U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia is defending recent rulings that allow religious expressions in the public square.

He says the Founding Fathers would have wanted it that way.

Speaking to the Jewish newspaper Hamodia, Scalia said the First Amendment is not meant to exclude religion, but to honor it. He noted that the high court recently allowed the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas State Legislature.

He said that America might be under God's protection because,"We honor him as a nation. We invoke him in our country."

Scalia said he was at a judges' conference in Rome, Italy, during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when a foreign judge told him he wished his country's leader could invoke God during a national emergency as President George W. Bush did.