Dobson, Colson & Co Whine About Proposition 8 Stepping On Religious Liberty. Say WHAT?
James Dobson got together with his pals Chuck-the-felon Colson, lawyer Robert George and theology professor Timothy George to gnash over Judge Walker's ruling on Proposition 8.
When they were all done with their collective hand-wringing, they got down to the business of rallying the troops. Colson stepped up with the first round, claiming that this was really an opportunity because the Supreme Court will not defy the general will of the people.
COLSON: But let me say this. The gay rights movement has thus far avoided the federal courts and I think they've done so for a reason. And I think this could turn around and be a great opportunity for us because every one of the cases starting with Roe vs. Wade and the prayer in school decisions before that, there was a popular consensus behind the change that the Supreme Court made. This is the first one to come along since 1997 where there isn't a moral consensus in support of it. and...the Supreme Court has not ever handed down a decision which flew into the face and teeth of a strong moral consensus against it. They didn't do it in 1997 and this is where our opportunity comes from.
Having laid the ground work (and mangling all logical thought in the process), he then reveals the corner of a strategy:
I don't think if we build a real groundswell of opinion now over the next several months that the Supreme Court will rule in supporting what happened in California two days ago. I don't believe it. I believe that this is an opportunity we have to build a groundswell of support that will cause the Supreme Court not to legalize gay marriage.
As Right Wing Watch noted, it appears that the strategy is going to be to simply stomp their feet and say NO! We won't tolerate it.
They spent a great deal of time chewing on this, with Dobson weighing in with his deep, deep concerns that people won't rise up. But of course, they came up with a plan for that, based on their database of signators to the Manhattan Declaration -- a somewhat creepy document declaring support for the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty.
Robert George weighs in on the strategy thus:
Chuck Colson's right! It might very well depend on whether we make clear to the justices that the redefinition of marriage, uh, the destruction of the historic understanding of marriage as the union of one man and woman simply will not be accepted by us, we the people, as legitimate.
Did you hear THAT, people? It simply. will. not. be. accepted. by us. The people.
Yeah, right.
Now the interesting thing here is that in the days when Loving vs. Virginia was moving through the courts, more people viewed interracial marriage as an abomination than the number who view gay marriage in that light.
Via The Moderate Voice:
The take away message is clear: in 1968 Gallup found that 73% “disapproved” of interracial marriage with 20% “approving.” By contrast 30% say they support gay marriage and 28% civil unions.
And yet, the court ruled very clearly against popular opinion, because the issues at stake here are not moral issues. They are constitutional issues that hit right at the heart of the core principles of our country. We did not fight a bloody Civil War to come out on the other side of it agreeing to discriminate against another group in our society and more fundamentally, strip away their basic rights.
There are some actual thinking Christians in this country who view the crusade against gays and gay marriage as more of an abomination than anything we could dream up. Those pastors and thinkers have chosen NOT to sign the Manhattan Declaration. But never fear, this little cabal has already got a way to get them fired up too.
GEORGE: Christians have to recognize that the logic of Judge Walker's opinion not only undermines the institution of marriage but it also jeopardizes our religious liberty. Under the logic of the Walker opinion in this case, the fact that someone holds a view not he basis of his religious faith essentially disqualifies that view as a basis for public policy. So your vote as an American is in part shaped by your faith, perhaps your faith in the equality of all human beings and civil rights and so forth, under Judge Walker's reasoning, that vote is illegitimate and policy put into place as a result of that vote can be invalidated.
Oh noes! Your vote doesn't count! Quick, call out the teabag police, we can't have THAT.
Toward the end, there was one truth spoken by Timothy George:
This ruling gets to the heart of who we are as human beings. What kind of lives we want to have, what kind of society we want to have.
That's right, it does. It forces each and every one of us to ask ourselves whether we're comfortable with the idea of enjoying our rights to choose whom we wish to marry and building a life with them while not only excluding an entire class of citizens, but actually stripping them of their rights.
So the strategy goes this way: Stoke up a lot of fear about lost liberties in an effort to strip liberties away from others in our country. Allrighty then. Sounds like injustice to me, not justice, and certainly not "liberty for all."
Their liberty? How does this ruling hinder their relationships with pale young boys?
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
The gay rights movement has thus far avoided the federal courts
Judge Walker is a federal judge. Your "thus far" is now over.
is the mantle the Esteemed Judge Walker has ascended
and our fight has just yet begun
is a great sentiment! But it requires much of all of us!
So into the breach we've gone, called to this cause of freedom. Equal protection under the law has finally been distilled so simply. EVERY one of us EVERY DAY has an opportunity to engage, even confront those among us who would now profess, or endeavor, or justify or explain how these rights can ever again be restricted. Walker articulates it simply that these friends among us already OWN these rights, like we all do.
Such a watershed moment DEMANDS WE CONFRONT those who would perpetuate the lie that these rights do not exist, that loving people can ever be constrained from marrying their fortunes together, gender and God be damned, and it would only be lying to ourselves to continue to let lay such a Great Lie.
