Constitution

To amend state constitution to ban same-sex marriage; the campaign is targeting minorities. Also: FRC claims 5,000 pastors in similar effort in Wisconsin.

In an e-mail to his supporters, Rick Scarborough of Vision America announces his second rally against a Missouri stem-cell research ballot initiative, to be held in Cape Girardeau, home of commentator and Rush-brother David Limbaugh. His first rally featured Alan Keyes, who compared their effort to protect embryos with African-Americans’ struggle for civil rights. Keyes will again speak at Cape Girardeau.

Our rallies are creating quite a stir in Missouri and increasingly in the national press, as the church is coming together to say in a united voice that cloning human beings for body parts is  unacceptable.

This week we were informed that CNN is sending a crew to cover our rally in St. Louis on September 28.  And this week, we added our fifth rally to be held in Springfield, Missouri, which will be hosted by the historic Central Assembly of God Church in downtown Springfield.  We have now been requested to host two additional rallies, for a total of seven rallies across the state, as the Church is increasingly uniting in this battle for curbing the growing menace of science without God. ...

We are currently finalizing details for Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family to partner with us in this effort.  The entire nation will be watching Missouri this fall and Vision America is leading the way for the cause of life!

Scarborough, however, claims that he’s feeling the pinch financially. In a solicitation for donations, he specifically complains that organizations active in electoral politics and legislative advocacy are not given the same benefits as 501(c)3 non-profits, donations to which are tax deductible. “Our battles in Missouri over the human cloning issue is a fresh reminder of how the tax exemption known in the IRS code as a 501c3 status, is crippling the church and muting her historic prophetic role in America,” he writes, threatening that he is “ready to burn our 501c3 if necessary to continue preaching righteousness and applying scripture to the great national debates of our time.” The former pastor writes, “You can help me in this battle by making the largest gift you can, and by doing it without regard to tax exemption. … You will not be able to deduct it, but I am convinced that God will bless you significantly for it.”

While Vision America may have some difficulty drawing specific attention to its Missouri campaign, it seems unlikely that the group is in abject poverty. According to its IRS filing, the group amassed $2.6 million from 2000-2003—and that was before it really established itself on the national scene during the filibuster fight, the formation of the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitution Restoration, and the “Values Voters Contract with Congress,” which was effectively taken up by the Republican leadership this summer.

Scarborough also takes time to boast that his efforts in Missouri have attracted the notice of Internet blogs:

This week I discovered that Vision America was the featured organization on People for the American Way's "Right Wing Watch" website. It seems that with all the money being spent by the left, our shoe string budget counter-offensive is increasingly being viewed as a threat.

Indeed, “Right Wing Watch” is watching Scarborough’s Missouri campaign. In Texas, Scarborough pioneered the strategy of building a network of so-called “Patriot Pastors” that mobilize their congregations to work both for ballot initiatives (like bans on same-sex marriage) and, effectively, on behalf of candidates for office. A new People For the American Way report details the “Patriot Pastor” strategy in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. With his “pastors’ briefings” and “Patriot Partners” in Missouri, Scarborough may very well be laying the groundwork for yet another “Patriot Pastors” franchise.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that opponents of a Missouri stem-cell research ballot initiative are distributing misleading brochures that purport to enlist the support of women’s health advocates.

Brochures mailed in recent weeks to more than 90,000 Missouri homes argue that research protected by the ballot measure would exploit women, luring them into the potentially dangerous practice of egg donation. …

"I can't remember the last time radical feminists lined up with me," said the Rev. Rick Scarborough, a Southern Baptist preacher who heads Vision America, a national group campaigning against the stem cell measure. …

But supporters of the stem cell measure don't like the joke. They say religious conservatives are exaggerating feminist concerns about stem cell research. The Missouri measure addresses those concerns, they say, spelling out protections for women who donate eggs.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at the large out-of-state donations to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's campaign for governor and finds that--along with major right-wing funders like Richard Scaife and Howard Ahmanson--Blackwell's benefactors are advocates of school vouchers.

