Abortion

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Republican candidates for president, have both been hard at work courting the Right Wing – from Romney speaking at “Liberty Sunday” to Brownback suiting up for the mythical “War on Christmas” to both signing Grover Norquist’s no-taxes pledge within a day of each other – and filling up their dance cards with endorsements from the Religious Right. Romney, though considered a more viable candidate, has been at a disadvantage in accruing right-wing points following revelations of his past support for gay rights.

Now, Brownback himself is questioning Romney’s right-wing credentials, reports CBN News:

“I think you have to look at where he stood on the issues and what he said publicly,"  Brownback said. “At times he's said different things on these issues. I think that's all going to come out during a long campaign."

Brownback wouldn’t flatly say if Romney is a reliable conservative. He said, “We'll see and that will be for him to discuss. I do think when we get out on the campaign trail and when the campaign really gets fully engaged, there's going to be a lot of discussion about where do people actually stand on the issues and where have they been and where are they now and how reliable are they to stay that way."

At the same time, CBN posted an article alluding to a similar problem haunting Brownback – his alleged pro-choice position at the start of his political career.

Presidential candidate Sam Brownback told CBN News that he's always been pro-life despite his decision to stay away from the pro-life label at the beginning of his race for Congress in 1994.

"I was in the same position in 1994 as I am today as far as being pro-life," said Brownback. "I didn't articulate then. I thought - and this is just getting into politics - that I would be better off saying the specific areas of the issue rather than 'Are you pro-life or pro-choice?'"

In particular, Brownback’s campaign said he had no recollection of telling Tim Golba, then president of Kansas for Life, that his position on abortion was “more in line with” that of pro-choice Sen. Nancy Kassebaum. The campaign has sent out a letter to supporters asking for job references: “Can I please ask those that are capable and willing to send me a testimonial quote highlighting Senator Brownback's work on pro-life issues?”

Both of these stories were reported by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. Robertson expressed enthusiasm early for Brownback, a point noted by conservative columnist George Will, reporter Jeff Sharlet, and others. Now, Robertson might be backing down a little bit, according to Sharlet.

Campaigning for president as “the full-scale conservative,” Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) has won the hearts of many right-wing activists for joining in the calls warning of a so-called “War on Christmas” and blocking a judicial nominee who once attended a lesbian commitment ceremony, but his candidacy has so far failed to establish viability. “Brownback has to prove he can win,” as Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention put it. Still, the senator is steadily expanding his base, as he demonstrated during Monday’s anti-abortion protests in Washington.

Brownback wrote an op-ed in support of the protests in The Washington Times, and he spoke at several events during the day, culminating in a “Brownback for President” reception. Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports:

The Rev. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life gave the opening prayer: "We pray today particularly for a man whom we love and whom we admire, whom we look to and have looked to for leadership and have not been disappointed. We pray today for Senator Brownback and his family."

Two hundred march participants chanted: "Brownback! Brownback!"

Brownback also spoke at the Family Research Council’s Blogs4Life conference (covered by ProLifeBlogs, Townhall, and Human Events), where he predicted that “Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned” within a few years, as Milbank reported.

He announced his introduction of the "Unborn Pain Awareness Act" and vowed to protect all "children of a living God." Asking why disabled Americans are protected but not fetuses with abnormalities, he demanded: "What's the difference -- location?" For emphasis, he introduced a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome. He urged the listeners to speak to abortion-rights supporters with "truth encased in love."

This is not the first time Brownback has used children as stage props. This past summer, the senator argued against embryonic stem-cell research by bringing out a 7-year-old girl, who had drawn a picture of herself as an embryo saying, “Are you going to kill me?” This particular rhetorical technique was previously used by former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), who brought a 4-year-old to the Senate chamber while arguing for the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.” ““What they wanted to do was kill this baby by stabbing her in the base of the skull and suctioning her brains out,” said Santorum, pointing to the girl in the audience.

