Supreme Court nomination

When I saw that Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network had spent nearly an hour discussing Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court with Terry Jeffrey, editor in chief of CNSNews.com, I certainly wasn't expecting it to be exciting.

But I didn't expect it to be downright painful ... but that is exactly what it was, as Jeffrey tried to use the Citizen's United decision, which he held up as a fundamental victory for the First Amendment, to make the case that Kagan should have resigned her position as Solicitor General rather than try to strip Americans of their basic rights.

To their credit, both Whelan and Severino repeatedly shot down Jeffrey's claims ... but it didn't matter, as every explanation they offered just seemed to further convince Jeffrey that government lawyers and Supreme Court justices and basically all lawyers are morally unfit to hold public office on the grounds that they are willing to argue positions with which they might not agree.

All of this eventually leads Jeffrey to start asking random hypothetical questions about whether an anti-choice Solicitor General who worked for a pro-choice administration would be morally fit to hold the office ... as if that is relevant to anything at all. 

So if you want to see the single least informative discussion of Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination, jump ahead to the 5:00 mark of this video and watch as Whelan and Severino struggle to deal with Jeffrey's never-ending stream of nonsense:

Concerned Women for America has produced a memo explaining that, as much as they hope President Obama will nominate a Supreme Court justice whom "all Americans can support," they don't think he will and therefore they'll be obligated to oppose that nominee ... whomever it is:

Concerned Women for America (CWA) would love for President Obama to go beyond politics — as he promised during his campaign — and nominate a Supreme Court candidate that all Americans can support. After the health care debacle, with zero bipartisan support helping to further expand the chasm between citizens, nothing would be more welcome than for the President to nominate someone who could make us all feel proud. CWA wants a judge with an excellent record of judicial restraint, a commitment to following the Constitution as written, and an awareness of the fact that they are not supposed to substitute their own personal feelings or ideology for the law.

CWA says all of the names floated as possible nominees so far are unacceptable and has even sent President Obama a letter [PDF] asking him to "put aside partisanship and choose a nominee that makes all Americans feel proud": 

At a time when the political chasm between citizens seems to be expanding at an alarming rate, such an admirable move would certainly do a lot to bring us back together and rally for the common purpose of doing what is best for America.

But CWA wants to make clear that it is not holding its breath:

However, based on President Obama’s actions thus far, and on his statements back-to-back that he wouldn’t use a litmus test but wants his nominee to support a “woman’s right to choose,” CWA isn’t hopeful that he will choose a good nominee.

“I don’t see the President picking a nominee that is good for America,” said Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America. “The President has shown a keen disregard for any notion of honoring the Constitution, but we are clinging to any last hope that he may break from the mold and nominate a worthy Justice.”

All very interesting.  But I wonder what CWA was saying just a few years ago when, for instance, President Bush was considering nominees for the Supreme Court:

“The President has the historic opportunity to keep faith with the promise he has repeated numerous times, which is to name justices who are like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s Chief Counsel. “The Democrats have shown that their filibusters and condemnations of the President’s circuit court nominees were baseless. They will threaten more of the same unless he names a clone of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example.”

The President should not yield to the left’s demands to consult with the Senate before making a nomination. The Constitution is clear that it’s his right alone to make nominations and the Supreme Court agrees.

So CWA urged President Bush to ignore any requests that he consult with anyone before making any nomination, because they were just going to oppose the nominee anyway and the president has the constitutional power to name any candidate he chooses ... and now CWA is writing to President Obama, demanding that he listen to them and put forth a nominee that they can support, threatening that if he doesn't, they will be left with no option but to oppose his choice?

Funny how that works. 

With Sonia Sotomayor's nomination having been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote of 13-6, she is scheduled to get a floor vote next week where it is expected that she will be easily confirmed.

Resigned to the inevitable, right-wing are doing all they can to spin this as a victory that will pay huge dividends in future elections:

"Republicans can reap significant political benefits by voting against her confirmation and making her an issue in key races next year," conservative activist Ralph Reed told his supporters in a memo.

