I adore Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com’s Supreme Court writer, and therefore, I’m enjoying her annual back-and-forth with Walter Dellinger over the Supreme Court’s big end-of-term decisions this week.
Roberts goes to great lengths to insert meaning into the silliness of the words on the student banner. He insists the phrase “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” can be read as “celebrating drug use”; indeed to get there he needed only insert the imaginary words, “bong hits [are a good thing].” When did we enter into the era of constitutional interpretation through inserting pretend words? The sign could have as easily been read to say “bong hits [will kill you].”
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[A]fter today, a majority of the court believes students can hold up banners that say “legalize drugs,” but not banners with strings of random drug words unconnected by a verb. Attention students: You can still be political at school. But the Constitution stops protecting you the moment you cross the line into merely weird.
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Bong hits 4 Jesus? Bong hits for me!!