National charter-school advocates are digging deep to help underwrite Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign. No single issue has delivered more out-of-state $10,000 donations than school choice. Blackwell has received more than $100,000 from donors outside Ohio who favor voucher programs and taxpayer-funded private schools, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of $10,000 contributors.

Writing in Human Events, the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly attacks the Supreme Court, not only for its ruling in the Hamdan case, but for even hearing the case at all

The Supreme Court had no business taking the Hamdan case. Congress had passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 withdrawing jurisdiction over Guantanamo prisoners' habeas corpus petitions from every "court, justice, or judge" except the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court did not, and could not, dispute Congress' power to do exactly that. The U.S. Constitution clearly grants this power to Congress. But the court held that pending cases were exempt from this particular withdrawal of jurisdiction even though the law did not say that. Justice John Paul Stevens' majority decision ignored what Justice Scalia's dissent called a "plain directive," and (in the words of a primary sponsor of the Detainee Act, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.) "made legal contortions to get the result the Court wanted."

Relying on Sen. Lindsey Graham's interpretation of what the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 said about cases such as Hamdan is not particularly convincing, considering that he and Sen. Kyl snuck a bogus exchange into the Congressional Record in an attempt to make it look like Congress shared their view on this issue when that was not at all the case.

It seems as if some on the Right just cannot accept that any of President Bush’s nominees might not deserve confirmation, leading people like the Family Research Council’s Tom McClusky to lash out wildly – in this case, against the hated “Gang of 14”

"The presumption by the 'Gang of 14' that somehow their individual vote carries greater weight than the other 86 members of the U.S. Senate is highly offensive and clearly unconstitutional. The self-ordained power these fourteen moderates wield continues to pervert what was for two centuries a timely, fair and decent confirmation process.

…

"It is time for this illegitimate coalition of Senate moderates to release the judicial hostages and allow a fair up or down vote on all nominees. The Constitution does not ask for the approval of 14 self-appointed judicial guardians. Instead, the Constitution requires the advice and consent of the whole Senate. I call upon the 'Gang of 14' to respect the process, respect the nominees, and respect the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend."

The fact that FRC has sunk to launching attacks against “moderates” and accusing them of holding “judicial hostages” speaks volumes about the Right’s determination to see even Bush’s most unqualified nominees confirmed.

As the House is set to vote on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage—even after the amendment failed to get a simple majority in the Senate, much less the required two-thirds majority—Rod Parsley’s Center for Moral Clarity reminds us that the point is politics and the upcoming elections.

“This important House vote will put every member of Congress on record as either supporting biblical marriage or siding with activist judges and others who would expand the definition of marriage," said Pastor Rod Parsley, founder and president of the Center for Moral Clarity. "Undoubtedly, many members of Congress would prefer not to cast this vote so close to an election – but it’s important that voters know where they stand on this critical issue."

But others are looking to unconstitutional tricks to get around the amendment process. The goal of “court-stripping” legislation is to simply declare that federal courts are no longer allowed to hear the claims of citizens that their rights are violated. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins--decrying the “judicial activism” behind the Supreme Court decision finding unconstitutional Bush's military commissions to try Guantanamo detainees--encourages court-stripping, along with right-wing judicial nominees, as a long-term strategy, citing two court-stripping bills in the works:

Congress needs to resist this judicial activism. One way to constitutionally check the courts is with measures like the Pledge Protection Act sponsored by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and another way is Cong. John Hostettler's (R-IN) Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA). Finally, we can give a fair up or down vote to judicial nominees like William J. Haynes.

Now, even as the House vote on the anti-gay marriage amendment looks to fail, Human Events endorses a court-stripping bill to circumvent the Constitution on the issue of marriage:

Unfortunately, the [marriage] amendment failed in the Senate last month, receiving only 49 votes. It is also destined to fail in the House: In the last Congress, it received only 227 votes, more than 60 shy of the super-majority needed. But there is a way Congress can act this year to protect state marriage laws from activist liberal judges. Rep. John Hostettler (R.-Ind.) has proposed a bill that would strip all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to hear any challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). …

Hostettler’s Marriage Protection Act has practical and political advantages. For starters, unlike the constitutional amendment, if pushed by the Republican leadership, it has a real chance of becoming law. … Secondly, it is a tougher political test for Democratic congressmen trying to convince voters they are not out of touch with traditional American values. … Precisely because the Marriage Protection Act can become law, Democratic leaders are fretful of letting even Red State Members vote for it--if they can help it.

