Religion
When the Supreme Court was established in 1789, the first members came from among the ranks of the Founding Fathers and were almost uniformly Protestant. Of the 112 justices who have been appointed to the court, 91 have been from various Protestant denominations, 12 have been Catholics (one other Justice, Sherman Minton, converted to Catholicism after leaving the Court), eight have been Jewish and one, David Davis, had no known religious affiliation. Three of the 17 chief justices have been Catholics, and one Jewish Justice, Abe Fortas, was unsuccessfully nominated to be Chief Justice.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“... the average Catholic perceives no connection between religion and morality, unless it is a question of someone else’s morality.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words of the Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint’s picture.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“If ... we admit a divinity, why not divine worship? and if worship, why not religion to teach this worship? and if a religion, why not the Christian, if a better cannot be assigned, and it be already established by the laws of our country, and handed down to us from our forefathers?”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)