Activism

After the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Chicago Tribune that his support for barring gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces was based on his belief, from his “upbringing,” that homosexuality is “immoral” and analogous to adultery, supporters of equality for gays were quick to criticize the nation’s top military officer for his prejudice-based promotion of public policy and for sending an inappropriate message to gays currently serving under his command. Not surprisingly, the Religious Right has come to the defense of Gen. Peter Pace, who has refused to apologize, and ambitious politicians are not far behind.

Concerned Women for America’s Matt Barber wrote that Pace “is to be commended for publicly expressing the common sense values shared by the majority of Americans, for having the courage to face down America’s self-appointed thought police and for his bold attempt to reign in our nation’s political correctness run amok.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins declared that “Gen. Pace's job is not to be politically correct but to protect the nation and the well-being of our soldiers.” Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council said his group will “ask President Bush to support General Pace's right to stand by his convictions as he enforces the military code of conduct.” And Phil Magnan, director of a group called Biblical Family Advocates, issues a press release attacking gays as “licentious”:

"If there is any apologizing that needs to be done, it's by homosexual advocates who have drawn millions of young people, including soldiers into a destructive, immoral and unhealthy lifestyle."

"The homosexual community has sold the public their licentious lifestyle in the name of tolerance and freedom when they should be seeking to be freed from it. Ask the person dying from HIV if it was worth having hundreds of partners or if some of the millions who are enslaved to it would like to be free of it."

Others claimed that criticism of Pace was “clearly an effort to purge from authority anyone who dares represent the most basic tenets of a Judeo-Christian moral code,” as WorldNetDaily.com editor Joseph Farah put it. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth said of Pace critics, “Their idea of civil rights is that we can’t voice our moral beliefs about homosexuality. … If you say that homosexuality is wrong, they come after you; and, ultimately, we have to believe that they are going to want to ban [speaking out against] it, just like is happening in Canada, and England, and other countries.” The American Family Association is asking its supporters to send a letter to President Bush in support of Pace and in opposition to gays serving in the military: “I strongly oppose homosexual activists who want to force the military to approve their immoral lifestyle,” reads the letter template.

Already, one Republican presidential candidate struggling to gain momentum and distinguish himself among the Right has taken on the Pace cause. Sen. Sam Brownback circulated a letter in which he characterizes Pace’s justification of the military’s anti-gay policy as merely the expression of “his personal moral views.”

The moral behavior of members of the Armed Forces is of the highest importance, particularly during this time of war. The question is whether personal moral beliefs should disqualify an individual from positions of leadership in the U.S. military? We think not.

The National Review asked a few right-wing political figures to try and come up with some things that the Right “can be optimistic about going into 2007.”  Not surprisingly, the responses are not particularly uplifting. 

Aside from taking some glee in the fact that “the American people will now hold [the Democrats] partly responsible for Iraq policy” and getting to watch “the spectacle of liberal congressional Democrats struggling to reconcile what they want to do (impeach George Bush, raise taxes, get out of Iraq, fling wide the gates to all immigrants) with what the public wants them to do,” those queried didn't really have anything positive to offer.  

Rep. Jeb Henlsarling takes some solace in the fact that the GOP might now get a chance to the things they failed to do for the last six years, such as “embrace the core conservative principles of a balanced budget, limited, accountable government, and traditional values” while Phyllis Schlafly looks forward to re-claiming the party “by outnumbering and outsmarting the false prophets of RINO politics, nation-building utopians, and globalism economics.”   

Perhaps the most pessimistic response came from defeated Senator Rick Santorum who appeared to be so despondent that he could barely muster a few vague platitudes about making “judicial activism” a bigger issue – and even that was overshadowed by his own apparent sense of hopelessness:

Conservatism, of course, will never be the political disposition of a majority of Americans. Conservative objectives, however, will from time to time find the support of such a majority; the success of the conservative movement depends in large part on leaders taking advantage of such moments.

So that is what conservatives have to look forward to in 2007:  Hoping the Democrats struggle while waiting for opportunities where they can take advantage of those rare occasions when the American people might fleetingly support some isolated part of their right-wing agenda.  

Today the New Jersey State Supreme Court unanimously ruled that, according to the state’s constitution, same-sex couples cannot be denied the rights and benefits of marriage. While a majority stopped short of specifically granting the right to marry to same-sex couples, the court ordered the legislature to extend the same rights, whether through marriage or another institution.

“The New Jersey Supreme Court has blatantly and arrogantly ordered the state Legislature to rip up what marriage has meant for thousands of years,” said James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. “The justices have made clear their disdain and disrespect for the true decision makers in our democracy -- the people -- as well as for the institution of marriage.” He added: “Nothing less than the future of the American family hangs in the balance if we allow one-man, one- woman marriage to be redefined out of existence. And, make no mistake, that is precisely the outcome the New Jersey Supreme Court is aiming for with this decision.”

“This is a textbook example of agenda-driven judges who are willing to twist their state laws and invade the province of the legislative branch in order to force same-sex 'marriage' on the people of New Jersey,” said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America. CWA President Wendy Wright added, “The New Jersey Supreme Court has distinguished itself once again for imposing its own form of discrimination by arrogantly declaring that a woman is not needed to make a marriage, or that a man is not.”

“This is nothing more than an act of veiled judicial activism,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “As in Massachusetts and Vermont, the New Jersey Supreme Court has acted as a super-legislature imposing their will on the people of New Jersey. He called on the legislature to “ignore this ruling.” Dobson, Perkins, and Wright also said that the ruling should give impetus for voters in the 8 states with ballot initiatives regarding same-sex marriage.