Voters will remember that "it is a gun vote, and this was not a judge vote. It was a racial quota vote. She is for quotas," added Grover Norquist, a leading conservative activist, in an interview.

...

Norquist said conservatives can paint Sotomayor as a dangerous liberal just like President Barack Obama.

"She tarnishes him a little bit," said Norquist, who is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a member of the NRA board of directors.

In the Washington Independent, David Weigel provides more insight into this effort:

“The Republican senators did much better than I expected,” said Manny Miranda, the chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a judicial conservative umbrella group that opposed Sotomayor’s nomination largely behind the scenes.

In early June, Miranda had been bearish on the Republican conference, doubtful that it would put up a fight. He called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “limp-wristed” and organized 145 conservative activists to campaign for a filibuster of Sotomayor, which they’re not going to get. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), in announcing his opposition to the nominee, admitted that her confirmation was probably inevitable. Yet they feel like the debate over Sotomayor was as much as a conservative success as it could have possibly been, and they see a chance to give the nominee the lowest level of support from the opposition party since the bruising 1991 fight over Clarence Thomas.

“When we started, I didn’t expect more than 16 ‘no’ votes,” said Miranda. “Now I think we may go as high as 29 votes. We’ve achieved quite a lot.”

...

“The NRA’s decision to score the vote is a huge statement,” said Curt Levey, director of the Committee for Justice. “They were hesitant to get involved. Even if Sotomayor is eventually confirmed, the fact that the NRA came to realize the importance of Supreme Court nominations in protecting gun rights is a very big deal. The grassroots have been activated.”

Sotomayor is widely expected to be confirmed next week and you'll notice that all of Miranda's strident demands that Republicans lead a filibuster against her seem to have disappeared, as have his repeated assertions that any vote on her nomination before the August recess would be glaring failure of Republican leadership:

The mark of failed Republican leadership -- already strong-armed by Democrats on hearing scheduling -- will certainly be allowing a confirmation vote before the August recess that denies time to senators and to the American people. Republican leaders will fail too if their only goal is to mirror the 22-22 Democrat vote for Judge Roberts and simply deliver 20 Republicans for and 20 against.

Miranda and company had one demand of Senate Republicans: Under no circumstances allow a vote on Sotomayor's nomination before the August recess. Yet that is exactly what is going to happen and, instead of blasting them for their failure, Miranda is praising them for a job well done because their token opposition will be slightly bigger than he initially imagined.

Why is the Right suddenly so forgiving?  Maybe because they knew all along that their efforts weren't going to stop Sotomayor and they were just trying to pick a fight and look important, which is essentially what Curt Levey admitted to Weigel:

“The goal isn’t to defeat Sotomayor,” explained Levey. “It’s to send enough of a warning shot that future nominees won’t be as hostile to the Constitution.”

The Committee for Justice, for example, developed five ads formatted for television and newspapers, one of which compared Sotomayor’s work for the Puerto Rican Defense Fund to President Obama’s friendship with reformed Weather Underground member Bill Ayers. It got plenty of attention; people clicked through to the committee’s site, and some donated. But TV viewers won’t see that particular attack on their screens. “I don’t think the ad was effective,” Levey admitted. “We’ll run some ads in the final week, but I don’t think we’ll run that ad.”

Now that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing has been set to begin on July 13, you know what comes next: Rob Schenck has to anoint the room with oil.

David Brody reports:

The Christian group "Faith and Action in the Nation's Capitol" has made its way to Capitol Hill and Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor might be interested in what they did. They blessed the doors of Senate Hart Building Room 216 with prayer and oil because they believe this will be the room most likely used for her confirmation hearing which begins July 13th.

Here is the video Faith and Action has posted of Schenck in action, along with an alert the organization is sending out to its members:

You probably heard the news that US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has set the start date for confirmation hearings surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's nominee to the United States Supreme Court. They will begin Monday, July 13, and probably last through that week. I waited for that announcement before making one of my own:

A firm foundation of prayer has been laid for this confirmation process. Wednesday morning, June 3, about 8:00, I went to the US Senate Hart Building across the street from our ministry center where the last two Supreme Court nomination hearings took place. Once there, I proceeded to Committee Room 216, the very same chamber where we have held numerous prayer and worship services over the years. This will most likely be the venue for the Senate hearing.

