Justice Sunday the Third
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Mon Nov 21, 2005 at 11:00:49 AM EST
Justice Sunday III has been moved from its original date of Dec. 4 to Jan. 8, the day before the Alito hearings are scheduled to begin.  The event will be held at an African-American megachurch in Philadelphia.

For those not aware, Justice Sunday is now a permanent piece of the religious right's arsenal in their war on the separation of church and state.  Combining their access to elite politicians and their vast media network, Justice Sunday's bring together a sampling of the religious right and congressional leaders like Sen. Bill Frist and Tom Delay, and call for Christian Americans to both pray and act to support judicial causes: the first regarded the nuclear option and the second called for support of conservative nominees to the court.
The event is then broadcast out over the many Christian TV and radio stations, reaching as many as "79 million homes."

In an interesting twist, both Frist and Delay were indicted on unrelated issues after their appearances with Tony Perkins and Co. This may explain the lack of information released to date on the events line up.

Maybe politicians are becoming aware of this emerging trend, or maybe Vice President Cheney is simply trying to finalize his schedule.

Stay tuned to www.DefConBlog.org for more info on JS III.

Or, for more information on the Justice Sunday fad check out PFAW's site with quotes from the first and second events.



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Justice Sunday the Third | 23 comments (23 topical, 0 hidden)
Aha, thank you...... (none / 0)
For the update. We'll be ready :

I'll be putting that event on the dynamic calendar ( an existent function just not turned on - this iteration of Scoop was developed, like CivicSpace, with political campaigns in mind  ) or static event list, if we chose to use that approach.  


by TTA Site Administration on Mon Nov 21, 2005 at 11:07:13 AM EST


And some friendly info for intel purposes (none / 0)
I've actually discovered what satellite network is responsible for covering the Justice Sunday stuff. It's a network called Sky Angel (which features dominionist-friendly-only programming including radio and TV satellite feeds of dominionist networks and stations-the particular dominionist group I walked away from is involved in it via Sky Angel carrying Voice of Hope Jerusalem (presently operated by High Adventure Ministries, which is a front group for the specific church I left); the only four secular channels carried at all on Sky Angel are Fox News, HGTV, Hallmark Channel, and Hallmark Movie Channel).

Sky Angel's parent company is Dominion Video Satellite (and no, I do NOT think the name is coincidental); Sky Angel does not appear to own any satellites itself but rather rents satellite space from Dish Network's EchoStar satellite system.

This listing gives one an example of the fun sorts of stuff produced by Sky Angel's partners-including, notably, both Justice Sunday broadcasts (so it's extremely likely Sky Angel will be carrying the third one, too). They're even kind enough to post interactive schedules on their website (and I, as a walkaway, am kind enough to post the link not requiring you to register with them :3) which are supposedly good two weeks in advance.

In fact, they're even nice enough to brag about their involvement in the previous Justice Sundays, down to reminding us all that they were carried on Angel Two (an in-house channel used by Sky Angel for their own original programming, just like your cable or satellite service has their in-house production channels).

Needless to say, we should DEFINITELY be able to find out some hard info on Justice Sunday III within about two weeks of the 8th, if only because they have to list it in their channel listings :3  (Unless they're REALLY going for stealth, in which case that's a good sign they're running scared from SOMETHING.)

By the way, do you have any intel on which specific megachurch in Philly is hosting Justice Sunday III?  (Among other things, there's some of us who'd like to do research on the church, and also to prepare to protest such electioneering.)

by dogemperor on Mon Nov 21, 2005 at 07:00:46 PM EST

Oh, but FRC slipped up in one place. (none / 0)
They've admitted the church it's going to be held at:

Greater Exodus Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. :3  

(per the article)

Greater Exodus seems to be affiliated with People for People (a group founded by a former NFL football player who became a pastor and who also was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes--a group occasionally associated with "stealth evangelism" including "stealth altar calls" at public schools), and IS a Baptist church (per this this document) and apparently has quite a history of political involvement including crossing the line to frank politisation at times:

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=9034
http://www.pewtrusts.com/news/news_subpage.cfm?content_item_id=301&content_type_id=13&page=n r2 (includes actually hosting Republican National Convention events at the church itself--a definite legal no-no)
http://www.priestsforlife.org/news/01-07-04bushjuly4.htm
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0031,dubya4,16951,6.html
http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2005/01/can-gop-count-on-black-religious-vote.html

One of People For People's pet projects is voucher programs--not surprising as they run a charter school (registered as a 501(c)3) and the organisation itself is also registered as a 501(c)3.

by dogemperor on Fri Dec 02, 2005 at 08:34:38 AM EST
Parent

And lest folks doubt that FCA is dominionist... (none / 0)
What I mean by "stealth altar call" is this:

a) Marketing a talk to a school as an "anti-drug" or "positive living" talk for schoolage children without being specific

b) Once it has been scheduled (and often made a mandatory assembly by the school), once the kids are loaded in...about halfway through the assembly, the "anti-drug" talk turns into a decidedly non-subtle altar call.

It's been so bad that a lot of these groups have been banned from "inspirational talks" at campuses because their talks inevitably degenerate into sectarian altar calls (and usually WITHOUT telling school authorities beforehand, who would NOT approve the assemblies otherwise).

As an aside, Fellowship of Christian Athletes is also known for blatant theocratising of school sports programs, too.  In many areas, people who are on any sports team face increasing pressure to convert and are subject to harassment from FCA and Athletes in Action members, in similar manner to how people at the US Air Force Academy report religiously-motivated harassment and discrimination at the hands of dominionists:

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/sports/13148117.htm
http://www.al.com/religion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1128935946194880.xml&coll=2 (notes direct links between FCA and USAFA religious coercion controversy)
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/y2k/gate_evan.htm
http://www.baptiststandard.com/2000/6_5/pages/highschool.html
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/127799.htm (more on links between FCA and USAFA religious coercion controversy)
http://www.beth-elsa.org/be_s1029.htm (notes how in one school all persons participating in athletics programs expected to participate in FCA fundraisers)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1525497/posts (commentary notes that at least one college football coach pressured students to join FCA)
http://urbansemiotic.com/2005/10/30/god-wanted-me-to-beat-you/ (notes specifically that in most instances coaches are leaders of FCA groups on high school and collegiate levels)
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=143633 (again noting in relation to USAFA controversy)
http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/110305/edfirstdown.html (noting again cases of coercion by FCA associated coaches in public school athletics programs)
http://www.aclu-md.org/aLegal/Legal.html (notes how ACLU of Maryland has had to sue to stop people in public school athletics programs from being coerced to join FCA)
http://www.pluralism.org/news/index.php?xref=Air+Force+and+Religious+Diversity&sort=DESC (again in relation to the USAFA controversy)
http://www.aclualabama.org/AboutUs/ACLUAL_70YearsOfService.pdf (notes how even as early as 1960's ACLU of Alabama had to sue to stop prosyletisation by FCA in public schools)

by dogemperor %%use