Profile of Sekulow Confirms He Picked Chief Justice Roberts
DonByrd printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri Sep 07, 2007 at 02:38:40 PM EST
A recent feature in the Chicago Tribune profiled the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and its head counsel, Jay Sekulow. The ACLJ -- Pat Robertson's answer to the ACLU -- is an advocacy group that cares only about one half of the First Amendment's religious freedom protections: the free exercise half, which they pursue very much as if there is no Establishment Clause offering balance.

There is plenty to learn in the piece about the booming business that is conservative Christian legal advocacy, but I was most  interested to see that Robertson wasn't just blowing smoke when he claimed Sekulow and the ACLJ "put together" the Supreme Court nominee list that President Bush used to pick Chief Justice John Roberts.  Read on for quotes...

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[I]n recent years Sekulow has achieved a significant measure of political influence; he is consulted by the Bush administration on the choice of judges.

"He is, I think, more responsible than any other person for John Roberts being chief justice," said Peter Irons, a constitutional scholar, civil liberties lawyer and author of the recently published "God On Trial: Dispatches From America's Religious Battlefields."

Sekulow said he was invited soon after President Bush took office to join what came to be called "the four horsemen." The group, which also included former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese, was formed "to be a kind of outside counsel on the judicial nomination issues, particularly the Supreme Court," Sekulow said.

It's easy for some to assume that Bush's nods to the religious right are a matter of lip service over substance. But on matters of Supreme Court nominees, for one, it is clear that the President did more than that.

From evangelism at the Pentagon to the selection of judicial appointments, it is increasingly obvious that the conservative Christian, Establishment-Clause-hating influence on our nation's executive branch is in fact very real.




Display:
...is a first-rate journalist and constitutional scholar. His newest book - God on Trial - accomplishes an impressive feat in church-state reporting: recommendations by both Sekulow and Rev. Barry Lynn on the jacket.

by DonByrd on Fri Sep 07, 2007 at 02:43:24 PM EST
I just finished reading it this week, and it is indeed an excellent book.  Buy it, it now!

Plus, here is an interview about his book that Irons did on the Center for Inquiry's podcast, Point of Inquiry.

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"I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair" - JFK, Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
by hardindr on Fri Sep 07, 2007 at 09:12:04 PM EST
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