Santorum’s extreme politics endeared him to the Right – not too long ago, he was the one frequently mentioned as a potential presidential candidate – but it cost him his Senate seat in November’s election. Brownback is hoping to find a growing Right Wing in Iowa that could give him the edge in the GOP caucus, but first he has to appeal to more moderate Republican voters, and convince them that he won’t meet Santorum’s fate. Otherwise, the difference will be location – the chasm between warm reception at a far-Right blog panel and disappointment at a real-life voting booth.

(Photo from ProLifeBlogs.com.)

On the web site of the American Center for Law and Justice, the Pat Robertson-founded legal group where Jay Sekulow serves as chief counsel, Sekulow describes himself as a “nationally recognized and respected defender of religious freedom.” On last night’s “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News, Sekulow perhaps elaborated on what he means by “religious freedom” when he said that a freshman Muslim lawmaker “should have just abstained from” using the Koran in a ceremonial photo op following his official swearing in as a member of Congress. Sekulow, although aware of the constitutional prohibition of religious tests for office, insisted that such a use of the Koran represented a "danger" to the country and its "Judeo-Christian tradition."

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) has been a target of some on the Right since an article by radio talker Dennis Prager wrote that he “should not be allowed” to be photographed with the Koran, calling the use of the Bible “essential to the continuity of a civilization.” Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) pushed the “controversy” into the headlines when he wrote a letter to his constituents warning that, “if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.” Goode later invoked the terrorists attacks of September 11 as justification for his concerns about immigrants.

Apart from Goode’s tirade against immigrants, Sekulow is the most prominent figure to embrace this attack on religious liberty. Sekulow has made a name for himself as a right-wing superlawyer, defending violent anti-abortion activists before the Supreme Court and advising the president on judicial nominees, all while pulling down an impressive salary.

While Sekulow was clearly aware of the ban on religious tests – he told Sean Hannity that Ellison didn’t have to actually hold the Bible – he insisted that Ellison’s use of the Koran (the copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson, architect of religious liberty) represented a “danger” to the country.

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Jay Sekulow on Hannity and Colmes, 1/8/07

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As contenders for the Republican nomination for president jostle for the Right’s favor, much of the focus has been on social wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. The Religious Right has signaled that it will not be easy to please, and the candidates have responded by working overtime to prove their bona fides.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has carefully courted religious-right leaders and whose speech against same-sex marriage at FRC’s “Liberty Sunday” event was interpreted as a pitch for the evangelical vote, fell afoul of the Right when statements he made in 1994 were revisited that seemed to reveal a more liberal stance on abortion and gays. His attempts to explain his apparent shift and to recover his position have interfered with his efforts to “occupy the conservative ground” early.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback has also been angling for that same ground, by positioning himself as the defender of Christmas, by emphasizing support for faith-based programs, and by keeping the right-wing assault on the judiciary alive in the Senate. He has been seen in Iowa recently, hoping for a state-level Religious Right with increased influence. (He’s already picked up the endorsement of the president of Iowa Right to Life.) Brownback told the National Catholic Reporter, “I’ll be the only person at the core of the campaign who will be pushing for the reform of the family and restoration of the culture and human dignity at all phases of life.”

But lest the economic Right feel left out, both Romney and Brownback, a day apart, just signed the “Taxpayer’s Protection Pledge” put out by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist, a leading organizer of the right-wing coalition in Washington, has famously described his goal as “to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Robert Dierker has been a judge on Missouri’s 22nd Circuit for twenty years and, having just been re-elected, apparently decided the time was right to publicly profit from his position by writing a book trumpeting his right-wing ideology:

A book by a veteran St. Louis judge, due out this week, is causing a stir in political and legal circles for its sentiments on "femifascists" and "illiberal liberals."

And some say it could cost him his job.

…

The first chapter of "The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault," has circulated for weeks via e-mail and been widely read in legal circles, lawyers and judges told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The chapter, which frequently uses the term "femifascists" and is titled "The Cloud Cuckooland of Radical Feminism," prompted a complaint with the state body that can reprimand or remove judges.

