Jay,

For once, we may actually agree on something.

Because Kagan is not a judge, she lacks a clear record on church-state issues. That’s why Americans United is also calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to fill in the picture by asking her questions about how religion and government should interact.

What we do know of Kagan is that she argued a church-state case before the high court this term, defending a federal statute designed to preserve a cross erected on federal land in California. But, the Justice Deparatment inherited this case, Salazar v. Buono, from the previous Bush administration.

AU has also uncovered that while Kagan served as a clerk for Justice
Thurgood Marshall in 1987, she wrote a memo adopting a separationist
viewpoint and stated that religious groups should not be able to
receive public funding for certain secular activities. Unfortunately,
during confirmation hearings for solicitor general, she distanced
herself from this analysis, calling it “deeply mistaken” and “utterly
wrong.”

Because the Supreme court is split over issues such as tax funding
of religion, the role of religion in public life and the limits of
religious freedom, it’s important the U.S. Senate get to the bottom of
this and ascertain Kagan’s basic judicial philisophy on these issues.

We hope that Kagan turns out to be as strong of a supporter for
church-state separation as Justice John Paul Stevens. He understood why our nation needs
a high and firm wall of separation between church and state and it
would be beyond disappointing if Kagan did not embrace that philosophy as
well.

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