op-ed for the LA Times<\/a>. Instead of explaining that he didn’t mean to suggest that harm should come to the justices, Robertson did the opposite — he reiterated why we should<\/i> pray that God remove three justices. In the process, he said a number of things that simply aren’t true.<\/p>\n“Americans are a patient and law-abiding people,” Robertson said. “But for too long we have watched as the justices on the nation’s highest court have legislated from the bench. These justices have taken what was to be our nation’s road map for the people — the U.S. Constitution — and turned it on its head.”<\/p>\n
So far, so good. This is standard religious right rhetoric. Judicial activism, ignoring constitutional traditions, yada, yada, yada.
\n
\nThen, however, Robertson started giving examples to support his thesis that a change is necessary.<\/p>\n
“In 1962, it ruled prayer out of the public schools.”<\/p>\n
True? Absolutely not. In 1962, in a case called Engel v. Vitale, the high court said public schools could not promote or endorse religion. The case dealt with a New York law that literally wrote a prayer for children to recite daily. The Supreme Court didn’t say kids can’t pray in school — they can and still do — it simply said schools had to remain neutral on religion. There’s a big difference.<\/p>\n
“In 1963, it ruled the Bible out of public schools.”<\/p>\n
Wrong again. In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled on a case called Abington Township School District v. Schempp, in which the court said public schools could not have school-sponsored Bible readings. Students are still free to bring Bibles to school, read religious texts during their free time, and even form after school Bible clubs. That’s hardly ruling “the Bible out” of schools.<\/p>\n
“Subsequent federal courts ruled that the Ten Commandments were illegal in schools, that statues of Jesus were illegal in public parks and that prayers on a map in North Carolina were illegal,” Robertson added. “They even ruled that it was illegal for little elementary schoolchildren to give thanks over their milk and cookies at snack time.”<\/p>\n
I’m guessing Robertson hasn’t read the Ten Commandments, otherwise he’d know it was morally wrong to bear false witness. The Ten Commandments are not illegal in schools, government promotion of the Commandments is. Again, there’s a big difference. If a student wants to put a copy of the Decalogue on his or her bookcover or notebook, that’s fine. They can also post a copy of the Commandments in their locker, wear a t-shirt with the Commandments, or hand out copies of the Commandments to fellow students. All that’s impermissible is schools promoting or endorsing religion. The law requires neutraily, not hostility.<\/p>\n
And as for the idea that the high court ruled that elementary schoolchildren can’t say grace, that’s a total lie. It never happened; Robertson just made this up.<\/p>\n
In any event, this entire op-ed is basically an argument that reinforces the same message Robertson delivered to his supporters over the last week — that fundamentalists should pray for the removal of three justices.<\/p>\n
“It is time for a change, and many thousands of Americans agree,” Robertson said. “That is why I am calling for a massive prayer offensive — Operation Supreme Court Freedom — to ask God to give us some relief.”<\/p>\n
He even repeated his “concerns” about some of the justices’ health problems.<\/p>\n
“As I have been quoted as saying, one justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition,” he wrote. “Is it not possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire? With their retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive change in federal jurisprudence could take place.”<\/p>\n
The man has no shame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Believe me, I’d love to stop writing about TV preacher Pat Robertson, but he keeps giving me more material and I just can’t help myself. Today, Robertson did his best to respond to the criticisms surrounding his “21-day prayer offensive,” which, as I mentioned yesterday, asks God to remove three Supreme Court justices so Bush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}