Connecting D-Day to judicial nominations

June 7, 2005

I think it’s fair to say most reasonable people stopped taking the Christian Coalition seriously quite a while ago, but the group’s latest press release is too unbelievable not to share.

Roberta Combs, President of the Christian Coalition of America said, “The discrimination by left-wing Democrats of highly qualified conservative women to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals must stop. The brave American heroes who stormed the Normandy beaches — exactly 61 years ago today — did so to protect democratic ideals, and that includes on the floor of the United States Senate. Justice Janice Rogers Brown is a superb judicial nominee. She is the descendent of slaves and the daughter of sharecroppers from Alabama. Christian Coalition urges all Senators to end this discrimination and to vote for Justice Brown when her nomination comes up on the Senate floor this week.” Mrs. Combs’ deceased husband, Andy Combs, fought in World War II and in the Korean War.

Part of me, at first, suspected that some Coalition critic wrote this to make the group look silly. But then I realized that this is an organization that seriously believes there’s a connection between D-Day and the controversy surrounding Janice Rogers Brown’s judicial nomination. Honestly, I wish I could make something like this up.

Can anyone follow the logic here? Brown is the descendent of slaves and sharecroppers, which makes her a qualified nominee, which means troops risked their lives at Normandy so she could thwart a filibuster?

No wonder the Christian Coalition is no longer relevant. Even by religious right standards, its arguments are ridiculous.

The Christian Coalition may look ridiculous to some but to Pro-Choice women and gays, they are deeply concerning. The number of their initiatives and funding for forums and bigots across the country is truly astounding. Offshoot groups like the Institute for Religion in Democracy, are targeting progressive protestant groups. IRD’s officers include:
Ellen Bork (treasurer), the daughter of Robert Bork and deputy director of the Project for the New American Century;
Thomas Oden (chairman);
Diane Knippers (president). (deceased, recently)
Board members include: Fred Barnes (Weekly Standard editor), Richard J. Neuhaus (founder of Institute for Religion and Public Life), Michael Novak (American Enterprise Institute), George Weigel (Ethics and Public Policy Center), Carl Henry (Christianity Today), and James Neucherlein (First Things).
IRD shares board members with numerous neocon institutes such as Empower America, Project for the New American Century and Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. It is intricately interlinked with the Ethics and Public Center and the Institute for Religion and Public Life through common board members, including George Weigel, Michael Novak, Mary Ann Glendon, and John Neuhaus.
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/ird.php

Their budget for last year exceeded $2,000,000. Their targets include small rural churches, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and ecumenical groups.

While we laugh at the Christian Coalition, they, and their allies, are spending hundreds of millions on well orchestrated campaigns to repeat the success of the Southern Baptist Convention.

These campaigns are below the radar of the politcal left and extremely strategic.

Religious movements, like the Civil Rights Movement fueled liberal initiatives and contributed to the successful reign of the Democratic Party for decades. With the churches overtaken, there is little chance that this will lead a revival of progressive religious movements we so need today.

  • It’s fairly standard that the right is blatantly racist. Look at how many times Bush has brought up race in his arguments about Social Security, saying that the current system is unfair to Black people. I dunno how you read this, but to me, that looks like someone deliberately trying to drag race into a wholly unrelated topic (Especially since Black people who live to retirement age live just as long as their White counter-parts. What skews the numbers down is that so many Black men are prematurely killed. This topic is a serious issue, but has NOTHING to do with the Social Security debate), trying to create racial tension and friction… Hmmmmm, can we get him on Inciting a Riot?…
    I don’t laugh about the religious right. Sadly, even my parents have been taken in by their lies. I don’t know how many times I ended up hanging up the phone last year, having been parroted another religious right talking point from my parents- and these were life-long Democrats…
    In a nutshell, the First Amendment has some problems. Freedom of Speech does NOT mean freedom to spread lies. These organizations deliberately spread lies, then call “First Amendment!” every time someone calls them on it. We need to narrow the definition to “Truth”. Truth, of course, has many viewpoints, but at least something factually based can be debated. It is impossible to debate against a blatant lie.

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