Perhaps soon the Right will come up with a bill to ban blogs, and declare that we can no longer defend our rights in court. It’s certainly a convenient strategy to avoid that pesky Constitution.

Looking to maintain their majority, Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing what they call the “American Values Agenda” – a series of bills, most of which will fail, aimed at energizing the right-wing base for the mid-term elections in November. The package consists of:

• A bill to strip the courts of jurisdiction over hearing challenges to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance;
• A bill to deny court costs to successful litigants of church-state claims;
• A constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage;
• A bill requiring doctors performing an abortion to tell the woman that “she has the option of choosing anesthesia for the child, so that the unborn child's pain is less severe”;
• A bill to ban human cloning and restrict stem-cell research;
• One bill to weaken the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and a second bill to prevent confiscation of guns during national emergencies;
• A prohibition on Internet gambling;
• Something called the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act”;
• And tax cuts.

According to CNN, “House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) told CNN's Deirdre Walsh that Republican leaders decided on the 10 legislative items after meeting with about two dozen outside groups in February as well as receiving input from the House GOP's ‘Values Action Team’ headed by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania).” Right-wing stalwart Paul Weyrich – co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and founder of the Free Congress Foundation – described this “Values Summit” as effective coordination between the Right and Congress:

Earlier this year the GOP leadership began what it terms a “Values Summit.” I have been privileged to attend every one thus far. At a values summit each of us is given a few minutes to tell the leadership what we think is important. The leadership, tilted more toward the House of Representatives than the Senate, primarily listens. Questions are asked about timing. If, for example, an organization wants to do a huge grassroots mailing then it is very helpful for that group to know how much time it has to get the mail out the door.

The net result of our summit was announced by the House Leadership last week. Even House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-OH), never thought to be sympathetic to the religious right, pronounced himself absolutely in favor of what the leadership is calling “the American Values agenda”.

Already, the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage failed by a large margin in the Senate, and the court-stripping bill on the Pledge did not make it out of a House committee with six more Republicans than Democrats. (Rep. Todd Akin (R-Kansas) told the audience at a “War on Christians and Values Voters” conference earlier this year that the Pledge bill is part of an effort to incrementally disable the ability of Americans to file suit in federal courts on a number of issues, culminating in a future bill to impeach judges for “making decisions not based on the U.S. Constitution.”)

But, as Weyrich acknowledges, many of these bills are bound to fail, but the idea is to make political ammunition. “Let’s get these Members on record. Let us see who supports a pro-family agenda and who does not.”

With the failure – by just one vote – of the Senate to pass the flag amendment, the Bill of Rights is safe for now. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) appeared on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” this morning to express his disappointment that future generations of Americans may have to suffer under the First Amendment. “I don’t think that burning a flag has much to do with freedom of speech,” said Roberts, who blamed “activist judge[s]” for protecting that form of dissent.

View the video highlight: Broadband or Dial-Up.

Sen. Roberts told Robertson that, “[T]o me, that flag means much more than just a flag, and so I get a little irritated when people say, ‘Oh you’re just introducing it to energize your base.’ Well, that base—and a lot of people other than that base—care about the American flag.” Most of us do care about the flag, it’s true—but we care even more about what it represents.

Many conservatives oppose the amendment. The Constitution is “the great shield of democracy,” as Colin Powell said:

We are rightfully outraged when anyone attacks or desecrates our flag. Few Americans do such things and when they do they are subject to the rightful condemnation of their fellow citizens. They may be destroying a piece of cloth, but they do no damage to our system of freedom which tolerates such desecration...

I would not amendment that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will still be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.

Pat Robertson told the senator that he noticed that all that potential Republican presidential candidates voted for the amendment, while potential Democratic candidates voted against it; however, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, who voted in favor, is still a Democrat.

The good news is that Sen. Roberts expressed little confidence that the amendment would be brought up again soon. The bad news is that 66 United States Senators voted the First Amendment obsolete.