Jay Sekulow

Jan Crawford Greenburg reports:

The White House has formalized its short list of Supreme Court contenders and asked six prospects to provide personal background information, with an intensive vetting process well underway, according to sources close to the process.

The leading contenders on the short list: federal appeals court Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, sources close to the process say.

Meanwhile the Washington Post notes that, unlike the last time around, right-wing groups are going to find themselves in the role of the underdog during the next Supreme Court battle:

Conservative groups concede that they have little chance of derailing Obama's choice, barring a scandal. But Supreme Court nominations have long been a rallying point and a fundraising opportunity for interest groups, particularly on the right. And now, at a time of ideological drift among Republicans, a loose coalition of conservative organizations has begun mapping strategies.

The goal, they say, is to fire up supporters and shake up the debate in the Democratic-controlled Senate, in part as preparation for other court fights to come.

Just hours after news of Souter's retirement broke last week, more than four dozen conservative activists hastily put together a conference call to plot their attack. Among other things, they divvied up the jobs of conducting background research on potential candidates, such as Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The Committee for Justice and other organizations have issued new fundraising appeals. The Family Research Council, along with other abortion foes, is gearing up to oppose a nominee who, like Obama, is likely to favor abortion rights. The National Rifle Association says it will examine Obama's choice in light of the high court's recent ruling weakening gun laws in the District.

"There's no question the political landscape is different," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group. "But the conservatives are not lying down here and just saying, 'Let's give up.' We want real hearings and real debate."

But it seems like most of the talk at the moment is about just how the Religious Right would respond to a nominee who is gay, with many of them suggesting that they won't make it an issue:

In a move that will surprise gay activists and liberals, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, a top religious right group, tells me that his organization has no problem with GOP Senator Jeff Sessions‘ claim today that he’s open to a Supreme Court nominee with “gay tendencies.”

The spokesperson confirms the group won’t oppose a gay SCOTUS nominee over sexual orientation.

“We agree with Senator Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which was founded by top religious right figure James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.”

Their sexual orientation “should never come up,” he continued. “It’s not even pertinent to the equation.”

...

“Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy,” FOF spokesperson Hausknecht continued. “Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging.” For example, he said, “If someone says, `I don’t care what the law says, on the next case involving sexual orientation, I’m going to decide the case in favor of the openly gay party,’ that would be a breach of judicial duty.”

Jake Tapper asked the Family Research Coucil, which gave a similar answer:

Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council, says that "the real issue would not be the person's private life but the issue would be would they be imposing their personal ideology upon the court. In this case would they be imposing a pro homosexual ideology, a pro-same sex marriage ideology."

But, as Josh Gerstein points out, that was not what Sprigg was saying back in 2006:

"We don't accept that homosexuality is any kind of cultural identity that should be sought in a judge," FRC's Peter Sprigg told the paper back then. "We think it's a behavior, not something that should be held up as a role model."

Of course, while groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are trying to sound tolerant and fair-minded, there are also people like Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel who have no interest in that sort of thing:

Matt Barber is a spokesperson with Liberty Counsel. "Well, in light of this nation's undeniable Christian heritage, it's hard to believe we're even having a conversation about whether a sitting United States president will count deviant sexual behavior as a favorable qualification in determining a nomination to the highest court of the land," he says.

Last week I wrote a few posts about the utterly inane “controversy” over the recent Department of Homeland Security report “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [PDF], pointing out how the Right was intentionally misrepresenting what it said and repeatedly lying about it in order to generate outrage and raise money. Then I went on vacation for a few days, fully expecting that the entire charade would blow over by the time I got back to work … but of course I was wrong:

Conservative House Republicans are calling on their leaders to ask President Obama for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s resignation.

And GOP Conference Secretary John Carter (Texas) became the first member of leadership to call for the secretary's resignation, saying Wednesday that Napolitano should be removed or resign.

“No search or arrest warrant should ever be issued on the pure speculative grounds contained in the DHS report, and this report should never have been issued either. The fact that it was, coupled with Secretary Napolitano’s failure to issue an unqualified retraction and apology, displays a level of contempt for a healthy democracy that demands she be removed from office immediately," the judge of 20 years said.

Conservative House GOPs think Napolitano should resign because of the release of a report that singled out conservatives as “right-wing terrorists,” according to several GOP lawmakers.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are set to meet with Obama at the White House on Thursday. It is unclear whether they will request Napolitano’s resignation, but several lawmakers said it was under discussion.

“I think leaders are going to bring it up with the president, maybe call for (her) resignation,” one conservative member told The Hill on Wednesday.

Predictably, the American Center for Law and Justice is once again at the forefront of this “controversy,” just as it was of the “controversy” over the stimulus legislation, with Jay Sekulow showing up on Fox News to voice his manufactured outrage that the DHS report made no mention of the “real terrorists” such as Al Qaeda, a point he also made on the ACLJ’s website:

Nowhere in this report is there any mention of Al Qaida cell groups operating domestically here in the United States.  DHS has taken its focus away from rooting out those people that are bent on causing harm to the United States.  Instead, they are using government resources to monitor pro-life citizens who are exercising their free speech rights by holding up a sign in front of an abortion clinic.  On FOX News today I stated that the government needs to be spending its time rounding up terrorists who are bent on the destruction of our government rather than focusing on grandmothers holding up a pro-life sign outside an abortion clinic.