I went to the hearing room doors, and, following biblical and long-held Christian traditions, anointed them with oil as a symbol of consecration, or a setting apart for God's purpose. In respect for Judge Sotomayor's strong Catholic background, I used oil specially formulated for this purpose. It was also blessed by a Catholic priest at the St. Francis Monastery here in Washington, DC.

As I prayed, I touched the doors in three spots, making the sign of the cross. I prayed for God to superintend over the entire confirmation process and mark them with truth because Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," and He prayed to His Father, saying, "Thy Word is Truth." Of course, in the end, we always pray that God's will be done.

There is so much we can do as part of this enormously consequential exercise, including letting our senators know how we feel about this nomination. Nothing, though, is as important as prayer. I invite you to join me in praying as often as you can during the entire hearing process beginning Monday morning, July 13.

I will keep you informed.

Your missionary to Capitol Hill,

Rev. Rob Schenck
President
Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital

This is the first time Schenck has done this sort of thing alone, as he has traditionally been joined by Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition in the anointing ceremonies they carried out before the hearings for John Roberts and Samuel Alito and the inauguration of President Obama.

Robert Bork does not have high hopes for the future of the judiciary under President Barack Obama:

Former Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork predicts that President-elect Barack Obama’s judicial nominees will orchestrate a profound sea change in U.S. jurisprudence, legalizing same-sex marriage, restricting or eliminating the death penalty, and tying the hands of the military so severely that “commanders in the field will have to be gathering evidence while they’re fighting.”

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Bork, who currently serves as a distinguished legal scholar at the Hudson Institute, criticized Obama’s view of the role of judges … Bork’s expectations for the future of American jurisprudence, once Obama’s nominees are seated?

“I would think that same-sex marriage, homosexual marriage, is one that’s likely to be ordered by the courts,” he says. “Roe v. Wade abortion will not change.

“They’ve been whittling away at the death penalty, although the death penalty is mentioned about four times in the Constitution as allowed if certain procedures are followed,” Bork adds. “It’s up to the people whether they want it or not. But this court has been whittling away at it without any warrant from the Constitution and without any warrant from the people. And I think they may just outlaw the death penalty altogether -- which I think is not only bad judicial interpretation, but may endanger lives.”

We, of course, take Bork's angst as a good sign since it is not as if he is any sort of moderate, middle-of-the-road observer – in fact, he’s a right-wing ideologue whose radical views sunk his own Supreme Court nomination twenty-plus years ago.  And since then, he’s only become increasingly radical and militant, as we pointed out in a piece we wrote a few years ago about the rantings that have defined his post-judiciary career:

It appears as if almost everything within contemporary culture possesses the capacity to offend Bork.  He attacks movies for featuring “sex, violence and vile language.”  He faults television for taking “a neutral attitude toward adultery, prostitution, and pornography” and for portraying homosexuals as “social victims.”  As for the art world, most of what is produced is “meaningless, uninspired, untalented or perverse.”  He frets that the “pornographic video industry is now doing billions of dollars worth of business” and the invention of the Internet will merely result in the further indulgence of “salacious and perverted tastes.”  When it comes to music, “rock and rap are utterly impoverished … emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually.”

More to the point, Bork is not content merely to criticize; he wants the government to do something about it.  “Sooner or later,” he claims “censorship is going to have to be considered as popular culture continues plunging to ever more sickening lows.”  So committed is he to this cause that he dedicated an entire chapter in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah to making “The Case for Censorship.”  In it, he advocates censoring “the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer, starting with obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.”

When asked by Christianity Today about how he would decide what should and should not be censored, Bork announced: “I don’t make any fine distinctions; I’m just advocating censorship.”  He went on to argue that the United States has a long history of censorship, and that such censorship “didn’t suppress any good art, it didn’t eliminate any ideas.”  He goes on to state that, were individuals to decry such censorship as inhibiting their individual liberty or right to express themselves, he would reply “… yes, that is precisely what we are after.”

