Monica Goodling, Fundamentalist Education, and the Impact on Religious Civil Liberties

In light of the recent controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Department of Justice (DOJ)--particularly the involvement of one Regent University graduate by the name of Monica Goodling--I thought now would be a great time to take a look at what the Religious Right is doing to screw up our religious civil liberties.  Here is the fruit of my labors: a hefty-sized article with a cast of thousands, including the Bush administration, the DOJ, John Ashcroft, Patrick Henry College, Native Americans, and the Amish.  Go grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

NYT Op-Ed Advances Christian Reconstructionist Legal Arguments.

Last night, at the Institute For Progressive Christianity's two day Countering Fundamentalism: Christian Gospel as a Basis for Progressive Social Action symposium, I had the pleasure of hearing the Rev. Deb. Haffner, head of the Religious Institute On Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing ( great name, in myhop, and here's Haffner's blog ) present her take on the current state - through a religious lens - of what she sees as the sexuality phobic condition of current American culture. Reproductive rights - access to birth control, abortion, but even more importantly knowledge about human sexuality, are foundational to Haffner's positions ; they are the bottom line, the sine qua non.

So, I woke up this morning to read Scott Lemieux's critique of a guest NYT op-ed by Constitutional scholar Ann Althouse, who has a jarringly different take on reproductive rights... Opining on Rudy Guliani's pledge to, if he is elected president, elect "Strict Constructionist" judges, Althouse writes: "If Roe were overruled... legislatures would decide how to regulate abortion. And decentralized legislation really is fairly called "part of our freedom" because the Constitution's framers saw the balance of power between the national government and the states as a safeguard against tyranny.". Lemieux, for the Lawyers, Guns,and Money blog, correctly skewers Althouse's dubious claim that "Strict Constructionist" Constitutional interpretation has no political agenda. To the contrary, explains Frederick Clarkson in the Winter 2005 edition of the Public Eye : it is about Remaking America as a Christian Nation and Althouse, wittingly or not, is helping pave the way. It is quite bizarre to see the sort of arguments typically made by Christian Reconstructionists show up in a NYT op-ed.

The Christian Coalition of Alabama (CCA) is accusing trial lawyers, without any evidence, of funding an anti-Christian agenda through its contributions to judicial candidates. That's a whopper, and CCA knows it. CCA leader John Giles has surely not forgotten that he has criticized trial lawyers in The New York Times for contributing nearly a million dollars to the 2004 campaigns of three conservative Christian candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court. Those candidates advertised that they share the same judicial philosophy as former Alabama Chief Justice Roy S Moore, the "Ten Commandments" judge, who wants to remake America as a Christian nation.

So why is CCA engaged in a baseless smear campaign over judicial contributions? Maybe it's because the agenda that the CCA is pushing these days is not so much a pro-Christian agenda as a pro-corporate agenda. And maybe they're trying to distract conservative Christian voters from the fact that the CCA is embroiled in a scandal over its acceptance of $850,000 in contributions that trace back to one of the Indian tribal clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Back in 2000, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws had a problem. A rival tribe over the state line in Alabama planned to build a casino, and that would have cut into the Choctaw's gambling revenue. So the Choctaws hired a lobbyist -- Jack Abramoff -- to help them head off the competition. And as it turns out, the Choctaws' problem was solved, but the solution caused a whole new headache for CCA, which is still suffering from the effects today.

The Religious Right is still working hard to reign in -and eventually eliminate- what they see as activist judges on both state and federal courts.

South Dakota, which recently outlawed all abortion in their state, is attempting to strengthen the theocratic hold on the government with a "Judicial Accountability" amendment to their state constitution.

And in Congress, another attempt has been made in the House to introduce a "We The People Act" that also takes power away from the courts, and permits Congress to override their decisions.

Melissa Rogers has an important piece at TomPaine.com about Justice Sunday, religious freedom and the Supreme Court that effectively answers some of the aggressive Christian nationalist notions of the contemporary dominionist movement.