Quoting Walker, "That time has passed."
Scalia will have some 'splainin' to do
your name's Lebowski, Lebowski... and your wife is Bunny
As a blog I read says, the constitution prevents you from having freedom to take someone else's freedom away.
does the Supreme Court listen to public opinion when making a ruling?
If it does, it clearly shouldn't.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
the corporations.
Absent the precedent... I think the 14th allowed that view?
Study the symptoms not the virus...
*required viewing*
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
good one ron.
"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." - Hunter S. Thompson
Liars for jesus.
These old white freaks crack me up.
That didn't work so well for Al gore when the people told the world that we wanted Gore to be president.
Not just over time (as noted by the discussion about interracial marriage), but also in the public eye or out of it. Many of the people screaming about morals are the same folks who perform immoral acts if they think nobody's looking. The religious "name brands" are at least as guilty of this as the politicians.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
Like Teddy "speed boy" Haggard???? Hahahahahahahaa
most.
count on it, those who rail the loudest against a supposed or actual perversion are those most likely to be involved in such.
I remember reading Dobson's book on parenting, and his story about how men should allow their sons to shower with them so they can identify their penises. He said he did that with his son, Ryan.
Ryan sports the punk-rocker look and looks like he disagrees with most of what he was taught by Daddy Dearest.
What is the Religious Right's facination with the LGBT community and sex?
I remember throwing up in my mouth and relaying that story to my mom, who said that any preacher teaching their children that shyt should be reported to the Church Board and fired, and that if my father had ever suggested doing such a thing with my brothers, she would have castrated him before Lorena Bobbitt became famous.
I wonder if Dobson took these assholes into the shower afterward and showed them his manhood.
Dear god, please protect me from those who believe in you.
the ones who claim to believe in God but don't bother to listen to him. They're not all this way. It's just that the ones who get the attention seem to be.
If God, (or Jesus himself) appeared to Dobson and told him that the 'prosperity gospel' is bullshit, and no adherents to the Christian faith (Catholic or Protestant) may hold any more wealth than Jesus personally did, Dobson would convert in a heartbeat. ;o}
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
even if Jesus presented sterling credentials.
He'd probably be pissed that Jesus showed up before Dobson wanted Him to.
"the Supreme Court has not ever handed down a decision which flew into the face and teeth of a strong moral consensus against it. They didn't do it in 1997 and this is where our opportunity comes from".
Did I not understand this or is he saying that they don't think there is moral consensus against abortion?
Diane
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1878/1878_0
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Now, just who is stepping on who's religious liberty?
Idiots.
The Republicans are insane.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
is in their DNA.
Judge Crabb’s Hate Mail on National Day of Prayer
Hear what Shirley Dobson has to say about Judge Crabb’s ruling here... starting around the 06:30 mark.
There are sections to the constitution many of the fundamentalists have a problem understanding and or dislike with a passion. ;)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
The bible, parenthetically, has some pretty positive things to say about slavery.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Like what ?
A slave must be subservient to his master. How is that?
Candideinnc
Dobson is a fraud but a wealthy fraud thanks to a lot of simpletons to whom logic and reason is a sin apparently .
The court in this most recent decision did not say that the moral argument against gay marriage was right or wrong, relevant or not. It said it was insufficient to excuse discrimination, and that in order for there to be discrimination against gays on this matter, the people opposing gay marriage had to prove that there was a clear practical benefit to the state for such a practice. This is where the proponents of Prop 8 fell down. The state cannot demonstrate any rational excuse why the discrimination should take place.
Candideinnc
Mr. Dobson, when you say "We, the people," you are leaving me out. I am a part of this "We." I pay taxes, care for my parents, love my neighbor, vote, and hopefully practice what most people call Christian values--which are definitely different than your values.
Candideinnc
Or does the rule of law not matter to them? The judge soundly and decisively exposed the "expert" witnesses for the proponents of Prop 8 as the charlatans that they are. If this is the best that the all the "lawyers" that have been graduated from Liberty University can do, this issue is done, finished, closed. We do not put Constitutional rights to a vote. If we did, black people and white people would still not be able to marry in 36 states, blacks and whites would still be attending separate schools, and married women still wouldn't be allowed to own property.
If they did, they would know that a Federal Judge overturned Prop 8; and that if the Supreme Court wants to take it up, there's three women on the bench and one or two justices that might side with them (Kennedy and Souter).
They like the Constitution when they can use it for their own purposes.
