1.California Gay Marriage Decision and McCain's Campaign
In the wake of the California Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling, religious right organizations from coast to coast are whipping out their "activist judges" talking points and launching campaigns to make gay marriage unconstitutional at the state and federal level. Even before the decision came down, the straight-talking John McCain was, as Jeffrey Toobin put it, blowing "a dog whistle for the right" -- employing carefully coded language in a speech about the evils of judges making decisions the right disagrees with.
The dogs started barking immediately. "The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench," complained the Concerned Women for America. "By bowing down to homosexual activists and the rebel city of San Francisco, the California Supreme Court has exchanged the rule of law for the rule of unbridled power to destroy all that is good and sacred," grumbled the Campaign for Children and Families, a California group that has helped collect the more than one million signatures needed to put a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to ban gay marriage before voters in November. Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice immediately spotted a fundraising opportunity.
The activists slamming the California decision also advocate for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- an effort they couldn't even muster enough support for when the Republicans had majorities in both houses of Congress. Renewal of this effort would be even more of a fool's errand should the Democrats -- as seems likely -- expand their current majority. But that doesn't mean the base isn't looking for contrition from McCain, who was one of the Republicans who refused to play along when they tried to ram the amendment through the Senate a few years ago. To rally religious conservatives in November, McCain needs to reassure them that, even though he thinks laws on gay marriage should be made at the state and not the federal level, he would never, ever nominate a Supreme Court justice who would make the sort of decision that those San Francisco-coddling justices in California did. McCain's speech is an affirmation of their Constitution-warping delusion that "elitist" judges are ruining America.
2. What Happened to the Evangelical Manifesto?
Remember the Evangelical Manifesto -- just two weeks old now -- and its aim to fight the stereotype that all evangelicals are singularly obsessed with abortion and gay marriage? The outcry over the California Supreme Court's decision, though, demonstrated that, in many evangelical quarters, opposing gay marriage remains a central political goal.
Even The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, one of the original signers of the Manifesto, was among the first to condemn the California decision. Rodriguez's California-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, claims to represent 18,000 congregations and 15 million Hispanic evangelicals and is at the forefront of advocating for a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. Rodriguez himself serves as an advisory board member to the Alliance for Marriage, which calls on both parties to include a plank in their platforms advocating for a federal gay marriage ban. Rodriguez, who has been critical of the religious right for its divisive political rhetoric, nonetheless blames gay marriage for many of America's social ills. "For several decades, America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration. Tragically, as bad as our current situation may be, today's decision by the Court can only make the situation dramatically worse."
David Gushee, another original signer of the Manifesto and professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta, is one of the few self-described centrist evangelicals who hasn't been speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In a column last month, Gushee called on evangelicals to renounce "political demagoguery in which homosexuals are scapegoated for our nation's social ills and used as tools for partisan politics." In the more recent piece, Gushee lays out competing narratives in the church about homosexuality which are "tearing churches and denominations apart here and around the world."
Gushee is in a good position to lead other evangelicals out of the wilderness of ignorance about homosexuality. Don't get me wrong -- it will be impossible to budge many old guard evangelicals from the view that homosexuality is irredeemable sin. But Gushee is a highly respected academic and rising star of an emerging evangelical center. He's relatively young -- in his mid-forties -- and can bridge the generation gap between the older hardliners and the younger, more accepting, evangelicals.
3. "Mr. Vice-President?" Has Russert Anointed Huckabee?
With rumors swirling that Mike Huckabee is on McCain's shortlist of potential running mates, Robert Novak attempted last week to throw some cold water on the idea by painting Huckabee and his supporters as the kind of Bible-thumping weirdoes who believe that a Barack Obama presidency is just what sinful America deserves from a wrathful God. When will these people stop asking God to damn America?
As it turns out, both Huckabee and the supporter Novak named, homeschooling guru Michael Farris, vehemently deny saying any such thing. Randy Brinson, a Huckabee supporter and founder of Redeem the Vote, suggested in an interview last week that perhaps Novak was angling to elevate his favorite, Mitt Romney, as the next standard-bearer of the Republican Party. Brinson said that "Republican elites" still don't understand how Huckabee appeals to the grassroots. Can you say class warfare?
Tim Russert agrees that Huckabee is a likely vice presidential pick for McCain. On Meet the Press on Sunday Russert repeatedly addressed Huckabee as "Mr. Vice-President." Huckabee treated it as a joke, but it's often difficult to judge what exactly he finds funny. While Huckabee admitted his "joke" about Obama dodging gunfire at the National Rifle Association convention was not funny at all, he does think that McCain's "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" line, was funny.
4.Conservative Evangelicals Enlist James Inhofe for Environmental Campaign. No, That's Not a Joke.
In a new initiative launched last week, a group of conservative Christian organizations that deny the role of human activity in global warming, call for helping the poor by advocating against environmental regulation. This coalition takes direct aim at the "creation care" movement -- a different coalition of evangelicals who advocate for environmental protection:
Some say that to be a good steward of God's creation, you must be convinced that global warming is likely to be catastrophic, that human activities caused most of the very slight warming of the last 150 years, and that stopping it requires drastic government action. But is all that true? And if not, what kind of impact would global warming policies have on the people who can afford it the least -- namely the poor here and around the world? It is because of crucial questions like these that our environmental stewardship must not be based on mere emotions, or media hype -- but on firm Biblical principles, and solid scientific and economic facts.
They can't be accused of not appreciating irony, though, because they've called their coalition of climate change deniers "We Get It!"
Instead of confirming that climate change does in fact endanger the least among us through catastrophic weather patterns, global food crises, debilitating medical impacts, and destruction of communities and life-sustaining plants and wildlife, the "We Get It!" crowd believes instead that "efforts to cut greenhouse gases hurt the poor. By making energy less affordable and accessible, mandatory emissions reductions would drive up the costs of consumer products, stifle economic growth, cost jobs, and impose especially harmful effects on the Earth's poorest people." Who knew?
But it's no surprise to hear this sort of nonsense coming from a coalition that includes groups that argued that environmentalists love abortion and environmentalism is unbiblical. And what else do you expect from a coalition endorsed by Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe, who has called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?"
5. Under the Radar: Ballot Amendments in Florida
The Miami Herald reports this week that all three presidential candidates have been campaigning in Florida (a futile gesture for one of them), a sign that the state once again will be close and hotly contested in the general election.
Two measures on the ballot in Florida could affect turnout among conservative Christian voters. The first is the proposed gay marriage ban, which may see a bump in interest given the California Supreme Court decision last week. The second, a set of two linked initiatives, would eliminate a ban on state funding of religious education that dates back to the 19th century and permit funding of vouchers for religious schools. The measure is on the ballot owing to a devious, behind the scenes power-grab by former Governor Jeb Bush, who stacked a state tax commission with loyalists dedicated to reinstituting his voucher program after it was declared unconstitutional by a Florida appellate court in 2006. (Those pesky activist judges, except when they make your brother president!)
Portrayed as a "religious freedom" initiative, the measure has the support of some of the same interest groups backing the gay marriage ban, including the Focus on the Family-affiliated Florida Family Policy Counsel. Church-state separation activists, teachers unions, and others will be advocating against it. But expect to hear a lot more diatribes from the religious right in Florida about how "activist judges" have been clouding up the Sunshine State.
Contact me at tapthefundamentalist AT gmail DOT com.
