Publish justices’ votes, nominating president

The Gazette carried an April 29 AP story (“Top court supports Mojave cross”) about the Supreme Court's recent ruling regarding the display of a Christian cross in the Mojave Desert. Ultimately, the court correctly ruled that an order by a lower court ordering removal of the cross was inappropriate.

I note that neither the AP nor The Gazette informed readers how each justice ruled. I suggest that The Gazette make it policy to publish the roll call of how each justice votes on rulings and the president who nominated each justice. Let me point out that information.

Those who ruled the cross could remain were Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia (President Ronald Regan), Clarence Thomas (President George H.W. Bush), John Roberts and Samuel Alito (President George W. Bush).

Those voting that the cross should be removed were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer (President Bill Clinton), John Paul Stevens (President George Ford), and Sonia Sotomayor (President Barack Obama. Sotomayor's vote in particular should surprise no one. After all, she was nominated by Obama, who has declared that the United States is not a Christian country.

That the final vote was 5-4 is disquieting. You see, the cross was on private property. It looks to me that we have four justices who are hostile to the Christian religion. Although presidents leave office after not more than eight years, their judicial picks can have lasting consequences. We need to be particularly circumspect of nominees to the federal courts.

Rich Zeis

Walker