NOBODY NEEDS another opinion on whether hydration and nutrition should be restored to Terri Schiavo. Hundreds of commentators have written thousands of column inches on her parents’ drive to see that she is fairly represented before the courts.

But people do need to focus on an unintended consequence of the weekend legislation: the illumination–again–of the contempt of the federal courts for their coordinate branches, and the contempt of the left for people of faith.