Posted on 05/21/2005 12:56:29 PM PDT by RWR8189
May 20 - A Jewish friend after making her first trip to Israel said, “This would be a great place if they could figure out how to separate government and religion.” I was reminded of her sentiments this week as the U.S. Senate began debate on two of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, hostages in the ongoing culture war between born-again religionists and the more-or-less secular society the Founding Fathers envisioned.
When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist accuses Democrats who oppose Owen and Brown of wanting to “kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees,” he transforms political rhetoric into an apocalyptic vision that is better suited to Bible class than the floor of the Senate. What’s behind his passion is naked ambition. He wants to be president and he’s courting the religious right. The scary part is that this over-the-top wooing of God-obsessed Christians is embraced by a growing number of Republican senators, all apparently sincere in their religiosity and some, like Frist, with presidential aspirations.
Stripping Senate Democrats of their right to filibuster judicial nominees is a prelude to a broader assault on the judiciary known as “court stripping.” Alabama Republican Richard Shelby last year introduced The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 to acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law and threaten judges with impeachment should they uphold separation of church and state. Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore appeared with Shelby at the press conference announcing the legislation. Moore is now touring the country with the granite block depicting the Ten Commandments that he was ordered to remove from the state court house.
Shelby reintroduced the bill in March of this year when the Terri Schiavo case was in the headlines. His press secretary says the two events were unrelated, yet
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Oh, yeah right. Just wait
till Pallies run their own place!
Those Muslim statesmen
will show the whole world
how Islam can separate
State and God. Oh, wait . . .
They're getting frantic now. Throwing insults around is their way of "arguing" the issue.
Clift: "A Jewish friend after making her first trip to Israel said, “This would be a great place if they could figure out how to separate government and religion.” I was reminded of her sentiments this week as the U.S. Senate began debate on two of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, hostages in the ongoing culture war between born-again religionists and the more-or-less secular society the Founding Fathers envisioned."
TWIT.
1) They are hostages of a Democratic filibuster, nothing more and nothing less.
2) The Founding Fathers including "separation of church and state" quote-maker Thomas Jefferson ... WHO ATTENDED CHURCH IN THE HALLS OF CONGRESS WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT.
The founders did NOT want a 'more-or-less secular society'... they wanted a land of RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Such liberaty is under attack when being a person of faith is considered an 'extremist' position for a judicial nominee.
We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!
The scary part is this over-the-top HATRED by Democrats of people who may or may not be Christians, or hatred of conservatives who happen to be women and/or racial minorities
Maybe Eleanor Clift, in her infinite “Liberal” wisdom could enlighten the rest of us as to whether it is MORE or LESS a secular society. Sounds to me her lecture lacks any kind of conviction.
"secular society the Founding Fathers envisioned"
What ignorance! Why does newsweek pay this moron to write? What is her basis for claiming that the Founding Fathers wanted a "secular society". They wanted religious freedom rather than religion dictated by the state... that is NOT secularism.
Sounds like Newsweek just can't get enough of bad publicity!
Of course, the founding fathers envisioned no such thing. Such has been the evolution of liberalism: from the invention by Justice Black that the Constitution demanded a separation of Church from all things connected with governance, to the current delusional incantation that persecution of Christians is not only permitted, but obligatory.
I wonder if Christians who still cling to the Democrat Party of their heritage are paying attention?
"he’s courting the religious right."
I have still yet to hear a coherent definition of the term "religious right". The liberal media constantly uses it, but they've never explained who exactly they're referring to.
Aargh! That's the specialty of the left wing. Gay marriages, for instance, would have been unthinkable in her own childhood, eons ago.
Only rabid liberals, like Clift, could come up with a term like "court stripping" when Republican Senators suggest that the Senate follow what the Constitution says the Senate must do.
Because liberals have put all their political eggs in the judicial basket any constructionist judges appointed to the federal benches will force the left to either go through the Legislature for passage of its agenda or cease having any agenda at all.
"but if this bill passes, wouldn't it be religious rules enforced by the state?"
Huh? It's just a senate rule change to make it easier to confirm judges.
"if we are going to enforce religous law above civil law"
How does it do that?
"That is exactly what the 1st amendment is supposed to guard against."
Actually, the first amendment is supposed to guard against government restrictions on speech or exercise of religion.
Correction: NEWSWEAK.
-Regards, T.
I just read an article by America's #1 left-wing evangelical, Jim Wallis, who uses Bible quotes extensively to illustrate his contention that privatizing Social Security would be offensive to God.
Here:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050305H.shtml
Here's a guy who supports most of the Democratic Party agenda by using Scripture in exactly the way you shouldn't: to absolutize his conclusions without having to do the work of actually proving them.
If Eleanor Clift wants to make an argument against (for instance) the Shelby Constitution Restoration Act, she'll have to do better than (1) slamming its supporters as "Apocalyptic, god-obsessed Christians" and (2)conjuring up images of boards of rabbis controlling marriage law in Israel. She'll have to take the legislation apart and explain its provisions without exaggeration.
I doubt, for instance, that a law which restricts the U.S. Supreme Court's power to revolutionize family law, would remove civil government altogether from such questions. Hasn't she ever heard of state legislatures?
Religious people ---left and right--- are always going to use religious language to underscore their public values. That doesn't disqualify you from political participation. But neither does it exempt you from the hard work of framing arguments in terms of evidence, reason, and consequences.
Eleanor needs to go back and do her homework.
"...over-the-top wooing of God-obsessed Christians..."
If only those Christians would stop obsessing over God! What about a woman's right to choose? That's worth obsessing over!
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