Randi Kreiss

Finding the best of America on the Fourth

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Even though Justice Antonin Scalia got all “jiggery pokery” on us and referred to the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act as “apple sauce,” sanity prevailed in the nation’s highest court last week.

Chief Justice John Roberts, along with the four liberal justices and swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy, ruled definitively that Obamacare would remain the law of the land. This guarantees President Obama’s place in history as the first American president to successfully pass a broad health care plan that embraces millions of formerly uninsured citizens. The historical footnote is that he did so against the fiercest, nastiest and most partisan resistance this country has ever witnessed.

Then, a day later, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees same-sex partners the right to marry.

The rulings comprise a Fourth of July bounty of open-minded jurisprudence.

Humming in the background last week was the reaction of the citizens of Charleston, S.C., to the shooting of nine African-American worshippers as they sat in Bible class in one of the oldest black churches in the nation. The shooter was a young white man, a self-proclaimed racist who had posed with the Confederate flag.

The ghastly attack was reminiscent of other violence against other black churches throughout the South, a kind of tragic litany, a terribly perverse American tradition.

This time, though, the miracle that emerged from the horror was a stunning unity of spirit and action by Charleston’s citizens, black and white. People came together and refused to answer violence with violence. The victims’ loved ones spoke of healing and faith in human goodness. How did they summon such reserves? How could they set aside vengeance in the aftermath of such slaughter?

Somehow, they did. The worst example of America — a crazed, violent, angry killer — was somehow countered by the best examples of America — decent people of faith raising their voices in prayer rather than anger.

The hate crime drew attention to the symbol the killer held dear: the Confederate flag, the flag that flew over the South Carolina State House and other government buildings.

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