High court gets it wrong in church-state case

There was a time in this country when most people understood what the U.S. Constitution said, even on controversial and evolving legal situations like the separation of church and state. States and municipalities did whatever they wanted, pretty much, whether constitutional or not, like they still do sometimes, but the U.S. Supreme Court always had the last and most reasonable word. Of course it wasn't always so -- there have, as we all know, been some amazing doozies over the years. But that was then, before the likes of Byron White and William Rehnquist were on the court. Now, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in four of the panel's nine seats, the high court can no longer be relied on for sound reasoning in the face of the kind of blatant partisanship that comes from highly paid advocates. Each yearly term of the current panel reveals further examples of this, from the utterly regrettable Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 (the constitutional way to determine who won a presidential election is to stop counting the votes!) to the shockingly unrealistic Citizens United decision (Congress is constitutionally barred from placing reasonable limits on campaign contributions!) earlier this year. So, it came as little more than rueful surprise to see the court rule 5-4 Wednesday that a Christian religious cross erected on national parkland as a war memorial in California's Mojave Desert did not violate the First Amendment, as the New York Times reported. It wasn't just that the cross itself was on public land, or that the government had tried to relieve itself of responsibility by selling the tiny bit of land under the Sunrise Rock cross to a veterans' group, but that U.S. officials refused to allow representatives of other religions to place their own memorials there! The First Amendment's prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion" has come to bar the United States from favoring any religions over others. It is a tribute to the soundness of this reasoning that such disputes rarely reach the high court, even with the loud and often overbearing religious leaders that populate the country. Yet favoring is clearly what the government did at Sunrise Rock. "The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court majority. "Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten." But in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, the only war veteran on the court, said "I certainly agree that the nation should memorialize the service of those who fought and died in World War I, but it cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message." The case is entitled Salazar v. Buono, No. 08-472.

Obama avoids saying "genocide" when discussing massacre of Armenians

On the day Armenia has chosen to mark the mass killing of its people by Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," but didn't say the term "genocide." The careful choice of words was no accident -- Turkey is overly sensitive about what others think of it, and the United States is trying to keep Ankara engaged in the treacherous world of Middle East peacemaking, where it has been an asset . "On this solemn day of remembrance, we pause to recall that 95 years ago one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century began," Obama said in a statement issued Saturday by the White House, according to the Reuters international news service. "In that dark moment of history, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire." The remarks took on even more significance in light of Thursday's collapse of a deal to have Turkey and Armenia establish diplomatic relations and open their shared border for the first time. The deal, designed to ease tensions in the strategic south Caucasus region, apparently hung up over Turkey's demand that Armenia work out its differences with nearby Azerbaijan as a condition of the agreement, Reuters said. The region has taken on new strategic importance since the breakup of the Soviet Union because it is crossed by new pipelines shipping energy to Europe. Seen in this context, Obama's remarks were conciliatory towards Turkey, even if historically inaccurate. During his campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2008, Obama used the word "genocide" when describing the killings by the Ottoman Turks. Maybe diplomatic outreach really isn't as easy as he likes to describe it. Turkey, as we know, was angry and withdrew its ambassador to Washington in March after the House of Representative passed a nonbinding resolution that called the killings "genocide." The full body has not yet voted on the resolution and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration opposes it, Reuters said.

Diplomatic surprise -- Armenia and Turkey begin to mend long-festering conflict

Do miracles still happen? In a development that should give hope to societies all over the world caught up in seemingly intractable conflicts, Armenia and Turkey seem about to establish diplomatic relations for the first time since World War I. The countries have been negotiating since April with the help of mediators from Switzerland and the United States, according to the Reuters international news service. "The political consultations will be completed within six weeks, following which the two Protocols will be signed and submitted to the respective Parliaments for the ratification on each side," the foreign ministries of both countries said in a joint statement. "Both sides will make their best efforts for the timely progression of the ratification in line with their constitutional and legal procedures." Turkey and Armenia have been enemies since the mass killings and expulsions of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, and Turkey still bitterly disputes characterization of the mass killings as genocide, even though that is exactly what it was. Armenians were legally discriminated against for decades in what became modern Turkey before and after the mass killings, and what was left of Armenia's historic territory joined the Soviet Union or it would probably have been absorbed by Turkey, too. The agreement, which includes a commission to examine the countries' troubled past, was applauded by the U.S. State Department. "We urge Armenia and Turkey to proceed expeditiously," spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement, according to Reuters. "We remain ready to work closely with both governments in support of normalization, a historic process that will contribute to peace, security and stability throughout the region." The agreement was timed as a precursor to a planned visit to Turkey by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan in October, when he is scheduled to attend a World Cup soccer match between the two countries. Turkey has a considerable incentive for resolving its differences with Armenia -- Ankara wants to improve its international image to better its chances of joining the European Union. But the agreement has risks, particularly in expected outrage from nearby Azerbaijan, where an internal conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and Armenia's involvement in it, caused Turkey to close its border with Armenia in 1993. That was just two years after Armenia became an independent country with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Azerbaijan has strategic important to the West because of its natural gas reserves, yet the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains unresolved, 15 years after Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces signed a tense ceasefire, Reuters said.