The scope of this report is also dangerous.  In discussing rightwing terrorists, the report states that there is a phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States.  Pointing to those who are opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, the report envisions what it calls the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States as these pro-life groups, those opposed to immigration, and returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This complaint might make sense if the report was about something other than, you know, domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups.  And to make matters worse, the ACLJ is claiming that the report declares “pro-lifers [to be the] most dangerous domestic terrorists” when it does nothing of the sort.  In fact, the report never even mentions pro-lifers beyond one footnote explaining that individuals driven by a “single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration” may join up with hate-oriented or antigovernment right-wing groups.  

Now the ACLJ is demanding a retraction from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and, in an email to activists, bragging that it has taken the lead in fighting this “blatant attack on conservative America” and, of course, seeking donations:

I honestly had no intention of continuing to cover the ludicrous “controversy” regarding the supposedly “anti-Christian” provision in the stimulus legislation, but it keeps popping up on right-wing websites and so I feel obligated to keep futilely trying to knock it down. 

For instance, here is Jonathan Falwell writing on WorldNetDaily, who cites this provision as proof that “public religious expression is increasingly in the crosshairs of our government”:

On Thursday, I spoke with Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law about this issue. During our conversation, he stated in part that the so-called stimulus bill may lead to the banning of religious activity from public facilities, with public schools possibly being forced to expel after-hours Bible clubs and weekend religious services in order to access these government funds. This would have a chilling effect on religious ministries and church-planting organizations of all stripes, including new church plants being sent out from Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University.

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder if our lawmakers have even a basic understanding of our nation's rich history of religious freedom.

First of all, stop listening to Mat Staver because he’s wrong.  And secondly, sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder if anybody on the Right has even a basic understanding of how to read legislation because, if they did, they’d know that everything they are saying is outright false.

The Family Research Council also made another mention of this provision in its most recent “Washington Update”:

Although Republicans have tried to strip some excess from the stimulus, Democrats had a small victory of their own yesterday, defeating Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) amendment to ban religious discrimination from the bill by a 43-54 vote. Only Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) deserted the GOP to side with her liberal pals in opposing the provision.

Actually, two Republicans senators voted against it: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder if anybody on the Right has even a basic understanding of how to read a roll call vote.

Then finally, there’s Jay Sekulow, who got this whole thing started in the first place, declaring that he and the ACLJ intend to file suit immediately after President Obama signs it and proclaiming that they intend to spend years fighting it, if necessary:

"Well, not only is it disappointing, it's almost a throwback to litigation that we conducted in the 1980s that we won unanimously at the Supreme Court," he says. "And I feel like this particular legislation pokes the finger in the eye of people who take religious faith seriously.
 
Jay Sekulow (Amer. Ctr. for Law & Policy)"It's discriminatory in its application, unconstitutional as it's written, [and] unfortunately it's going to take four or five years for it to be litigated all the way through," Sekulow adds.
 
With passage of the bill with the restrictions in place, how might colleges and universities be affected? "We're going to look at filing an application for a stay of this provision, trying to get it declared unconstitutional through a restraining order," he shares.
 
Sekulow plans to file suit the day after President Obama signs the bill.

Does the ACLJ really intend to file suit and spend years in court based on nothing more than its own intentional misreading of this provision? Sometimes I just have to scratch my head and wonder if this is all a plot to drive me completely insane.

Over the last few days, we have been chronicling how a flat-out fabrication by the ACLJ about a provision in the economic stimulus legislation would supposedly ban religious students from using university facilities. 

As we've pointed out repeatedly, the provision says nothing of the sort ... but that hasn't stopped the ACLJ's Jay Sekulow from intentionally spreading this misinformation far and wide, writing about it on his Beliefnet blog where he called it "an unacceptable provision that clearly discriminates against religious organizations," as well as on The Hill's Congress Blog, where he said it was designed to "bolster efforts by those who would like nothing more than to strip religion and faith from our culture."

Sekulow's lies about this provision then induced both the Liberty Counsel and the Traditional Values Coalition to hop on board the effort to get it stripped from the legislation, which in turn generated coverage from right-wing news outlets like OneNewsNow and CNS News.

And you know that it has finally become an official right-wing talking point when it shows up in the Family Research Council's "Washington Update":

Buried in the education component of the bill is language that singles out religious institutions for discriminations ... liberals shouldn't be using the stimulus bill as an opportunity to practice viewpoint discrimination with government funds and encourage colleges and universities to discourage religious activity on campus out of fear of losing out on federal dollars.

Early on, Sen. Jim DeMint hopped on the ACLJ's bandwagon and now Sekulow reports that DeMint has officially introduced an amendment [PDF] to strip the provision from the legislation; an amendment with the stated purpose of allowing "the free exercise of religion at institutions of higher education that receive funding under" the stimulus bill.

Of course, the original provision in no way prohibits the "free exercise of religion" at universities that receive funding, but that isn't stopping the Religious Right from lying about it in order to try to get it stripped from the bill.