If one thing is for sure, it is that the paramount issue for the Right over the last several years has been gaining control over the federal judiciary and especially the Supreme Court. This has been the one unifying theme of their efforts to rally behind John McCain and one McCain himself has been citing at every opportunity.

So it was to be expected that this sort of article from CNSNews would emerge sooner or later, in which just about every right-wing judicial activist is given an opportunity to attack Joe Biden as the man single-handedly responsible for everything that is wrong, from their perspective, with the judicial nomination process:

[C]onservatives say that for 27 years, Biden has served as a liberal front man for attacking conservative judicial nominees and principles – notably during the confirmation hearings of Judges Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

…

"Liberal special interest groups worked hand-in-hand with the liberal members of the Judiciary committee to sink Bork, and Biden was in charge of it all," [Focus on the Family's Bruce] Hausknecht said.

[Federalist Society Founder Stephen] Calabresi said that even though it was Biden’s liberal compatriot on the committee, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who was the most visible in leading the attack on Bork, Biden was hardly a mere bystander.

"It’s important to remember that Sen. Biden was the chairman of the committee during the Bork nomination and the Thomas confirmation fights," Calabresi reiterated.

John McCain is planning to be in North Carolina tomorrow where he is scheduled to give a speech on judicial nominations:

John McCain’s campaign said Friday that Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback will join the presumptive GOP nominee in North Carolina next week for a major speech on judicial appointments.

Both Thompson and Brownback have endorsed the Arizona senator, and both Republicans presented themselves throughout the Republican primary battle as “consistent conservatives,” particularly regarding social issues and judicial appointments.

The speech, to be held Tuesday at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, will be just one element of a broader outreach to conservatives next week, according to the campaign.

McCain is expected to discuss the kinds of judges he would appoint up and down the federal bench.

Why he is doing this on the day of the Democratic primary in the state is hard to understand.  Perhaps he is hoping to work his way into the press coverage … or perhaps he is hoping to keep a rather low profile while he delivers remarks designed solely to, once again, assure the GOP’s right-wing base that he’ll appoint justices like John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court without attracting too much attention from the media.  

Either way, he’s probably hoping that the press won’t bother to actually write about his record on judges as exemplified by, say, his 1987 support of Robert Bork [PDF]:

I would like to explain why I am going to vote of favor of confirmation [of Robert Bork], and why I do so without  any hesitation … I believe that what the Senate should appropriately examine in a nominee are: Integrity and character, legal competence, and philosophy and judicial temperament.  I believe Robert Bork is well qualified in all four respects … Judge Bork’s honesty, integrity, and diligence are above reproach … [he] demonstrates that he is not some intellectual “loose cannon on deck,” or a quixotic maverick jurist , but is a thoughtful, reasonable, jurist … [he] is hardly a radical, but is rather a very thoughtful judge in synch with the vast majority of his colleagues on the bench.  

…

First, and most importantly, is the question of Judge Bork’s view of the role of the judiciary.  Judge Bork is clearly a believer in judicial restraint.  He believes that the courts should not create social policy or arbitrate social policy disputes unless the Constitution clearly speaks to the issues.  He believes that in our republican form of government such decisions are properly left to legislatures elected by the people, not Federal judges appointed for life.  I have no problem with that view, because I wholeheartedly agree with it.  

…

I have no problem with my colleagues voting against Bork if they truly believe he is unfit for the Supreme Court – although I personally cannot conceive of how you could reach that conclusion … I believe Robert Bork will be an outstanding Justice and contributor on that Court … Robert Bork deserves our support and will be a great Supreme Court Justice.  

In his endorsement, McCain delivered a lengthy defense of Bork’s controversial views, stating that Roe v. Wade is "the clearest example of judicial 'legislation'" and that the rules it set out are "nonsense."   Nor did McCain appear to be a fan of the right to privacy, stating that it was entirely "created by Justice Douglas in the Griswold case."

