Shalom Mennonite Fellowship) was Genesis 32:22-32. That passage begins, “Jacob got up during the night, took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Jabbok River’s shallow water.”

Those verses go on to tell how Jacob had his name changed to Israel. Thus, he became the patriarch of “the children of Israel” in the Old Testament—and the progenitor of the modern nation of Israel.

Conservative Christians, among others, are strong supporters and defenders of modern Israel, for they are considered the people uniquely chosen by God.

But what about Jacob’s (Israel’s) two wives and two “women servants” who also bore him children?

Since, as is claimed, Jacob/Israel was especially chosen by God, along with the twelve tribes of Israel (descendants of Jacob’s/Israel’s sons born by his four wives/servants), is this not ample biblical justification for polygamy?

So, can’t the Old Testament be legitimately used to support legalization of polygamy?

Moreover, doesn’t the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage suggest that the legalization of polygamy may be coming down the pike?

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler has just authored a new book, published late last month. Under the title “We Cannot Be Silent,” Mohler writes how it is imperative for Christians to speak out against same-sex marriage and other related LBGT issues.

In the second chapter of his book Mohler writes:

Once marriage can mean anything other than a heterosexual union, it can and must eventually mean everything—from polygamy to any number of other deviations from traditional marriage (p. 31).

In commenting on observations made by Chief Justice Roberts concerning the recent legalizing of same-sex marriage by the SCOTUS, Mohler contends that that decision “opens wide a door that basically invites looming demands for the legalization of polygamy and polyamory” (p. 181).

He also avers, “You can count on the fact that advocates for legalized polygamy found great encouragement in this decision” (ibid.).

It seems a bit odd, however, for someone who because of his literal interpretation of the Bible takes such a strong stance against same-sex marriage and full acceptance of LGBT to be so strongly opposed to polygamy.

At the top of the home page of their website, BiblicalPolygamy.com says that they are, “A resource for proving that Polygamy really IS Biblical.” And Jacob, “father of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel,” is given as one of the prime examples of “polygamists in the Bible.”

The Old Testament argument for polygamy is far stronger than the argument of Mohler and others against same-sex marriage. Other than being related to sex, there is little similarity between being a gay/lesbian and choosing to be in a polygamist relationship.

Homosexuality (in distinction from some homosexual activity) seems clearly to be an innate orientation, a way some people are “hardwired.”

But while there may be strong sexual drives toward having multiple wives (or husbands, in some cases)—just as there are such drives for some, evidently, toward engaging in adultery or pedophilia—there is no way polygamy can be considered an innate orientation.

As I wrote a year and a half ago in a prior article about this subject (here), I am not in the least advocating polygamy. But I do think there is far more biblical support for polygamy than there is for opposition to sexual relations between same-sex adults.

And the legalization of the latter in no way leads logically to the legalization of polygamy.

Proud/Ashamed of the Southern Baptist Convention

The 2015 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is scheduled for June 16-17 in Columbus, Ohio. The business will be conducted by Ronnie Floyd, the SBC president whom I recently mentioned.

For many years it was a thrill to attend the SBC annual meetings—and can you believe that June and I even attended the 1957 annual meeting in Chicago on our honeymoon! And we were even called on stage to stand before everyone present as, not surprisingly, the most recently married couple there.

In 1963, I again attended the annual meeting. That year the convention met in Kansas City, and it was a significant one: the Baptist Faith and Message was revised for the first time since its original adoption in 1925. 

The BF&M was again changed slightly in 1998 and more at the 2000 annual meeting. The latter revision was the one that all SBC “employees” were required to sign, pledging “to work in agreement with and not contrary to” it. June and I were forced to retire as Southern Baptist missionaries because we could not in good conscience do that.

As a SB missionary on furlough (Stateside assignment), I attended four annual meetings, the last in 1992. I grew increasingly dissatisfied with them—not so much because I had changed, although I had to a certain degree (for the best, of course!), but mainly because the SBC was moving farther and farther to the religious and political right.

I gradually became ashamed of what I had previously been so proud of.

