Okay, even I can get behind this particular meme.
As ganked from mizkit
As evidenced by Katie Couric, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court Case other than Roe v. Wade.
The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historical your lj. (Any decision, as long as it’s not Roe v. Wade.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s talk Edwards vs Aguillard!
In a 7-2 decision written by Justice Brennan in 1987, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s "Creationism Act" because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The state tried to argue that the law was simply designed to promote academic freedom by ensuring that students would hear about more than one theory on the origins of life, but the Court correctly noted that teachers were permitted to present more than one such theory before the law had been passed. The actual purpose of the law, then, had to be to make sure that creationism was taught if anything at all was taught.
Brennan found first that the Act did not have a secular purpose, and second that it did not advance academic freedom and restricted the abilities of teachers to teach what they deemed appropriate.
(text courtesy of About.com’s section on supreme court rulings about religious liberty)
As far as Palin’s gaffe, I cannot say that I myself am a walking encyclopedia of Supreme Court cases, but even I could have come up with some of the classics–the Dred Scott case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Brown vs. Board of Education–and some of the recent rulings, if not by case name, like the Supreme Court’s upholding rights of Guantanamo detainees in the face of the Bush Administration. And I’m not a professional politician, but an easily-distracted product of sophmore American History.
ETA: It’s been pointed out that apparently Palin merely can’t name any cases she disagrees with, not necessarily that she can’t name any cases at all. Well. That’s fair. Let us be fair by all means.
After all, it’s entirely possible that she agrees with all the other Supreme Court decisions, right?
(okay, okay, I can’t do it. Even with that caveat, even*I* could have whipped out Plessy vs. Ferguson, which I damn well hope that Palin and I are in agreement about. Sheesh.)