The death of Foy Valentine on the day before Justice Sunday is a sad reminder of how far the current leaders of the Baptist faith have strayed from their historic commitment to the principle of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. Foy Valentine was a past president of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a board member of the Interfaith Alliance and from 1960 to 1987 held the Christian Ethics position in the Southern Baptist Convention that Richard Land holds today. Last fall, Valentine was honored for his contribution to religious freedom. Some excerpts from his remarks at the awards ceremony:

The legal proposal known as the "unitary executive" is much in the news. President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, argued for it in November 2000 at a panel sponsored by the rightwing Federalist Society. The proposal, as Walter Shapiro summarized it in Salon.com, argues that "every part of the executive branch (including regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and, yes, independent counsels like Kenneth Starr) should be legally under the control of the president."

The media too seldom notes the synergy between the religious right's current desire for codified Christianization of The United States and an imperial presidency. That synergy is very important; it is a threat to liberty and a reason why both the unitary executive concept in general and Samuel Alito's nomination in particular should be opposed by progressives and anyone concerned about the power and influence of the religious right on the republic and American culture.

Dominionist leaders who organized "Justice Sunday III" in Philadelphia on January 8, 2006 -- the eve of confirmation hearings on Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr.'s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court -- revealed an ignorance of the Bible, and a disrespect for American history, by attempting to hijack the Liberty Bell as the symbol for their partisan political rally. Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, which organized and cosponsored the event in the state where Alito sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, made clear that the event's tagline, "Proclaiming Liberty Throughout the Land," is based on a quote from Leviticus 25:10. Perkins pointed out that part of this Old Testament verse appears on the Liberty Bell. And another featured speaker, Dr. Alveda C. King, cited the same verse in support of "the expression of religious freedom." She added, "The lives of all people, including the lives of the unborn, are caught up in the battle for religious freedom with us." As she spoke, an additional citation of Leviticus 25:10 crawled across the screen, echoing that the passage is "inscribed [sic] on the Liberty Bell."

However, this use of Leviticus does not ring true. In fact, the Old Testament text, which is cast in raised letters (not inscribed) on the Liberty Bell does not speak of religious liberty, nor does it endorse the imposition of one's private religious beliefs on a democratic society. Rather, Leviticus 25 presents a code of conduct that prohibits followers of God from depleting natural resources and oppressing the poor.

So this passage is not speaking of the unrestrained "freedom" to impose one's narrow biblical interpretation on other citizens, but of a duty to preserve the land as a natural resource, and of freedom from economic oppression by fellow people of faith. The "liberty" that is being proclaimed in Leviticus 25:10 refers to a Year of Jubilee, a period of rest for the land and release for the people who live on it, including the emancipation of Israelites who were bonded servants. During this year, the land was to lie fallow, and Israelites were to release each other from unpayable debts, so that they could all return to their ancestral lands.

Max Blumenthal and Esther Kaplan are doing an excellent job of writing about the upcoming Justice Sunday III. They are focusing on the the participation of African-American ministers and how that raises all sorts of disturbing red flags. Southern Baptists in particular have been heavily courting the participation of African-Americans. To get some insight into how Southern Baptists are trying to distort the meaning of the the civil rights movement, I'll quote from the work of Russell Moore. Russell Moore holds a key position in the most important seminary in the Southern Baptist Convention.

"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others... are known to have left-wing associations. It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed"         --Scheduled Justice Sunday III speaker Rev. Jerry Falwell

"I want to boldly affirm Uncle Tom. The black community must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model."                       --Scheduled Justice Sunday III speaker Rev. Wellington Boone

A group of three ministers who have a history of advocating that the Ten Commandments should trump the U.S. Constitution have told the Wall Street Journal that they entered an unlocked Senate hearing room  in order to anoint with oil the chairs that will be used for the confirmation hearing next week of Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington. He was accompanied by Rev. Pat Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Grace Nwachukwu, general manager of a group called Faith and Action, of which Rev. Schenck is president and co-founder. Rev. Schenck, Rev. Mahoney, and Rev. Nwachukwu spearhead the National Ten Commandments Project, launched in 1996, and claim to have distributed more than 400 plaques of various sizes that can be seen in offices throughout the Capital.

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This administration has gained a reputation for its pledge to replace "activist judges" on the Supreme Court with "strict constructionists." Supposedly, "strict constructionists" will interpret the constitution "strictly." Among the list of possible nominees were Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, and John Ashcroft.

Recent disclosures about the President's authorization of illegal wiretaps have revealed that these supposedly "strict constructionists" have all been "activist advisors" who secretly granted the President extra-constitutional and extra-legal powers.

