I’d like to report that there were a series of stunning surprises at yesterday’s “Justice Sunday III” gathering in Philadelphia, but I’m afraid it was predictable tirades from the usual suspects. If there was one theme that dominated the speeches, it was “hyperbole.”
* Rick Santorum said the elevation of Alito to the top court is crucial because “extremely liberal justices [are] destroying traditional morality.” The battle, he said, is against Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are determined to “continue the far left judicial activism on the Supreme Court.”
* Herb Lusk said, “My friends, don’t fool with the church because the church has buried a million critics. And those the church has not buried, the church has made funeral arrangement for.”
* Jerry Falwell had his unique brand of eloquence: “We were able to hold off Michael Moore and the folks in Hollywood, and most of the national media, and George Soros and the Kennedy crowd that fought so fiercely against the election of George Bush.”
* The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said, “We are not interested in creating a theocracy in America, we have no interest in a church state. What we want is a church that is free to speak the truth.” (He cited no examples of a church that is unable to speak the truth.)
* Don Feder of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation said, “If Christianity fails in America, if the left has its way, America as we know it will cease to exist.”
If you were able to sit through the whole thing yesterday without a) screaming; b) banging your head against a wall; or c) guzzling Maalox, you’re a stronger person than I am.