Joining McCain will be Fred Thompson, who shares McCain’s affinity for Justices like Roberts and Alito and is already out making the pitch for McCain on the issue of judges, and Sen. Sam Brownback, who endorsed McCain after his own presidential campaign folded in the early-going, in part to help pay off his campaign debt, but also because he was promised that he “would play an advisory role in helping decide who he should nominate for the Supreme Court.”   That undoubtedly appealed to Brownback because, as he repeatedly stated when he was campaigning, he wanted nothing more than “to be the president that appoints the justice that's needed vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade."  While he won’t get that opportunity to do that directly, advising McCain on Supreme Court nominations will still allow him to play an important role in finding a Supreme Court nominee that will finally eliminate the right to choose.

Just days after the Religious Right’s B-team gathered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to question Republican candidates for president (including the ones who didn’t show up), a number of more prominent right-wing figures are convening in Tampa for the Family Impact Summit, sponsored by the Focus on the Family-affiliated Florida Family Policy Council, the Tampa-based Community Issues Council, the Family Research Council, and the Salem radio network.

Advertised topics range from “Christian Citizenship” to “Homosexual Agenda,” but the focus will no doubt be on the 2008 election, and in particular, the effort by Florida’s Right to put a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot—even though gays are already prohibited from marrying by statute.

Below is some background on the featured speakers, from Tony Perkins and Richard Land to Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, considered the leading religious-right think tank in Washington, DC. Before coming to FRC, Perkins was a state legislator in Louisiana, and as a campaign manager for a Republican candidate, he reportedly bought David Duke’s e-mail list.

Under Perkins’s leadership, FRC, along with Focus on the Family, put together several “simulcasts” of political rallies held in churches, including three “Justice Sunday” events in 2005-2006—“Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith,” ”God Save the United States and this Honorable Court,” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land”—featuring religious-right luminaries such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Phyllis Schlafly, along with politicians like Rick Santorum and then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, arguing that opposition to Bush’s extreme judicial nominees constituted an assault on their faith or Christianity itself. A fourth event just before the 2006 elections, “Liberty Sunday,” promoted the idea that gays and their “agenda” were out to destroy religious freedom.

That fall, FRC also organized a “Values Voter Summit,” in which Dobson and other activists exhorted their constituency to turn out for the GOP; the conference showcased a number of future presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sam Brownback. A second Values Voter Summit is planned for next month.

Also appearing from FRC at the Family Impact Summit are David Prentice and Peter Sprigg.

Richard Land

Since 1998, Richard Land has served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which is “dedicated to addressing social and moral concerns and their implications on public policy issues from City Hall to Congress.”   

Land has been an active and influential right-wing leader for many years and in 2005, was named one of “The Twenty-five Most Influential Evangelicals in America” by Time Magazine, joining the likes of James Dobson, Chuck Colson, David Barton, Rick Santorum, and Ted Haggard.

Land also hosts three separate nationally syndicated radio programs and has written several books including, most recently “The Divided States of America? What Liberals and Conservatives are Missing in the God-and-Country Shouting Match!,” which Land claims seeks a middle ground between the right and the left on the role of religion in the public square.  In reality, the middle ground Land stakes out consists mainly of standard right-wing positions on political and social issues that are made to appear moderate in comparison to ultra-radical positions put forth by far-right fringe elements.  

In recent months, Land has been positioning himself to play a much more high-profile role in the presidential campaign than he has in the past, repeatedly asserting that he and other Evangelicals will not support Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich, should he run,  while regularly bolstering the campaign of Fred Thompson, who Land calls a “Southern-fried Reagan.”

Harry Jackson

Jackson, pastor of a Maryland megachurch, has become a frequent spokesman for right-wing causes in recent years. In 2004, he played a prominent role in urging blacks to vote for George Bush, and in 2005, he started the High Impact Leadership Coalition and unveiled his “Black Contract with America on Moral Values”—an agenda topped with fighting gay marriage—at an event co-sponsored by the far-right Traditional Values Coalition. Jackson spoke at “Justice Sunday,” a religious-right rally in favor of Bush’s judicial nominees, as well as “Justice Sunday II, where he promised to “bring the rule and reign of the Cross to America.” He is a member of the Arlington Group.

