For most of the 19th Century and early 20th the power elite in the US were WASPS. These were people who belonged to one of the main-line protestant churches and followed all the conventional pieties of the day.

People went to church on Sunday, said the right things in public and then did pretty much whatever they wanted.

What has happened over the past 30 years to the Supreme Court is the change from moderate protestants to the seriously religious.

People in this category: Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas and Roberts. They are all Catholics and have shown a strong commitment to their religion.

We now have to the possibility of an evangelical protestant:  Miers.

With this new line up the court will shift from a secular to a religious majority. This will have long-lasting effects on the issues of separation of church and state. The seriously religious view the increased role of religion in public life as a desirable goal and are willing to make alliances with other denominations in pursuit of this goal.

They believe it is better to have people following some flavor of Christianity than none. The strong Christian trend being pursued by these people is also seen in their intolerance of Islam. We have already seen the first results of this philosophy:
war and terrorist response.

As the US trends towards theocracy we can expect the standard of living to decline and economic prospects to continue to worsen. With the possible exception of Israel there are no economically successful religiously controlled nations.

People who are concerned about the Supreme Court nominee had better concentrate on the religous aspect and not try to determine Mier's degree of conservativism. Why else did Dobson get on board so quickly?

(crossposted at dKos)