That right-wing movement and stance in the SBC has continued unabated in the last twenty years and will be clearly seen again at this week’s annual meeting in Columbus.

The “Convention sermon” this year will be given by Rev. Eddie Bumpers, pastor of Crossway Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo. Over the years that church has experienced considerable growth, but it is, apparently (and not surprisingly), a very conservative church.

In addition to summer camps and Vacation Bible School, the only event Crossway BC has listed for this summer is a two-day Answers in Genesis conference in August. As some of you know, AiG interprets Genesis literally and, consequently, affirms “young earth” creationism: on their website they clearly state that the earth is “only a few thousand years old.”

Prior to the Convention sermon on that June 17 afternoon, which is scheduled in the closing hour of the annual meeting, there will be a 25-minute report and presentation by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, given by its president, Russell D. Moore.

Immediately following, there will be a special “SBC Presidential Panel” with president Floyd interviewing Moore, Southern Seminary president Al Mohler and others. The topic: “The Supreme Court and Same-Sex Marriage: Preparing our Churches.”

This discussion will take place as the Supreme Court is deciding this month whether to strike down same-sex marriage bans in 14 states, including the SBC meeting’s host state of Ohio. It seems as if those who planned this special panel discussion assume that those bans will be struck down.

The position of Moore and Mohler (as well as many other SBC leaders) on the same-sex marriage issue is quite clear: complete opposition. And presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who is an ordained SB minister and was for six years president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, has recently joined many other conservative Christians threatening civil disobedience if the SCOTUS approves same-sex marriage.

Yes, I was once a proud member of the SBC and annual meeting attender. But, sadly, no more.

Happy 95th Birthday, Justice Stevens!

Today is the 95^th birthday of retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and I am writing in honor and appreciation of his long, fruitful life.

Stevens, who was born in Chicago in 1920, was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ford in 1975. He served in that position for 35 years, retiring in 2010.

(It is interesting to note that when he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he was one of eight Protestants among the nine Justices. When he retired and was replaced by Elena Kagan, a Jew, there were no longer any Protestants on the Court.)

In spite of retiring at the age of 90, Justice Stevens has continued to be active. The picture on the left was taken last April 30 as he was testifying before the Senate Rules Committee on Capitol Hill.

It was also just last year that his new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” was published. While all six of Justice Stevens’s proposed amendments are significant, I am most interested in four of them.

Those four would do away with political gerrymandering, would make it possible for the U.S. Congress or states to limit the amount of money that could be spent in election campaigns, would do away with the death penalty, and would change the Second Amendment to read, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.

Since I wrote about the latter issue previously (here), I will not say more about that at this time.

With regard to the first issue mentioned above, gerrymandering, as you know, means manipulating boundaries of electoral districts so as to favor one party or group. Justice Stevens’s proposed amendment would address the seriously flawed boundary lines for U.S. representatives which have been drawn in many states across the nation.

The highly controversial 5-4 “Citizens United” decision of the Supreme Court in January 2010 was strongly criticized by Justice Stevens. He wrote a 90-page dissenting opinion, setting forth his unhappiness with the majority position.

It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the six amendments to the Constitution that he proposed in his 2014 book is about that decision.

In his talk to the Senate Committee last year Justice Stevens said, “While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.” So Stevens’s proposed campaign finance amendment would essentially overturn Citizens United, allowing Congress to set “reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in elections.”

In 1976, the year following his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens voted to uphold the death penalty. When he retired 34 years later, he said that decision was the main one he regretted.

In his 2014 book, he says that retribution is the only legitimate justification for preserving capital punishment—and he doesn’t think that is a good or sufficient reason.

So Justice Stevens now advocates amending the Eighth Amendment to include the words “such as the death penalty” as an example of “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is currently prohibited.

At the time of his retirement in 2010, J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and a member of the Supreme Court Bar, wrote, “Justice Stevens has been a thoughtful, diligent jurist who has served the Court and this country admirably.”

The retired Justice has continued his meritorious public service by his book advocating significant Constitutional amendments.

Happy birthday, Justice Stevens—and thanks for all you have done!