It’s an extraordinary responsibility to be a U.S. Supreme Court judge.
Think of it. You are the last appeal. The very last.
A tiny handful of souls, facing deep frustration, profound trouble, grave injustice – probably all of the above – have made their winding legal way to you. They have beaten the long, long odds. They have gained your brief attention.
And now … you are their Hail Mary. You are the end of their rope.
At least, until you say, “no.”
You can walk away, then, and never look back. No explanations, no elaborations, no justifications.
Just … no. “I don’t choose to give you justice today. I leave you to your fate.”
That happened last week to a friend of mine. For the second time. Once, a couple of years ago, the high court opted not to hear her case – they just sent it back to her home state, suggesting that the judges there give it more considered attention. The judges there did nothing of the kind.
Seeing the hopelessness of that, my friend cast her bread upon the water once again … and once again her bread washed up on the shores of the highest court in the land. This time, they didn’t even offer her the consolation prize. They just said, “no.”
Of course, they can’t say “yes” to everybody. This time, they said “no” to a woman who asked not be forced to use her God-given creativity in a way that dishonored her God.
The man to whom she first explained that said he was her friend, said he understood. But he agreed to sue her, anyway. She did nothing more than disappoint him a little. But for that, he needed to punish her. To please other people, he needed to punish her.
The attorney general who learned of her case decided to build his career on making an example of her. Though it’s been clear to anyone who’s actually met her that she’s a loving Christian to the depths of her soul, his success depends on her being seen as an ugly bigot. So he’s called her a liar – again and again and again.
The judges she’s stood before have their own political agendas. It’s hard to understand how one elderly woman, quietly practicing her gentle art in a small, out-of-the-way town, can pose such an extraordinary threat to her fellow citizens, much less the state … much, much less the nation.
But she’s terrifying someone. For to punish this one artist for declining to create floral arrangements for one wedding, the friend and the a.g. and the judges want her business closed, her home repossessed, and her life savings drained.
They want every part of her life they can reach destroyed … in the name of tolerance. As a plea for greater understanding. As a defense for a different kind of love.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court had a chance to save her from that madness. To throw cold water on a burning hate that is spreading fast through a culture tender-dry for grace and bone-parched for mercy.
Three of the justices were willing. Six were not. Six, seeing her plight – and more than that, the plight of a nation where such unjust, unreasoning things are happening now, are allowed to happen now, every day, in any state, in any city – turned their backs. Could not be bothered. Left her and the rest of us to the frenzied wolves.
The wolves are howling tonight, because they know.
Know they can cut down the people who think for themselves. The people who take their God and their faith and their souls – and the souls of others – seriously. That people can be cruelly compelled to use their God-given creativity in ways that betray their God … or else.
The emboldened wolves, mad with hunger, know now that the people who believe can be eaten alive for their belief … for a thought … for a kindness deliberately misconstrued.
While the justices retire to the beds they’ve so carefully made. And blow out the candle, and call it a night.
* * * * *
Standing in church Sunday morning, watching the words of our national anthem on the screen, I realized something I’d never really thought about before.
The last line of that song is a question.
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