What a coincidence. The same "Appeal to Heaven" flag that has flown outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's New Jersey shore home, Rolling Stone reported last week, also proudly flutters outside the Maine mansion of his close friend, Federal Society co-founder Leonard Leo. The most powerful American most Americans have never heard of, Leo is the primary architect of the court's 6-3 conservative majority. He gave Donald Trump the Federalist Society-vetted names of Neil Gor such, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, and fought to get Alito, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas confirmed. It's no exaggeration to call Leo, an ultra-conservative Catholic, a theocrat. His mission, he says, is to defeat the "unchurched" and "vile and immoral current-day barbarians, secularists, and bigots" whom "the devil" is using to move society away from its "natural order." In recent years, Leo has joined evangelical Christian Trump supporters in embracing the 18th-century "Appeal to Heaven" flag as a defiant symbol of their belief that America must be freed from the tyranny of secular progressives.
Alito is again claiming his wife is "solely responsible" for flying the flag, but its message matches his stated views and rulings. Alito has said that "religious liberty is worth special protection," and that a "new moral code" — requiring tolerance for LGBTQ rights, gay marriage, and reproductive freedom — poses a threat to the "core beliefs" of Catholics like him. It was Alito, of course, who wrote the majority decision to overturn Roe — a fulfillment of Leo's four-decades-long campaign. Two-thirds of Americans disagreed with that ruling, but Alito and Leo answer to a higher authority than mere democracy. In a second term, Trump has promised to give far-right Christian nationalists even greater power. "We have to bring back our religion," Trump recently told them. "We have to bring back Christianity." Sounds like an appeal to heaven.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Ozempic can curb alcohol cravings, study findsSpeed read Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may also be helpful in limiting alcohol consumption
-
'Eras are an imprecise tool to make sense of the messy past'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Magazine solutions - February 21, 2025Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - February 21, 2025
-
A running list of Tulsi Gabbard's controversiesIn Depth Trump's nominee for Director of National Intelligence has a history of ideological reversals
-
Trump's wildest unfulfilled White House ideasIn Depth The President of the United States is not one to let material reality stand in the way of a sound-bite ready pie-in-the-sky proposal
-
A running list of Marjorie Taylor Greene's controversiesIn Depth Exploring the Georgia Republican's long history of incendiary behavior
-
The Project 2025 presidencyOpinion Trump's blueprint for dismantling public services
-
How is Canada readying its arsenal for a trade war with the US?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The United States' northern neighbor is wasting no time when it comes to Donald Trump's tariffs and the looming threat of a North American trade war
-
Ken Martin: the Minnesota politico turned DNC chairIn the Spotlight Martin, the head of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, was elected with over half the vote
-
What is 'impoundment' and how does it work?The Explainer The Trump administration grabbed at the 'power of the purse' in Congress, using a little-known executive action that could have massive implications for the future
-
Extremists embrace Musk's salute as Tesla investors fretIN THE SPOTLIGHT The tech titan insists his Nazi-reminiscent gesture had nothing to do with fascism, even as white nationalists rally around the fascistic salute.
