Cotton Mather and Protestantism in general is pretty chill. As a result, the United States is finally a post-religious, post-racial, post-feminist meritocracy, as evidenced by Elena Kagan and the Ivy League. It's like how Branch Rickey signaled the end of racism by signing Jackie Robinson, only even more magical. So the next time you're not being discriminated against, thank Pat Robertson. So insinuates some white Harvard law professor who went to Oxford, Cambridge and Yale, and presumably got a gig writing occasional op-ed pieces for the Times on account of merit.
Okay, I'm being sarcastic. To tone it down just a bit, as far as I can tell, Noah Feldman is saying that things these days are better for (certain) Jews and Catholics (which is an oddly Blues Brothers-ish approach to religious diversity in the US, if you ask me), as evidenced by the composition of the Supreme Court. He then goes on to argue that this is a BFD (I'm happy for them? And for the nation?).
Feldman then goes on to give Protestantism the credit for select good things about colonial America, which aside from being the rhetorical equivalent of giving Catholicism the credit for select good things about the Vatican, and water the credit for select good things about the ocean, tends to erase Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other constitutionally crafty types.
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