Radio-talker Mark Levin, author of the anti-Supreme Court book “Men in Black,” asserted that the ruling was “as political as any I've seen.” “New Jersey joins Massachusetts in transitioning away from democratic government,” intoned Hugh Hewitt. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) quickly called for the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, perhaps hoping to be the first member of Congress to do so.

Some struck a positive note. “This is a plus for those of us who have been pressing for a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman,” said Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, explaining that he meant the case is “a wakeup call to the vast majority of Americans who are opposed to gay marriage but are reluctant to access the constitutional amendment process as the right remedy.”

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Glen Lavy also called it a “wake-up call for people who believe that marriage doesn’t need constitutional protection.” According to Lavy, the court’s declining to require marriage over civil unions should be interpreted as “mak[ing] marriage meaningless” because it is characterized as “just another option along with other ‘unions.’”

Expect more tomorrow.

The Right has been pretty vocal recently, demanding that Republicans in the Senate hurry up and confirm as many judges as possible before the November election.  But when it comes to the nomination of Janet Neff, they are urging them to slow down

A judge's elevation to the federal bench could be derailed because she helped preside over a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple four years ago.

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas has placed a hold on the nomination of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet T. Neff, saying her presence at the 2002 Massachusetts ceremony raises questions about her judicial philosophy.

"It seems to speak about her view of judicial activism," Brownback said Friday. "It's something I want to inquire of her further."

Brownback, a vehement opponent of gay marriage who has presidential ambitions, said he wants to know whether Neff might have presided over "an illegal marriage ceremony" that skirted Massachusetts law. He has asked the Justice Department for a formal legal opinion on Neff's conduct.

Ceremonies marking the union of same-sex couples are usually symbolic events that carry no legal benefits and require no government approval. Massachusetts did not recognize gay marriages in 2002 but legalized same-sex marriage two years later after a ruling from its highest court.

Conservative activists expressed concerns about Neff after seeing her name in a September 2002 New York Times "Weddings/Celebrations" announcement. It said Neff led the commitment ceremony for Karen Adelman and Mary Curtin with the Rev. Kelly A. Gallagher, a minister of the United Church of Christ.

Both women are former employees of the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign in Washington.

"When she did the commitment ceremony, she was doing it in her role as a judge, and that draws up a serious question," said Tom McClusky, a spokesman for the Family Research Council, a conservative group. "She would be more sympathetic to an activist on the issue of homosexual marriage."

The FRC’s claim that her presiding over such a ceremony  “draws up a serious question” is pretty ironic considering that they didn’t seem particularly concerned when William Pryor appeared in his capacity as Attorney General of Alabama to praise then Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore for his illegal display of the Ten Commandments, proclaiming

"God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time, this place for all Christians Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox to save our country and save our courts."

Or when, again in his capacity as Attorney General, he called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history” or said “I will never forget Jan. 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children.” 

According to the Right, calling a long-established Supreme Court precedent an “abomination” was no cause for concern about Pryor’s impartiality, and anyone who dared question it was accused of anti-Catholic bigotry.  But Neff’s presiding over a commitment ceremony is enough to stall her nomination and raise all sorts of “serious questions” about “judicial activism.”   

It is not very often that right-wing interest groups write to Republican senators, urging them to push for the confirmation of a handful of judges for crassly partisan reasons.  

Well, actually, that probably happens all the time. 

But it is unusual when they then post the letter for the entire world to see, as the Committee for Justice recently did

With the election less than eight weeks away, Thursday's vote is crucial. It is the last opportunity to get nominees onto the floor in time for a pre-election confirmation fight that would focus voters’ minds on the federal judiciary as the canonical example of the difference between the two parties. This is the time to remind voters that it is the Republicans that put constitutionalist judges on the federal courts and the Democrats who are responsible for an activist judiciary that protected online pornography, restricted the death penalty, weakened private property rights, struck down the federal ban on partial birth abortion, declared the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional, and otherwise drove religion from the public square. Can the constitutional protection of gay marriage be far behind if Democrats have their way with the federal judiciary?

Many of you ran and won in 2002 and 2004 because, in part, you promised to support the President’s judicial nominees and to end obstruction by the minority Democrats. Maybe some of your colleagues who last ran in 2000 do not realize that things have changed. Perhaps you should consider those candidates running in 2006 who are not yet in your meetings but could use the judges issue to their advantage, if only you will tee it up for them.

Voting the circuit court nominees out of committee on Thursday, thus setting the stage for an up or down vote on the Senate floor, is truly a no-lose proposition. If Democrats do little to obstruct a confirmation vote, Republicans senators can claim credit for improving the judiciary. However, if Democrats filibuster or otherwise stand in the way of a vote, it will be clear to the public which party is the party of the obstruction and which party is trying to end judicial activism. Do not worry about whether Republicans have the votes to win the confirmation battle. The goal is to remind the American people of what is at stake when they vote on November 7.

…

Since the confirmation of Justice Alito in January, Republican senators have missed various opportunities to keep the judges issue on voters’ minds. As a result, Senate Democrats have barely had to lift a finger to accomplish their goal of blocking the President’s conservative nominees. Fortunately, it is not too late to make the Democrats pay a price for their obstruction and to use the judges issue and judge-related issues to Republicans’ advantage in the upcoming election.

One of the nominees in question is  reportedly being opposed by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Sen. Arlen Specter admits that others are “embroiled in a controversy” and have “problems.”  This includes opposition by major police organizations and high-ranking career military leaders.  Presumably, CFJ is urging  that  senators “not worry about whether Republicans have the votes to win the confirmation battle” because there is a very real likelihood that they don’t actually have the necessary votes.  

But never let it be said that the Right will let facts or reality dissuade them from their desire to create bogus battles for purely partisan gain.