Since then, Jackson has continued to urge blacks to vote for right-wing causes and candidates. “[Martin Luther] King would most likely be a social conservative,” he wrote in one typical column. His most recent efforts have focused on opposing hate crimes protections for gays, falsely claiming that a proposed bill would “muzzle our pulpits.”

In an article in Charisma magazine, Jackson wrote that the “wisdom behind” the “gay agenda” is “clearly satanic,” and he called for an aggressive “counterattack.” He asserted to The New York Times that “Historically when societies have gone off kilter, there has been rampant same-sex marriage.”

Don Wildmon

Wildmon is the Founder and Chairman of the American Family Association, which exists primarily to decry whatever it deems “immoral” in American culture and lead boycotts against companies that in any way support causes, organizations, or programs it deems offensive, particularly anything that does not portray gays and lesbians in a negative light. 

Over the years, AFA has targeted everything from the National Endowment for the Arts, Howard Stern, and the television show “Ellen” to major corporations such as Ford , Burger King, and Clorox.  AFA has also been particularly focused on Disney, declaring that the company’s “attack on America’s families has become so blatant, so intentional, so obvious” as to warrant a multi-year boycott.

Recently, AFA has been busy warning that proposed hate-crimes legislation is designed to lay the “groundwork for persecution of Christians,” attacked presidential candidate Mitt Romney over his time on the board of Marriott Corporation because the company offers adult movies in its hotels, and warned that the US Senate was “angering a just God” and bringing “judgment upon our country” by allowing a Hindu chaplain to deliver an opening prayer. 

Gary Bauer

Gary Bauer is a long-time right-wing activist and leader.  After serving President Ronald Reagan's administration for eight years in various capacities, Bauer went on to become President of the Family Research Council, which was founded, in part, by James Dobson of Focus on the Family, where Bauer also served as Senior Vice President. 

Bauer stepped down from FRC in 1999 when he launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.  After dropping out of the race, Bauer made a surprising endorsement of Sen. John McCain at a time when many of the other right-wing leaders had lined up behind George W. Bush.  

Bauer’s standing took a beating when he defended McCain’s attack on Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance” and he was ostracized by many for quite a while after McCain lost.  But Bauer pressed ahead, creating his own non-profit, American Values, and gradually reestablished himself in right-wing circles.  

Since then, Bauer has been active in various right-wing campaigns, most notably joining with likes of Tony Perkins and James Dobson in defending and pressing for the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.  

William Owens

Owens, a graduate of Oral Roberts University and a Memphis pastor, founded the Coalition of African American Pastors to combat equal marriage rights for gay couples. Owens reportedly told the “Rally for Traditional Marriage” held in Mississippi in 2004 that “homosexual activists of today have hijacked the civil rights cause,” adding: “We're going to fight until we win,” he said. “We're going to have crusades and rallies like this until we win. We're going to let our political leaders know ‘if you don't stand for God, we won't stand for you.’” Owens lent the CAAP name to the Religious Right’s judges campaign, signing on to the “National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters” and holding a press conference in support of Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination.

In 2004, Owens formed an alliance with the Arlington Group, a coalition of powerful religious-right leaders that was widely credited with being the driving force behind the effort to put anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballot in 11 states in that year’s election. Owens is now on the group’s executive committee, alongside James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Tony Perkins, Paul Weyrich, Rod Parsley and others.

Alan Chambers

"Ex-gay" Alan Chambers is president of Exodus International and executive director of Exodus North America, which claim gay men and lesbians can be “cured" and "change" their sexual orientation to heterosexual. Exodus' board includes long-time anti-gay activist Phil Burress of Ohio's Citizens for Community Values, his wife Vickie Burress – founder of the American Family Association of Indiana – and Mike Haley, who replaced discredited "ex-gay" John Paulk at Focus on the Family as chief spokesperson on homosexuality and gender issues. Exodus also co-sponsors a series of "ex-gay" conferences across the country with Focus on the Family. One recent Love Won Out event was particularly mired in controversy when it was revealed that one of its presenting organizations had published a racist column that appeared to justify slavery. During a 2006 CPAC conference panel, Chambers insisted "lifelong homosexual relationships are not possible" and the battle for marriage equality was solely being promoted by the liberal media.

