Still More on Justice Thomas and the "Lunatic Fringe"

From the LA Times (registration required), still more on Justice Thomas's opinion in the Pledge case:

"The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called Thomas' view 'breathtakingly radical.'

'Mississippi could be officially Baptist, and Utah could be officially Mormon. If his viewpoint ever became the majority on the high court, it would tear our country apart along religious lines,' he said.

"Constitutional scholars in the area of religion credit Thomas with reviving a historical, if now outdated, view of the 1st Amendment.

"'I thought his was the most interesting opinion in the pledge case. Thomas is right as a matter of history,' says Richard W. Garnett, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School. 'But I think most people would see it as water under the bridge.'

"Others were less charitable. 'This is a pretty astonishing view. No one [among past justices] has gone remotely this far, and I don't think he'll get a second vote for it,' said University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock.

"'He is a hard-nosed originalist who looks back to 1791,' when the Bill of Rights was ratified, Laycock said. 'He acts as though the Civil War didn't happen, or it didn't matter.'"

For more on the views of Professors Garnett and Laycock, see here.