Episcopal bishop defends saint and top justice Marshall

(RNS) An Episcopal bishop defended the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an Episcopal saint, on Friday (July 2), saying his reputation was “attacked” during high court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing. “Not often is a saint of the Episcopal Church attacked in the chambers of the United States Senate, but incredibly, it has happened […]

(RNS) An Episcopal bishop defended the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an Episcopal saint, on Friday (July 2), saying his reputation was “attacked” during high court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing.

“Not often is a saint of the Episcopal Church attacked in the chambers of the United States Senate, but incredibly, it has happened this week,” said Bishop John Bryson Chane in a statement.

“As we prepare to celebrate our cherished American values of equality and justice on Independence Day, we must also rise to defend Justice Thurgood Marshall, an Episcopalian who embodied those ideals.”


At the Episcopal Church’s General Convention last year, the denomination named May 17, the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, as a feast day for Marshall. He successfully argued in that case for public school desegregation.

Chane offered his sympathy to Marshall’s widow, Sissy, an active member of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Washington, for the “hurtful remarks” made about her husband during the Senate hearing.

Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions called Marshall an “activist” judge and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said his legal stance “does not comport with the proper role of a judge.” Kagan was a legal clerk for Marshall.

Thurgood Marshall Jr., the son of the famous jurist and a Washington lawyer, defended Kagan in a Washington Post commentary about the “spectacle” of her confirmation hearing.

The Kagan hearing “is not the proper forum to rehash my father’s work,” he said. “Elena Kagan is her own person.”

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