Before the last national election, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, was front and center in the Religious Right's drive to herd their sheep to the polls to vote their "values."

After the President was re-elected, Land was in the forefront of those receiving credit for helping swing the election to Bush.  He was among a select group of religious leaders who consulted with the White House on a weekly basis.

When Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, installed a two-and-one-half-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse in Montgomery in July of 2001, he knew it was a deeply symbolic act. He was saying that God's laws are the foundation of the nation; and of all our laws. Or at least, they ought to be. The monument (wags call it "Roy's rock") was installed under cover of night - but Moore had a camera crew from Rev. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries on hand to record the historic event. Kennedy then sold videos of the installation as a fundraiser for Moore's legal defense.

They knew he would need it.

The story of Roy's rock epitomizes the rise of what many are calling "dominionism." It is a story of how notions of "Biblical law" as an alternative to traditional, secular ideas of constitutional law are edging into mainstream American politics.

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State has just released a 22 page report (pdf) detailing why the organization believes Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito would be a threat to established church/state jurisprudence.

Below are some quotes from three recent articles about Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge who is running for Governor of Alabama.  The first article is an editorial in The Decatur Daily. The second article is written by J. L. Chestnut, Jr., a civil rights attorney in Selma, Alabama. The third article is from the Montgomery Advertiser.

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If you oppose the Bush administration's latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, does that make you "anti-God"? Apparently so, at least according to a coalition of conservative Christian groups which is supporting the Bush administration's latest Supreme Court nominee. The coalition has backed a strategic communications plan to portray individuals and groups who oppose President George W. Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to the U.S. Supreme Court as being "anti-God," according to a Washington Post report. But those Christian leaders apparently did not get around to reading what the United States Constitution says -- or even what the Bible says -- about respecting minority viewpoints, holding the powerful and the dominant culture accountable, and judging everyone fairly, regardless of their private religious beliefs.

Here at Talk to Action, we want to hear stories of successes -- and defeats -- in addition to the wonderful reporting and analysis for which the site is already becoming known. We have much to learn from the stories of our struggles. And in this case, much to celebrate as well: a memorable and heartening victory -- as well as a great activist, and a warm and wonderful human being.  So in that sprit, I invited my old friend Jerry Sloan to tell us about how he won a important battle with Jerry Falwell -- not so long ago, and not so far away, in Sacramento. -- Frederick Clarkson

Although it happened over 20 years ago almost everywhere I go people still ask me to tell them about my confrontation and lawsuit with my former Baptist Bible College schoolmate, Jerry Falwell....

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The Christian Right forever claims that our nation was founded on biblical principles to be a Christian nation.

But if America was founded as a Christian nation, the Christian Right of Thomas Jefferson's and George Washington's day would not have blasted the U.S. Constitution and its creators.

But they did.

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Hello, I'm Susan Jacoby. My most recent book is Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. I'm also one of the writers represented in Mother Jones' special issue on the religious right. My contribution to that issue, "The Great Debate of our Season," focuses on why the framers made a conscious decision to leave God out of the Constitution. But as I examined the history of the Constitution, I was quickly drawn to our more recent history and Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent on the Ten Commandments cases:

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I'm John Sugg, senior editor for CL Media, which owns alternative newspapers in Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte and Sarasota. It's hard to ignore the Christian fundamentalists when you live in the South. They're as thick as kudzu. But
it was a series I wrote on capital punishment that brought me face to face with the reality of the Christian Right's agenda. Underneath the surface debate over the means of execution was a story about establishing an Old Testament theocracy in American.

Another big day for the American Center for Law and Justice is at hand. ACLJ is the religious right legal advocacy organization started by Christian Coalition's Pat Robertson.  On November 30, ACLJ has a role in two cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.  Jay Sekulow, ACLJ's Chief Counsel, represents anti-abortion protestors from Operation Rescue in one case.  ACLJ also filed a brief in another case, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New Hampshire, an abortion case that could virtually undo Roe v. Wade, as I described in an article on Women's eNews. Add ACLJ to the legal mobilization described by Michelle Goldberg and you quickly have a picture of a powerful prong of the religious right that is increasingly using its well-funded legal advocacy to advance the goals of dominionism.