Oh ye people of faith of little faith

April 24th is Justice Sunday.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council [which is organizing Justice Sunday], said the goal of the event is to get the "Christian community" to help rein in "the last bastion of liberalism, the federal courts" and put an end to filibusters of conservative judicial candidates.

The feature attraction will be a videotaped speech by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist "rallying churchgoers to protest the filibuster tactic."

As you've heard often enough, Frist thinks that the filibuster has to be banned so that Democrats don't use it to discriminate against "people of faith."

This is true.

The Democrats want to discriminate against people of faith.

People whose faith tells them that gay people are perverts and sinners who should not be allowed to marry, adopt children, teach in schools, join the military, hold jobs at companies at which work other "people of faith" who might be offended by having their own prurient curiosity about other people's sex lives stimulated by daily association with fags and dykes.

Whose faith tells them that women have no useful contribution to make to the world except for the ones they can make with their wombs or at the stove or behind a vacuum cleaner or the wheel of a minivan.

Whose faith tells them that torture is wrong except when it's used by Americans against brown people or when brown people hired by Americans torture other brown people.

People whose faith tells them that brown people here have gotten uppity and need to learn to develop "character" and stop depending on the Federal government for such Unconstitutional handouts as voting rights and anti-discrimination laws and other protections imposed upon an unsuspecting and innocent nation by traitorous "activist judges."  And every time conservatives use that phrase it should be pointed out (Mr Brooks!) that it was not invented after Roe v. Wade.  This is Tom DeLay on judicial activism.

I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them.

50 to 100 years?  Roe v. Wade was decided 32 years ago.  Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy DeLay derides came down in 1965.  Prayer was banned from the public schools 40 odd years ago.  Go back 50 years and what are we talking about?

Brown v. Board of Education.

Railing against activist judges came into common parlance as a favorite circumlocution of the Segregationists during the Civil Rights Movement.  It was re-invigorated by the Boston busing crisis.  It is code for The damn liberals want to force us to associate with the Negroes! and it is a battle cry for racists as well as anti-abortion types, who, the trial of Eric Rudolph should have made clear, are not always different people, as David Neiwert explains in his in-depth look at Rudolph's Manifesto.

Democrats want to use the filibuster to discriminate against people whose faith tells them that whenever science contradicts the superstitions and Biblically inspired nonsense of their faith, science should leave the building.

Against people whose faith tells them that whenever any facts taught in schools contradict the nonsensical teachings of their faith, facts should leave the building.  Abstinence education, anyone?

Against people whose faith tells them that not only is their faith the one and only true faith but that it is the American faith, that America is a faith-based organization, and that a group of 18th Century liberal rationalists who barely believed in a Diety and who distrusted organized religions and despised what they called Methodism by which they meant what we call Evangelicalism and wrote into the Constitution a ban against any state establishment of religion still somehow managed to create a Right Wing Christianist theocracy.

And against people whose faith tells them that the faiths of other people who don't believe exactly what they believe do not count and that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, and liberal Protestants should say Evangelical prayers in their schools, and accept Evangelical religious symbols on their courthouse lawns, and live without complaint in a country where Right Wing Evangelical prejudices, follies, and heresies are not just spouted by their politicians but are written into the laws of the land, and whose faith tells them that people who have no particular faith might as well be Martians for all they should expect to feel at home in this country.

There is, of course, no good reason to get rid of the filibuster.  The Republicans in the Senate pretty much do whatever they want already, filibusters are hard to organize and keep going, the number of judicial appointees who have been rejected is embarrassingly small (if you're a Democrat, but it even embarrasses some Republicans), and on top of that getting rid of the filibuster is in the long run self-defeating, for besides the fact that the intellectual and legal qualifications of  judges who are appointed only because their nominations didn't have to risk a filibuster will be suspect in the minds of lawyers and other judges, the Republicans, as John McCain has pointed out, will not be in the majority forever, and when the Democrats take back control it will be by a small enough margin that a liberal Democratic president who doesn't have to worry about filibusters can appoint the hated activist judges with 51 vote majorities.  (See Billmon.)

