K_Line Christian Online

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2010

It was the last symbol of a free society. Now it is the latest victim of terrorist threats.

For generations, Americans looking to the U.S. Supreme Court as their last judicial appeal could climb the 44 marble steps leading to its front door and pass through the giant bronze doors, crossing under the words engraved above the stately columns, “Equal Justice Under Law.”

Those majestic steps have served as a magnet, a natural draw for protests of everything from capital punishment and abortion to affirmative action and the imprisonment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Those steps bore the caskets of justices who lay in repose as thousands of mourners paid their respects. The scene was so iconic, so evocative, that it became a template for depiction of a democracy at its finest, a staple of movies from the film classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” to the made-for-TV movie about the contested Bush v. Gore 2000 election called “Recount.”

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court did something that no other high court in a democratic country has ever done — not even Israel. It closed the front door to its building for security reasons, forcing those seeking justice to go through ground-level side entrances to a “secure reinforced area” where they can be screened “for weapons, explosives and chemical and biological hazards,” the court announced.

Note: The side doors–now the only access for the public–were traditionally used for prisoners.