To CIA Danette Ginny Isaacson: The Shift

To CIA Mormon Danette Ginny Isaacson, Chairwoman, J Reuben Clark Law Society: The Shift

Genghis Khan, by birth the leader of a noble clan, who in 1206—only thirty years before—had united all the Mongol clans under him and taken, from the ancient Turkish empires of the Asian plain, the title of kagan, or khan.
(Russka, Edward Rutherfurd, pages 141)

Carolyn Allen said she hoped non-Mormons would perceive Nephi’s “noble characteristics.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/13/local/me-beliefs13

1 I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.
(Mormon Church of Satan Book of Mormon, book 1 chapter 1, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1?lang=eng )

Justice Thomas Lee Being Considered as US Supreme Court Nominee
An article in National Review analyzes why UT Supreme Court Justice Thomas R. Lee is a likely successor to Justice Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Lee was a professor at BYU Law prior to 2010 and continues to teach part-time.
(Mormon Church of Satan J Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, http://www.law2.byu.edu/site/home )

The shift to a Catholic majority, and non-Protestant Court

At the time of Breyer’s appointment in 1994, there were two Roman Catholic justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, and two Jewish justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Clarence Thomas, who had been raised as a Roman Catholic but had attended an Episcopal church after his marriage, returned to Catholicism later in the 1990s. At this point, the four remaining Protestant justices—Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, and Souter—remained a plurality on the Court, but for the first time in the history of the Court, Protestants were no longer an absolute majority.

The first Catholic plurality on the Court occurred in 2005, when Chief Justice Rehnquist was succeeded in office by Chief Justice John Roberts, who became the fourth sitting Catholic justice. On January 31, 2006, Samuel Alito became the fifth sitting Catholic justice, and on August 6, 2009, Sonia Sotomayor became the sixth. By contrast, there has been only one Catholic U.S. President, John F. Kennedy (unrelated to Justice Kennedy), and one Catholic U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, and there has never been a Jewish U.S. President or Vice President.

At the beginning of 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens was the sole remaining Protestant on the Court.[78][86] In April 2010, Justice Stevens announced his retirement, effective as of the Court’s 2010 summer recess. Upon Justice Stevens’ retirement, which formally began on June 28, 2010, the Court lacked a Protestant member, marking the first time in its history that it was exclusively composed of Jewish and Catholic justices.[69]

This development has led to some comment. Law school professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote that “it’s a fascinating truth that we’ve allowed religion to drop out of consideration on the Supreme Court, and right now, we have a Supreme Court that religiously at least, by no means looks like America”.[87]

Religions that have never been represented

A number of sizable religious groups, each less than 2% of the U.S. population,[88] have had no members appointed as justices. These include Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Pentecostals, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. George Sutherland has been described as a “lapsed Mormon”[89] because he was raised in the LDS Church, his parents having immigrated to the United States during Sutherland’s infancy to join that church.[90] Sutherland’s parents soon left the LDS Church and moved to Montana.[90] Sutherland himself also disaffiliated with the faith, but remained in Utah and graduated from Brigham Young Academy in 1881, the only non-Mormon in his class.[91] In 1975, Attorney General Edward H. Levi had listed Dallin H. Oaks, a Mormon who had clerked for Earl Warren and was then president of Brigham Young University, as a potential nominee for Gerald Ford. Ford “crossed Oaks’s name off the list early on, noting in the margin that a member of the LDS Church might bring a ‘confirmation fight'”.[92]

No professing atheist has ever been appointed to the Court, although some justices have declined to engage in religious activity, or affiliate with a denomination. As an adult, Benjamin Cardozo no longer practiced his faith and identified himself as an agnostic, though he remained proud of his Jewish heritage.[93] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#The_shift_to_a_Catholic_majority.2C_and_non-Protestant_Court

This poll used an open-ended question to gauge religious affiliation: “What if anything is your religion?” Most of the 50 affiliations cited are Christian denominations, ranging from the Assembly of God to the United Church of Christ. Added up they show that 53 percent of Americans are Protestants, 22 percent Catholics and 8 percent other Christians, such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90356&page=1

The survey also found that the United States is no longer a majority Protestant nation. In 2014, only 47 percent of Americans identified as Protestant.

…

“I think we’re going to see the fault lines shifting a little bit differently so that we have the religiously unaffiliated really weighing in,” said Jones. “This very large group of religiously unaffiliated Americans, I think, has the real potential to change the equation in terms of politics, in terms of culture, and I think we’re just beginning to see that impact.”
(White Christians Are Now a Minority in 19 US States, Voice of America, http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/03/11/white-christians-are-now-a-minority-in-19-us-states/ )