The American Mullahs

Words from a very scary guy.

"As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council ... wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."

Sound pretty rabid and fanatical to you? Wouldn't you feel better if this guy was being calmly escorted in the direction of professional help?

Instead, this zealot has earned the support of major Republicans, and organized an upcoming telecast.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

All of which is their way of saying that, because Democrats object to giving lifetime appointments to a person who have been practicing law illegally, or one who think Social Security is "socialism", or one who is so far right that Alberto Gonzales called her position "unconscionable," they are out to discriminate against "people of faith". (Curiously, I haven't noticed any drinking fountains labelled "atheists only", nor anyone demanding literacy tests or poll taxes of "faithful" voters, nor municipal transit systems demanding that Bible readers sit in the back of the bus.)

So it's troubling that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has agreed to appear on this telecast. No, it's more than that. I'll let Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, say it for me:

The news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to join a telecast whose organizing theme is that those who oppose some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are engaged in an assault on “people of faith” is more than troubling; it is disingenuous, dangerous, and demagogic. We call on him to reconsider his decision to appear on the telecast and to forcefully disassociate himself from this outrageous claim.

Senator Frist must not give legitimacy to those who claim they hold a monopoly on faith. They do not. They assert, in the words of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, that there is a vast conspiracy by the courts “to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.” There is no such conspiracy. They have been unable to ram through the most extreme of the President’s nominees, and now they are spinning new claims out of thin air.

Alas, this is not an isolated incident. This past week, the Christian Coalition convened a conference in Washington entitled, "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." Their special guest speaker was the House Majority Leader, Rep. Tom Delay. When leaders of the Republican Party lend their imprimatur to such outrageous claims, including, at the conference, calls for mass impeachment of Federal Judges, it should be of deep concern to all who care about religion. It should also be of concern to President Bush whose silence, in the wake of the claims made both at the conference in Washington and in the upcoming telecast, is alarming.

The telecast is scheduled to take place on the second night of the Passover holiday, when Jews around the world gather together to celebrate our religious freedom. It was in part for exactly such freedom that we fled Egypt. It was in part for exactly such freedom that so many of us came to this great land. And it is in very large part because of exactly such freedom that we and our neighbors here have built a nation uniquely welcoming to people of faith – of all faiths. We believe Senator Frist knows these things as well. His association with the scheduled telecast is, in a word, shameful. We call upon to him to disassociate himself from the claim that the Senate is participating in a filibuster against faith, and to withdraw his participation from the April 24th event.

Me, I'd prefer Frist leave the Senate, but that would be enough of a miracle to really inspire faith.