This story was reported in partnership with Type Investigations.
Never before has the Christian right been as elated about the prospects for transforming the federal judiciary as it is now, with the Senate engaged in the rapid-fire confirmation of judges nominated by President Donald Trump. As the confirmations mounted — 43 appellate and 99 trial court judges by the summer recess this year — Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell became the toast of such pivotal Christian right conferences as the Values Voters Summit and the Road to Majority, where the Faith and Freedom Coalition celebrated their role in seizing the federal judiciary back from what they see as activist liberal judges run amok. Senator Josh Hawley, the freshman Republican from Missouri whose first year in office has shown him to be a fierce defender of the president and a potential political heir, has said “we have never had a president in my lifetime who is this pro-life, this pro-family this pro-freedom, this pro-religious liberty.”
You want to see a state with no discernible church/state divide? Welcome to Utah where only 50% of the state is Mormon but the legislature is nearly 100% Mormon. Do they do what their church leaders tell them? Yes, yes they do. It’s disgusting.
This is not going to work the way they think it is. A bunch of lawsuits and pro-Jesus case law isn’t going to create a groundswell of support for a Christian government- people are going to push back because no one wants to be told what to do by the church.
Look, abortion and gay marriage are legal in IRELAND. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.
The irony is, is that three of the four Gospels has Christ commanding his followers to separate church and state. When I was 11 years old I saw that as a singular statement of divine wisdom. I was 11 years old. If an adult doesn’t get what that means it’s proof that she or he is a fraud. And it’s spoken like a command.
M. Scott Peck, M.D., says that humans are at their worst when they are least accountable for their actions. People who drape themselves in religiosity and then ignore its commandments are just using religion to avoid being held accountable for their actions. Which means they aren’t virtuous, even if they fully think they are, they’re evil.
I have no use for an institution or movement that claims a right to discriminate against some of God’s creatures. The idea of “hate the sin but love the sinner” enshrines hate. Period. That’s not my God.
Where is my freedom from ADF’s self-asserted religious wisdom? How can there be a country that rejects government oppression of religion, but tolerates religious oppression by ADF?
Wow! Great indepth revealing article. Needs to be reemphasized over and over. Trump was the end result of decades of conservative undermining of our democracy.
Justice Roberts is the face of this with his life long work undermining voting rights culminating with Citizens United and Shelby vs. Holder.
Yes, the American capitalist class is fundamentally conservative. The New Deal was a conscious response to the victory of the Russian Revolution in the context of the Great Depression, the rise of the American industrial working class and fear of communist revolution. Starting with WWII and the anti-communist witchunt, joined by labor leaders who’ve acted as lieutenants for business, a major section of the capitalist class has pushed to roll back even the modest reforms of the New Deal. While their efforts were temporarily waylaid in part by the Civil Rights movement and the the defeat in Vietnam, their efforts have picked up steam since then, aided by both Republicans and Democrats. It just took three attempts — Reagan, Bush Jr and now Trump - to get someone thoroughly reactionary in the White House to fully do their bidding. The attacks on “socialist” China now by leading Republicans and Democrats, under the guise of unfair competition — the U.S. should talk — with its collectivized economy and central planning, should be seen in that context.
Law and Economics was one of my favorite classes in graduate school (the only law school class I took, as it happens), because it seemed so ripe with possibilities to force polluters to cover the costs of their externalities. It would be fun indeed to make these reactionaries take their own medicine. (PS, I got an A in the class)
Useful information but check your facts! Bradley Foundation was created to honor LYNDE Bradley (died 1942), brother of Henry Bradley.
Now will someone do a dig into the history of creation of youth organizations to promote conservative thought and voters. Young America’s Foundation began circa 1960 as “Young Americans for Freedom”, active in California when I was then in college. C-Span occasionally broadcasts the ‘conventions’ of YAF and other similar groups. These organizations start the pipeline of some-day lawyers and journalists/broadcasters…
The conservatives have been up in arms since 1937, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish overruled Lochner v NY. Republicans have never liked the idea that economic “liberties” are only subject to rational basis review. Money has always been more important to them than people’s lives.
