On August 14, outspoken fundamentalist Christian leaders and their neoconservative wingnut political cohorts will be hosting yet another Justice Sunday–this time, Justice Sunday II. All in support of, you guessed it, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, and other judges and politicians of faith who are supposedly “under attack” because of their faith. What_a_joke. We can expect more of the “oh, they’re picking on him because he’s a man of faith! Blessed are the persecuted Christians…,” nonsense. It’s the man’s record that worries some of us, and I could care less about his faith or lack thereof. He could worship toasters for all I care, so long as he didn’t impose that on the rest of us by using the Law and politics in order to do so. (via N.O.W.)
The Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., will host the Family Research Council’s “Justice Sunday II – God Save the United States and this Honorable Court” on Sunday, August 14. This follow-up to “Justice Sunday – Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith” will be broadcast live in churches across the country, and carried on hundreds of radio and “Christian TV” stations, and via a live webcast.
The theme is “How activist judges subvert the family, undermine religious freedom and threaten our nation’s future.”
NOW objects to this cynical use of churches to promote a highly partisan message. The right wing is trying to claim that feminist and progressive groups are opposed to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts because he is a man of faith. These cronies of George W. Bush are implying, as they often do, that liberals cannot also be people of faith. Their “one faith fits all” dogma is insulting.
By holding this event in a church and broadcasting it to churches across the country, political extremists are also making clear that they will use evangelical religion to promote ultra-conservative Supreme Court nominees and trample on women’s rights. The separation of church and state will also become history if their agenda succeeds.
Speakers at the event will include Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), Dr. James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum), Bill Donohue (Catholic League), Bishop Harry Jackson (Hope Christian Church) and former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), among others, and are featured on their web site.[…]
Background Information on Select Speakers:
Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins is President of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council. Perkins is a former member of the Louisiana legislature, where he was author of the nation’s first “Covenant Marriage Law.” He hosts a weekly national radio program, “Washington Watch Weekly,” and sends daily updates to tens of thousands of grassroots activists. In 1996, Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 (allegedly for his small mailing list), as campaign manager for a right wing candidate – who was later fined for trying to hide the payment to Duke. In 2001, Perkins addressed one of America’s leading white supremacist organizations, the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), successor to the White Citizens’ Councils which battled integration in the South.Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX)
Tom DeLay is the Majority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has a pattern of repeated legal and ethical scandals. As The New York Times reported, “Almost every Republican in the House owes Mr. DeLay for something – a job, a piece of legislation or a large campaign contribution.” He is being investigated for campaign finance violations associated with his TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) and international trips with lobbyists. He has said, “A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure, to provide stability.”Dr. James Dobson
Dr. James Dobson is a conservative psychologist who hosts a daily radio show called Focus on the Family on over 6,000 radio stations. In 1977, he founded a non-profit organization of the same name of which he is currently chair of the board. His programs are estimated to be heard by more than 200 million people every day. The Family Research Council is the political arm of Focus on the Family. Dobson is one of the most influential evangelical leaders in America today.Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, has been a national leader of the conservative movement since 1964. She rose to prominence while opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during the 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, she has been a regular spokesperson against progressive causes, particularly women’s rights and LGBT rights.Sen. Zell Miller
Zell Miller is the former Democratic senator and former governor of Georgia. Miller was appointed to Georgia’s open Senate seat in 2000 and his conservative conversion gained strength. In 2004, he published A National Party No More, a tirade against the Democratic Party. He endorsed Bush for the presidency in 2004 and gave a keynote address at the Republican National Convention in New York last summer. He has become the Republican’s symbol of what they call the “out-of-touch Democratic Party.”
Hilarious. In a nutshell, wingnut politicians and judges of faith are “under attack” because they can’t impose their religious views on the rest of us via the Law and politics. The poor things.
Go to ACLU.org or AU.org and ask them to petition for the church hosting the event to lose its tax exempt status.
The only way to counter these fanatics is to hit them where they live. With churches its tax-exemption, with schools its accreditation. We have to demand that the agencies over them do their jobs.
Yes, by all means ask your interest groups to pressure the government to shut down the speech you dislike.
THAT will bring Middle America around!
Why should political rallying be protected as if it were religious in the same way that, say, running a soup kitchen would be ? Demanding that politicking groups pay taxes is not “shutting them down,” Robert.
But you know that.
“Justice Sunday”? Sounds more like Extremist Sunday to me.
The lineup looks like a who’s who of Christian Extremists and Christofascists.
And the “judicial activism” that these Christian Extremists decry is nothing more than judicial review – the power Federal judges have to interpret the law and strike down unconstitutional laws passed by Christian Extremists in state legislatures and Congress. This has been the case since Marbury v. Madison, over 200 years ago.
Tom DeLay will provide lots of stability for his family when he’s in jail for accepting bribes and obstructing justice.
Oh, and alsis….it’s perfectly acceptable for tax-exempt organizations (501(c)4 organizations) to politic – it’s just that the contributions aren’t tax-deductible.
The Christian Extremists want to be 501(c)(3)s – they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Why should political rallying be protected as if it were religious in the same way that, say, running a soup kitchen would be ?
Because the rallying is in support of values that the religion endorses.
They aren’t campaigning for any specific candidate; that’s all that the law demands.
I think they are absolutely right to be concerned about the attack of those of us who think we have a constitutional right not to be dictated to by them. History echos the constant struggle between those who wish to dominate and those who do not wish to be dominated. This is just another permutation of the same echo.
No, they’re just campaigning for any Supreme Court candidate Bush serves up– and there just happens to be one in particular at the moment whom they presumably don’t mention by hame, or mention only in passing. Talk about hair-splitting, Robert.
I wonder where all the cries for sensitivity to people of faith would go if, say, a candidate had a history of left-leaning rulings that he/she said were borne of his/her love of Liberation Theology ? Well, I can actually picture perfectly where they’d go, but no one, Democrat or Republican, would ever have the stones to nominate such a candidate. So I don’t suppose that it really matters.
alsis, I agree with your basic statements, but I would point out the Democrats have been campaigning in Black Churches for 30 years. No one tells them how to vote, but there is a clear partisan message when Bill Clinton, John Kerry, or some other Democrat shows up at the local Black church during campaign season.
Yeah, res. Again, I suppose it’s splitting hairs to wonder this aloud Yet, isn’t there a difference in a candidate –a specific candidate– treating a house of worship as one more whistle-stop and the house of worship turning that on its head ? That is, the churches aren’t hosting Roberts, whose not supposed to be running in the same sense that a Presidential candidate would be. They’re casting a wider net– just wide enough to avoid the acusation that they’re essentially campaigning or lobbying for one specific person.