There are only two reasons for persisting.  One is spite, which should not be underestimated as a motivating force in a Party controlled by Tom DeLay and George W. Bush---where Bush got his reputation as a nice guy, I have no idea, since anger and spite seem to be his predominate emotions even in dealings with his own father and daughters.

The other is that Frist knows that Bush is planning to nominate someone for a judgeship who is so unqualified, so reprehensible, so divisive that he, as Majority Leader, will have a desperate enough time mustering a bare majority nevermind the votes necessary to break a filibuster, some person of "faith" whose faith is in a vengeful, spiteful, discriminatory, small-minded, merciless god that will only "save" those people of faith who best match him in vengefulness, spite, discrimination, small-mindedness, and lack of mercy.

Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore anyone?

There is what could be called a third reason, but I think it's a sub-set of the second reason---a judicial appointee of the likes of Moore would be nominated only to placate the Religious Right, or energize it if the Democrats put up enough of a fight, and Frist needs the Right Wing Christian vote to make it through the primaries if he runs for President in 2008, which he appears to be planning to do, so he will have to champion that nominee whoever he is.

I'm not predicting it will be Moore---another possibility for an appalling nomination, even more appalling than Antonin Scalia to Chief Justice, would be Clarence Thomas to Chief Justice.  Nominating Thomas would be wonderfully almost beautifully cynical because then the Republicans could paint the Democrats as both racist and anti-Christian and Scalia would still be Chief Justice since Thomas is basically a ventriloquist's dummy perched on Scalia's knee.  Scalia's ego would rebel against this, but Karl Rove's ego is bigger.  But I think the fight Frist is anticipating is over someone more like Moore and there are good, cynical reasons for nominating Moore.

St Roy, as Mac Thomason likes to call him, is a hero to the Radical Religious Right for the reason he is totally unacceptable as a Supreme Court Justice, he is a person of faith who believes his faith trumps the Constitution and the authority of the Federal Government; and Moore stands a good chance of becoming Governor of Alabama and as Governor he would be in a good postition to make a run for the Presidency.   He couldn't win the nomination, let alone the White House, but his being in the fight would take lots of necessary Right Wing Christian votes from candidates like Frist and Rick Santorum, probably throwing the nomination to John McCain or Chuck Hagel.  (More likely McCain, if Erik Loomis is right.  Erik thinks Hagel has no chance of winning the nomination.)

If Frist's reason for eliminating the fillibuster is the second one, then it is as Richard Cohen says, cynical, unprincipled, hypocritical, and pretty damn cowardly of him, .

Whatever the reason, equally cynical, hypocritical, and unprincipled has been the rhetoric of the Republicans pushing with Frist to get rid of the filibuster.  It's almost awe-inspiring to listen to them condemn the filibuster because in the past it was used by racists to thwart Civil Rights legislation---these are people of faith whose "faith" would have had them joining in those filibusters against Civil Rights, who have inherited their "faith" from the Segregationists, who are carrying on their fight under the cover of opposing judicial activism, as John Perr's graphic charting of The Conservative Theory of Evolution makes clear.

Note the key position of "Hillary precurser" Eleanor Roosevelt in the chain.  Remember when people were making fun of Hillary for her supposed communing with the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt?  Well, it's not Hillary who was seeing ghosts.  If you want to understand Right Wingers' automatic loathing of Hillary, don't stop with examining their sexism and reactionary hatred of 1960s style liberalism.

They look at Hillary and they see a ghost.

They are haunted by Eleanor Roosevelt, as they deserve to be.

Acknowledgements and recommendations for further reading:   Thanks to Coturnix and Pam for the link to PERRspectives and thanks to Nance for the link to Cohen's column.  Thanks, also, to Scott Lemieux for the heads up on the David Brooks column on Roe v. Wade, which, by the way, Scott demolished, probably while watching TV, eating a sandwich, folding laundry, and talking on the phone to his mother all at the same time, it's become that easy to demolish a Brooks column.  For liberal bloggers it's the equivalent of playing scales, a useful warm-up exercise.)

Mac Thomason followed the Rudolph trial closely and is enjoying keeping tabs on the miracles, preachings, and pilgrimages of St Roy as he works his way toward official canonization.

Jason Chervokas lays out the egregiously anti-democratic and anti-Constituional nature of the tactics, plans, and goals of Frist and the man for whom Frist is fronting, George W. Bush.

