The Liberal Patriot
God Is Not A Politician
By: J.G. Schwam - 07/24/03
Pat Robertson has announced a call for a national month of prayer to pray
for the retirement of the three current Supreme Court justices that have not
fallen into lockstep behind Bush's mission to use the court to remake
America into a nation who's policies and laws are interpreted and driven by
his right wing vision of a America as theocratic republic.
To anyone who sees prayer as force for personal redemption and spiritual
growth, Robertson's perturbation of this philosophy is patently absurd, not
to mention bordering on offensive. He is politicizing prayer. Frankly it is
doubtful that God gives a darn about our petty American political squabbles.
Basically his call seems more like a Saturday Night Live sketch than a
fatwah that is anything other than hilarious.
Robertson contends that the Supreme Court can change the moral fiber of our
nation through its rulings. No law can change an individuals "moral fiber".
Roe vs. Wade did not make abortion moral. It took morality out of the law.
It gave individuals the right to determine the morality of abortion, a
controversial personal decision since the Roman Empire, for themselves.
On January 20, 2002 Reverend C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance
issued a statement that clarified the supreme courts decision prohibiting
public prayer at public, public school events. Gaddy's statement put the
decision in practical terms. Dr. Gaddy wrote; "it is important for people to
understand that the decision is not a stand against religion. In the long
run, it is a decision that is favorable to religion because it protects the
integrity of religious acts and the freedom of individuals to participate or
not participate in religious practices. The essence of religion is free
will. When you force some to participate in prayer, some may do it with
religious integrity, but others might just endure it".
Despite Robertson's interpretation, the ruling made no mention of a
prohibition from an individual student saying grace before meals as Reverend
Robertson claims. It prohibited the organization and public practice of
groups sponsored by specific religious organizations on school grounds.
This decision is founded in reasoning similar to the debate currently in the
public forum regarding whether the boy scouts can require the acceptance of
certain religious principals as a requirement for membership and hold
meetings in public schools. The supreme court held that secular
organizations such as public schools cannot give credence to one religious
group or view over another and thus cannot condone such practices within
their doors. To do so does imply the dispensing of tacit acceptance of one
religious practice over another by a constitutionally secular public entity.
To attempt engage individuals to engage in private prayer in support of
partisan practices based on his goal to use legal or political practices to
influence public policy politicizes religious organizations. This is more
against the spirit of the first amendment than supreme courts goal in
rulings such as Roe v. Wade. The goal of the ruling is to take a legal
prohibition based on a religious interpretation out the law rather than
uphold the enforcement of law based on personal interpretations as the law
of the land.
Robertson creatively uses the following statement by Thomas Jefferson
justify his call for religious intervention in political processes; "You
seem to think that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of
constitutional interpretation, a very dangerous doctrine indeed and one that
would place us under the tyranny of an oligarchy."
Before Scalia and Thomas appear to have colluded in Florida the Supreme
Court had never abused its power and acted in an oligarchic manner. They
have more tended to shy away from interpretive statements it sees as
interpretable to benefit one party over the interests of the nation as a
whole. In fact Jefferson's statement above quoted by Robertson was made in
affront to the Federalist's attempts to beseech the supreme court to grant
financial preference to private interests in the interpretation of a debate
regarding interstate commercial laws taking place at that time.
Robertson is in fact promoting just the opposite. He expects the Supreme
Court to vote in favor of his goal of giving religious organizations
influence over the practice and charter of public organizations. To this end
he is attempting to engage his minions to do his partisan political bidding
through prayer. It is a shame that he sees his personal political and
ideological goals to violate the first amendment ahead of spiritual well
being of his congregants. It is disgraceful to ask them to use personal
prayers to attempt support political objectives, disrupt individual lives
and the machinations of a constitutionally secular government.
God is not a politician. It seems doubtful that God would support one
political ideology over another. That is of course if he would show up at a
designated venue to debate political policy with Mr. Robertson. If Mr.
Robertson could arrange a debate with God to clarify God's political
leanings on the United States Constitution he sure would sell a lot of
tickets.
J.G. Schwam is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant
Rev. C. Welton Gaddy's Statement on the Court Decision Banning Prayer at
Football Games
http://www.interfaithalliance.org/News/News.cfm?ID=4307&c=37
Robertson's Operation Supreme Court Freedom
http://www.patrobertson.com/PressReleases/supremecourt.asp
The views expressed herein are the writers' own
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