Alito must go.
It’s time to demand the resignation — or impeachment and removal — of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
The New York Times reports: “The justice’s beach house displayed an ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag, a symbol carried on Jan. 6 and associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government.”
The Times obtained photographs and reports from “a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by” showing the Appeal to Heaven flag flying at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September 2023, plus Google street view image verification.
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag and movement exist to “honor the Lord by supporting candidates for public office who are believers in Jesus Christ, who regularly attend and display a commitment to an evangelical, Gospel-centered church and who will commit to live and govern based on biblical … principles.” Its causes include protecting heteronormativity and defining life at conception, a sales tax-based system, and a rigorous view of the Tenth Amendment. The flag was widely displayed by Jan. 6 rioters.
The Times points out that a major case to do with Jan. 6 — challenging whether insurrectionists invading the Capitol could be charged with obstruction — was before the court during the period the Appeal to Heaven flag was flying in Alito’s New Jersey home.
Only last week the Times revealed that an upside-down American flag, a symbol of distress, had been displayed at his home in Virginia in 2021, almost immediately after the Jan. 6 insurrection and at a time when the high court had been considering a number of cases to do with “stolen election” claims by Donald Trump. Pro-Trump forces urged individuals to display the upside-down flag as a sign of protest against certification of Joe Biden.
The upside down flag at the Alito home was apparently up for days, even as the court weighed in on a case challenging the outcome of the election. Alito did not recuse himself, but voted to hear the case. Fortunately he was in the minority. Alito has shrugged off the ethical breach and pusillanimously blames his wife, saying he had nothing to do with her feud with an anti-Trump neighbor.
Alito is not, of course, alone as a transgressor. As already long documented, Justice Clarence Thomas is likewise compromised, failing to recuse himself from any Jan. 6 cases even though he was aware that his wife, Ginni Thomas, was actively working at the White House to subvert the election.
An upside-down flag flagrantly displayed political partisanship. That is bad enough. But the “Appeal to Heaven” flag goes beyond that by signaling Alito’s fealty to Christian nationalist principles.
Clearly, it is impossible for Americans, particularly Americans who are the target of the Christian nationalist culture war, to expect an impartial vote on the social and political issues roiling our polarized democracy.
If Alito has any respect for his office, he would resign. Assuming otherwise, the House should do its job and impeach Alito and the Senate should convict him. Now. Then it should pass legislation to finally enforce judicial ethics at the Supreme Court.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