It was true—by then Schenck had realized that there was a quicker path to power. He had begun praying in Washington with a rising star in the Senate from Missouri, John Ashcroft. He took to riding what he called the "vertical chapel"—the elevators of congressional office buildings—hoping to bump into more catches like Ashcroft. Instead, he kept running into members of the Family, on their way to meetings not just with fundamentalist fellow travelers such as Ashcroft but the entire spectrum of the political elite. "The mystique of the Fellowship," Schenck observed, "has allowed it to gain entree into almost impossible places in the capital." (p. 258)
Schenck found a donor to buy him a town house across from the Supreme Court, where he began practicing a Coe-style ministry to judiciary staffers. In 2000, he prayed with Justice Antonin Scalia a day after the Supreme Court decision that made Bush president, and since 2001, Schenck has been able to penetrate the White House with ease, counseling staffers on their spiritual responsibilities. He does the same for congressmen in the quiet garden behind his town house, and fundamentalist activists from the provinces make Schenck's HQ a regular stop on their pilgrimages to power. But he's still, by his own admission, third tier. He remains an outsider with inside connections. (pp. 258-259)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
...As such, he has become a sharp study of how the power he wants actually flows. In the first rank of fundamentalist influence, there are the old lions: James Dobson and Focus on the Family; Pat Robertson, batty but too rich to ignore; Chuck Colson, the "scholar in residence" in the house of fundamentalism. "Then you have the B list," which is comprised of dozens of mid-sized organizations with big membership rolls but little name recognition outside activist circles: American Values, led by Gary Bauer, a former top Reagan aide who worked with the Family in the 1980s; and the Traditional Values Coalition, led by Louis P. Sheldon, a longtime Family ally who uses their C Street House for "faith-based diplomacy" in the fight against what he calls the "Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition"—a clumsy coinage that marks him as too crass for the Family's inner circle.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
I always hear this same kind of crap from religious people: That I, an athiest (for lack of a better word), should be respectful of their beliefs while they do not have to be respectful of anyone else because they have some kind of moral high ground to look down upon us "lesser" people.
This is exactly why I reject all oranized religion...shouldn't your relationship with your maker be a very personal thing? how do you do it as a group?
The Fundamentalist's View of Atheists...
A minister railing against Atheists from the pulpit can he entertaining if you listen for the virus. On many occasions, I have heard ministers use demeaning and sarcastic terms to refer to Atheists, attacking anyone who could possibly believe in evolution, stem cell research, the big bang, geological time and so on.
Never do they attempt to discuss the scientific underpinnings of these concepts. They don't need to. Those listening have had that part of their brain infected by the virus, so no logic or science will penetrate. It is a perfect defense for the virus. In addition, it also creates an emotional window through which the vector can pour viral ideas. Here are some direct quotes from recent evangelical sermons.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
They do all things in His name but the things they are doing are exactly opposite of what he would say. They are opposed to love. Unless it's santioned by them and their choices of faiths then we should all just forget it. If you believe them, there would be no gays because if children are born into one man-one woman families they will never be gay. They say same sex couple would raise children who become gay (always) and on the same note they don't think any child should be loved without their express approval.
Just some, and unfortunately they have the microphone.
As Candideinnc says, one underpinning of this decision is that moral consensus by itself cannot justify the state denying individual rights. Laws must be based on actual benefit or harm, which takes religion out of the mix.
"So what is the justification for this [anti-sodomy] statute, other than ... I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell." -- Breyer in Lawrence v. Texas
themselves cruelly oppressed if they aren't allowed to cruelly oppress women and the GLBT community.
I've never seen change without a fire
I’ve always been amused at Dobson’s constant demagoguery regarding the crisis de jour. He’s been prattling on like this for 30 years.
Given his ability to come down on wrong side of virtually every moral issue throughout that whole period, he had better hope his vision of a righteous creator, sitting in judgment of his moral choices, is only a mythical fantasy.
Glomming Civil and religious marriage together as the same thing makes any discussion utter nonsense and there no way for it to not be nonsense because it is predicated on a false presumption.
That said the Roberts Court just made corporations human beings, which is also predicated on a false presumption that a business and a flesh and blood being are the same thing.
So who knows what they will do.
"made corporations human beings"
I think the fourteenth amendment did that.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
"Don’t let the word church mislead you. This isn’t a church, it’s a cult. They don’t even believe in God. They worship the God of Secularism These sick people aren’t Liberals, they’re Ultra-Liberals. This is a collection of sicko’s, weirdo’s, + homo’s..." --Sincerely, Jim David Adkisson
[I put quotation marks on in edit so that others would know you're quoting a guy who shot up a Unitarian Universalist church. Site Monitor]
Study the symptoms not the virus...
So the Supreme Court is nothing more than a national survey? You don't have to be a lawyer, or even a high school grad to do this. Then why do we waste money on the Supreme Court? Just hire a poll-taker.
At what point are Americans going to stand up and say, "We won't be bullied by authoritarians like you anymore. You don't have to like that not everything revolves around you're religion, but you have to accept it."
There are people who will accept and even crave authoritarians like Dobson. But that doesn't mean they have the means to control the Supreme Court. Judge Walker's opinion was clear and based on sound logic. They're still resorting to "we don't like it" as their core argument. That one is bankrupt. And...Thomas should recuse himself based on Teabag Ginni's remarks to Cavuto.
The right's arguments in opposition to the Propostion 8 opinion get more and more bizarre with each passing day.
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