The Protestant seat on the Supreme Court

Much is being made of the fact that when Justice Stevens retires, it is possible that there will be no Protestant justices on the court for the first time ever. Apparently this is a matter of great import, if the number of column inches being written on the subject is anything to go by.

However, what I find interesting is that in the dozen or so articles that I've read telling me how significant this is, most are saying that it is significant because it doesn't matter. The following is a quick summary of some of the more interesting articles I came across:

From the New York Times article Stevens, the Only Protestant on the Supreme Court:

“The practical reality of life in America is that religion plays much less of a role in everyday life than it did 50 or 100 years ago,” said Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Adding a Protestant to the court, he said, would not bring an important element to its discussions.

“These days,” said Lee Epstein, a law professor at Northwestern and an authority on the court, “we’ve moved to other sources of diversity,” including race, gender and ethnicity.

That move reflects a profound shift in the way we think about law, and in the very meaning of identity politics.

From the NPR article Supreme Court May Soon Lack Protestant Justices:

Does it matter? Should it matter? Should it be discussed in polite society?

"It would certainly raise a lot of eyebrows," says University of Virginia professor Henry Abraham. "I don't know whether it matters. Speaking idealistically, to me the only thing that matters is competence, quality, education, ability, morals and so forth."

Ave Maria law school Dean Emeritus Bernard Dobranski agrees — but adds, "I think it would certainly raise questions with some people, and some people would be suspicious."

Princeton Provost Christopher Eisgruber, another court scholar, makes a slightly different point.

"All of the justices who are on the bench now were appointed because of their constitutional views, and I don't think any of them are allowing their religious views to trump honest, sincere judgments about the Constitution," Eisgruber says. "And I think it's also worth noting that we've had Catholics on the court on both sides of the abortion question."

From the Huffington Post article The Protestant Seat on the Supreme Court:

To bring total Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and non-religion representation on the Supreme Court up to the percentage of those groups in the current population, the next 69 justices should consist of 32 Catholics, 29 non-religious individuals, four Mormons, a total of four Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, and no Protestants or Jews.

And what about blacks, Hispanics and Asians? Blacks are 12% of the current population, but they have historically been less than 2% of the justices; Hispanics are 12% of the population but have been only 1% of the justices, and Asians are 4% of the population, but have never been represented on the Supreme Court. And what about women, who are 51% of the population, but have been less than 3% of the justices? To give women appropriate representation, the next 112 justices will have to be women.

In such circumstances, do we really need to fret over whether the next justice is a Protestant?