There are lots of comments at various places on today's Supreme Court decisions, including SCOTUSblog and Volokh Conspiracy. One of the best posts that I've seen so far is at Balkanization.
A couple of my own comments (from a decidedly non-lawyer):
The dissent by Scalia (analyzed by Balkan) bothers me very much. At the start, Scalia lists many instances of either Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court invoking, acknowledging or otherwise incorporating references to God or a Supreme Being. In doing so, Scalia is furthering a fundamental confusion that many Ten Commandment supporters seem to have: acts committed in public are being confused with acts committed on behalf of the public. Scalia later writes:
If religion in the public forum had to be entirely nondenominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all. One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.
Here Scalia is saying directly that the Establishment Clause "permits the disregard" of (essentially) non-Christian, non-Jewish, non-Muslim believers or atheists. He makes this even more blatant later:
Finally, I must respond to Justice Stevens' assertion that I would "marginaliz[e] the belief systems of more than 7 million Americans" who adhere to religions that are not monotheistic. Van Orden, ante, at 13-14, n. 18 (dissenting opinion). Surely that is a gross exaggeration. The beliefs of those citizens are entirely protected by the Free Exercise Clause, and by those aspects of the Establishment Clause that do not relate to government acknowledgment of the Creator. Invocation of God despite their beliefs is permitted not because nonmonotheistic religions cease to be religions recognized by the religion clauses of the First Amendment, but because governmental invocation of God is not an establishment. Justice Stevens fails to recognize that in the context of public acknowledgments of God there are legitimate competing interests: On the one hand, the interest of that minority in not feeling "excluded"; but on the other, the interest of the overwhelming majority of religious believers in being able to give God thanks and supplication as a people, and with respect to our national endeavors. Our national tradition has resolved that conflict in favor of the majority.
But the Establishment Clause does not demand that anything said or done in the public forum be nondenominational. Scalia does not distinguish between acts committed in public or by public officials (qua private citizens) with acts committed in the name of the public and with the full force of an official's office behind it.
If I stand on a street corner and proclaim my belief in God or rent airtime on the local television station to encourage people to accept Jesus Christ, I am speaking in the public forum. It would be ludicrous to think that somehow I, as a private individual, am violating the Establishment Clause. Yet that is the implication that Scalia wants us to draw: any discussion of religion or religious act carried out in public would be banned.
And when the President ends a speech with "God bless America" or ends his oath of office with "so help me God", I can allow that those words are said by an individual and do not carry with it the force of his office. And obviously if a senator were to speak at a religious meeting, I can see it as something that he does as an individual. Those acts, public though they may be, are not violations of the Establishment Clause. These are not "governmental invocations of God."
But why should the majority (or any group) have the right to give God thanks "as a people", meaning with the aid of government? Isn't that what churches are for, to gather with others of similar religious beliefs to give thanks to God or ask for his beneficence? And can't churches get together with other churches to offer their collective prayers? Why is it that believers feel the need to get government to do their worshipping for them?
The early Baptists understood the problem well: when you allow religion to bend government to its will, even with the noble intention of offering thanks to God, you run the risk of government bending religion. Perhaps Scalia believes that "our national tradition" has said that the majority may employ government to its own religious ends, but I am not convinced, neither that it does nor that it should.