The Heretik has been keeping track of Frist's efforts to blow up the Senate in a series of posts under the heading Armageddon on the Potomac.  Pam, in keeping with the same apocalyptic spirit, has a wild post called Are the political Endtimes near?, which is where I swiped the DeLay quote from. Thanks again, Pam.

Pessimist at the Left Coaster also covers the anti-filibuster movement. Mucho gracias, Avedon Carol, for the link, who also points the way to this post by Chuck Currie on real People of Faith who aren't happy with Frist and his small-minded and exclusionary definition of faith.

Colbert King has a column in today's Washington Post fuming at the attempt by Right Wing people of faith to hijack Christianity, while Shakespeare's Sister argues that the hijackers should not be called Christians but Dominionists and points out that they have a "long history a history of sexuality and gender oppression".

As well as not calling them Christians, we should not even call them Evangelicals either, since they do not represent all Evangelicals, many of whom are liberals in their politics and theology, as you can see by browsing through the magazine Sojourners or by reading Editor-in-chief Jim Wallis' column, Filibustering People of Faith.  Registration required, but it's quick.

Shakespeare's Sister also has a post relating how Senate Democratic Minority Leader, Henry Reid, has called President Bush on fibbing about not supporting Frist's attempt to go nuclear.

And you should visit the Park Service's webpage for the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site.

Comments

[blue girl]

Wooo-hooo! Great post.

"Whose faith tells them that women have no useful contribution to make to the world except for the ones they can make with their wombs or at the stove or behind a vacuum cleaner or the wheel of a minivan."

I don't even think they want us driving. I get weird looks from my Republican mother-in-law when I drive instead of my husband --

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Great post, Lance.

I noted today that the particular people of faith about whom you're talking have a name. They're dominionists, and we should all start using it.

No more "Christians" (because we all know that's far too broad), no more "evangelical Christians" (because there are evangelical Christians who don't want to blur the line between church and state), and no more "conservative Christians" (because you can be a conservative Christian without being a hatemonger and wanting control of the government).

They are dominionists, and we all need to start calling them what they are.

[The Heretik]

Nicely done compendium on the coming conflagration here. What I consistently perceive in this sorry situation is just how much a burning cross is being used as a hammer. The nail that sticks out shall be sledge hammered down with a vengeance. If the framework of our society and of our constitution are splintered and our house divided falls down in flames upon us, it will matter little to the leaders of this New Inquisition.

Our nation was founded on respect for many voices, with the idea that no one voice spoke the truth of god for all. Ours has never been a nation of lords, nor a nation where one group could so shamelessly endeavor to lord so overt an agenda over the rest of us.

The New Dominionists will not long have their way, before it is exposed for what is: not the word of God, more the work of man, in service to a dark vision.

[chervokas]

James Madison must be rolling over in his grave....

"The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them."

My ass! This is the kind of crap that make me feel like my head is going to explode. Poorly educated people who haven't read Madison's writings about the First Amendment hear it from the mouths of authority figures and blindly believe it.

For God's sake, Madison thought Congressional chaplains and theology courses at public universities were violations of the First Amendment, never mind Federal money being funnelled directly to churches from an office of "faith-based initiatives" in the White House.

For my money Madison on the First Amendment is just about as definitive as you can get since he's the one who oversaw its drafting and passage!

Here's a link to and earlier piece I wrote w/ plenty of quotes from Madison:

http://chervokas.typepad.com/trickster/2005/04/the_madison_blu.html

Faith means believing in something even though you can't prove it, it does NOT mean believing in something even though it's patently false! That's not faith, that's delusion.

[denisdekat]

I use to be pretty cool about religion and people's beliefs, and chose to be agnostic more as to not offend folks arround me. Recently I became very intolerant of religion and a full born again atheist.

I wish it was governmnet policy to squash all religion, but alas, freedom of religion, afterall, is that which makes most sense...

The other day I heard someone on TV calling these guys Mulahs, very effective. That is what they are, they are trying to turn us into Iran...

[Tilli (Mojave Desert)]

Let us pray that the Dems get religion and hold tight.

Wave as Frist et al drive themselves right off the rails.