Other representatives of the “ex-gay” activist community scheduled for the conference include Scott Davis and Mike Ensley of Exodus and Nancy Heche, whose book “The Truth Comes Out” describes “how to respond lovingly, yet appropriately, to homosexual family members and friends,” such as her husband, who held secret “homosexual affairs,” and her daughter, whose open relationship with Ellen DeGeneres Heche called “Like a betrayal of an unspoken vow: We will never have anything to do with homosexuals.”

Robert Knight

Robert Knight is something of a journeyman within the right-wing movement.  After starting out as a journalist and editor for various newspapers, Knight has held a series of jobs with various right-wing organizations including Senior Director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and director of the Culture & Family Institute at Concerned Women for America.

Currently, he is the head of the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center and a columnist for Townhall.com.

His hostility toward gays is well-known, as evidenced by his response to the news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of the Vice President, was expecting a child with her partner: 

"I think it's tragic that a child has been conceived with the express purpose of denying it a father," Knight said.

"Fatherhood is important and always will be, so if Mary and her partner indicate that that is a trivial matter, they're shortchanging this child from the start."

"Mary and Heather can believe what they want," Knight said, "but what they're seeking is to force others to bless their nonmarital relationship as marriage" and to "create a culture that is based on sexual anarchy instead of marriage and family values."

John Stemberger

Stemberger, a personal injury attorney and former political director for the Florida GOP, is the president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Counsel/Florida Family Action, a state affiliate of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.

Stemberger is leading the petition drive to put on next year’s ballot a constitutional amendment to ban equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, which is already banned by statute. While a 2006 effort fell short, as of September 5, Florida4Marriage.org claimed to have gathered 594,000 of the 611,000 signatures they need to submit by February 1, making it likely that the amendment will be on the ballot in 2008.

Ken Blackwell

Blackwell is most famous as the controversial Ohio secretary of state during the 2004 election, overseeing voting laws while moonlighting as state co-chair for Bush/Cheney. But he has a long history of far-right activism on economic and civil rights issues, and in 2004 Blackwell forged an alliance with the Religious Right as he campaigned for an anti-gay ballot measure. By 2006, when Blackwell ran for governor, this alliance had grown into a church-based political machine, with megachurch pastors Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson taking Blackwell to rallies of “Patriot Pastors,” who signed on to a vision of a Christianity under attack by dark forces, in need of “restoration” through electoral politics. “This is a battle between the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell,” declared Johnson.

Blackwell’s gubernatorial bid failed, but he continues his career as a right-wing activist with affiliations with the Family Research Council and the Club for Growth, as well as a column on Townhall.com.

Katherine Harris

Harris is well known for her controversial role in Florida’s 2000 presidential election debacle, when she served as both secretary of state, overseeing a “purge” of voter rolls as well as the recount itself, and as a state co-chair for Bush/Cheney. She was elected to the U.S. House in 2002 and 2004, and spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in both 2002 and 2003.

In 2006 Harris made a quixotic Senate run, during which she heavily courted the Religious Right. In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, she implied that her opponent, Sen. Bill Nelson, was not a Christian, saying, “[I]f you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong.” She also advised people to disbelieve “that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state.”

Tom Minnery

Minnery is vice president for public policy at Focus on the Family and a frequent spokesman for the group. He is the author of “Why You Can’t Stay Silent: A Biblical Mandate to Shape Our Culture,” arguing that society should be “changed from the top down morally.” Focus on the Family, with a combined budget of over $160 million, promotes far-right positions on social issues to millions of Americans through radio, print, and the web, and Focus founder James Dobson is probably the single most influential figure on the Religious Right.

“There are more than enough Christians to defeat the Left," Minnery said at a rally in South Dakota. "There are a lot of pastors who didn't want to be seen as an 'activist,' but this issue of marriage has left them with little choice but to get involved."