Fussing over symbols.

Here's the SCOTUSblog discussion group dedicated to McCreary, the Ten Commandments case that will be announced very soon. I'll be participating in the discussion over there, along with a bunch of other lawprofs. Amusingly, Marty Lederman, a SCOTUSblog regular, has gotten the discussion going with a quote from me -- the one that says I don't care which side wins. No one else has posted yet, but they've all been invited to react to my "provocative take."

He also asks:

Have liberals and progressives made a significant error -- in terms of their long-term interests -- in expending energy on such "government religious symbolism" cases over the past generation or two, even if such cases have (from their perspective) resulted in improved Establishment Clause doctrine?

Here he quotes Burt Neuborne (a lawprof who'll be participating in the discussion):

"[O]ne final staple of the progressive judicial agenda may not be worth defending at all -- the religious symbolism cases may do nothing but enrage voters who might be [our] natural economic allies."

That's certainly true. There's a corresponding mistake conservatives make, pushing for symbolic things that some of them care about (like the anti-flag-burning amendment), that are off-putting to people who'd otherwise be attracted to the conservative side. Politics would make more sense if both parties stuck to the economics and security issues that actually matter. But ordinary people might tune politics out, so they just can't resist prodding and stimulating us with those symbolic things. Somehow people get so fired up about symbols.