The Associated Press offered a few excerpts from Dierker’s book:

_ "Just as we saw with the femifascists, illiberal liberals don't want equality; they want to make some people more equal than others. And they've made it happen through their dominance of the courts over the past seventy-five years. Liberals have converted the courts from the 'least dangerous' branch of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers to the most dangerous." (From a chapter titled "Making Some Americans More Equal Than Others," about the 14th Amendment and equal protection under the law)

_ "This is liberal law in a nutshell. History and tradition count for nothing; the language of the Constitution itself counts for little; the only criterion is whether a ruling will advance the liberal agenda." (From the chapter "Ozzie and Harriet Are Dead," about abortion and the attack on the traditional family.)

_ " ... The Constitution died on April 18, 1990, as a direct result of the liberal pursuit of racial 'equality.'" (From the chapter "Taxation for Tolerance," about school desegregation and desegregation rulings that allow judges to impose taxes.)

Press coverage notes that “other judges and lawyers have said Dierker may have violated a state rule against a judge using his or her position for personal profit” but Dierker is defending his book, saying he broke no rules and that his open disdain for feminists and liberals in no way makes him unfit for the bench: 

Dierker said he is always fair in the courtroom. "Conservative judges are much more likely to know where their biases are and how to draw the line," he said.

…

Dierker writes that the views in the book are "personal, and should not be construed as any indication of how I would rule on any case coming before me. No public resources were used in the preparation of this work. The use of my title is strictly for identification."

Considering that the Right loves nothing more than complaining and picking fights over the issue of judges, Dierker can probably take solace in the fact that if he is in some way reprimanded or punished for his book, he will always be able to translate his newfound notoriety into speaking engagements at the next “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith Conference” or “Values Voters Summit.”

Responding to a large-scale study from the Guttmacher Institute showing that the vast majority of Americans do engage in premarital sex – “which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds,” as the study’s author said – Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Wade Horn defended abstinence-only programs, claiming that by withholding comprehensive education on safer sex, the programs “help young people delay the onset of sexual activity” and thus reduce the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases.

Last week, in criticizing evangelical Jim Wallis for giving the Democrats’ radio address, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins claimed that activists on the Religious Right were the nonpartisan ones, and he cited Maryland’s Bishop Harry Jackson as one who “typifies” the style of “boldly address[ing] both parties.” Despite this claim, as we noted, Jackson’s partisan credentials are still secure.

Today, Jackson himself makes that point in a column bemoaning the Republicans’ “political bloodbath” in the recent midterm elections. Chalking it up to “the Liberal Media” and Democratic pandering to minorities, Jackson offers some “out of the box thinking” to help the Right in 2008. Dismissing as “unimaginative” the Democratic platform of raising the minimum wage, he writes:

A new breed of entrepreneurial, religious blacks will be to glad accept heart felt invitations to join the conservative movement. People like Herman Cain and a host of other successful black business people are showing that there is no glass ceiling in many companies or industries. Growing numbers of black mid level managers, doctors, lawyers, and professions are looking for positive ways to contribute to their community. Men like Michael Steele Lt. Governor of Maryland proved that large numbers of Blacks are willing to entertain the conservative message.

Steele, who is black, won just one-fourth of the black vote. So confident were Republicans of Steele’s appeal to African Americans that they bused in homeless men from Philadelphia on Election Day to distribute fliers in black precincts presenting Steele as a Democratic candidate.

And if the name Herman Cain sounds familiar, you might recognize him as the public face of an organization called America’s PAC that ran thousands of radio ads on black radio stations encouraging African Americans to vote Republican by claiming that the “Democrat Party” was “decimating our people” through abortion, linking Democrats to Klan leader and Louisiana Republican politician David Duke, blaming Democrats for Hurricane Katrina and Florida voting problems, and this classic script:

Michael: And if you make a little mistake with one of your ho’s, you’ll want to dispose of that problem toot sweet, no questions asked, right?

Dennis: Naw, that’s too cold. I don’t snuff my own seed …

Michael: Huh. Really? (pause) Well, maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican!

 Perhaps Cain and Steele were not the best examples of “positive ways to contribute” to the community.