DriveThru – Get What You Need

Lyle Denniston, veteran Supreme Court watcher and reporter, thinks the Brown victory last night in Massachusetts might just derail President Obama’s attempts to replace the possibly-retiring John Paul Stevens with another die-hard liberal:

Even putting aside the November outlook, the next ten months in the Senate may bring an increase in partisan rancor, and a rising timidity even among some Democrats about taking risks to support an agenda that now seems politically tarnished.  And, while most legislative observers will be watching for signs of trouble for health care reform and energy legislation, the processing of nominees to the federal courts will be another arena of likely difficulty.

If the message from last night’s election is indeed that Americans really do not appreciate having radical social and economic policies rammed down their throats from Washington, then Denniston could be correct. There’s an easy example that comes to mind. If Americans sense that a liberal nominee would likely become a vote in favor of forcing same-sex marriage on the country by way of judicial fiat, then I expect that the political damage to the President for making such a nomination might make the Brown tsunami pale in comparison.

On the other hand, and using the Sotomayor confirmation hearings as an example, nominees are pretty adept at sounding like strict constructionists on all the right issues while condemning judicial activism. But it would seem that at least some potential nominees with liberal, pro-gay track records, like Chai Feldblum and Elena Kagan, have overnight become at least somewhat riskier potential nominees for Obama than they might otherwise have been.

If Stevens intends to retire at the end of the Court’s current term in June, he’ll probably announce that in a couple months, bringing this issue front and center only a few months before November’s general election. Then we’ll see if there’s been a “Brown-out” effect on the President’s nomination strategy.

On Friday afternoon, I was interviewed by Politico writer Josh Gerstein. He wanted to know why Focus on the Family Action was concerned about the following events: 1) President Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign; 2) President Obama’s nomination of Professor Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and 3) Kevin Jennings’ appointment to the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

While I appreciate his effort to include our perspective in the article, I was disappointed to see that he left out the main point: For us, this is about religious freedom.

Our top concern regarding all three of these events, I told Mr. Gerstein, is the erosion of religious liberty. Through these recent appointments—and through pledges made to the largest homosexual advocacy group in the nation—President Obama is pandering to activists who want to silence Christians, not only in the work realm, but in public education and political life in general.

This is very frightening to people of faith.

Let’s take the three events one at a time:

President Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign. Among other things, President Obama pledged to eradicate a federal law defending traditional marriage. We need only look to Massachusetts, the first state to legalize full-fledged gay marriage, to understand the threat this poses to both parental rights and religious freedoms. Parents in that state are now being told they can’t exempt their 2^nd graders from lessons about same-sex marriage—even if it conflicts with their most deeply held religious convictions.

The intolerance of same-sex marriage advocates was on display for all to see during the debate over California’s Prop. 8, which added wording to the state constitution defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Prop. 8 supporters were subjected to vehement blackballing and even physical attacks. Church buildings were defaced and some people lost their jobs because of their stance.

Nomination of Prof. Feldblum: The President also nominated Georgetown law professor Chai Feldblum to serve on a commission that enforces the nation’s federal employment laws. This is disturbing considering that Feldblum has repeatedly stated that when it comes to a conflict between religious liberty and homosexual activists’ goals (or “sexual liberty” as she terms it)—homosexual activists should win most of the time. This is not comforting to many faith-based business owners, such as Christian day-care operators who receive federal grants and don’t want to be forced to promote gay marriage to preschoolers.

Appointment of Kevin Jennings: I also pointed out to Mr. Gerstein that Kevin Jennings has publicly attacked a mainstream, Christian student group—Young Life. Not to mention his 17-year track record of twisting “safe schools” into a tool for pushing a one-sided agenda into public schools that displays no tolerance for Christian or socially conservative points of view.

The Politico article failed to give any coverage of these religious-freedom concerns, focusing instead on a detailed litany of  “civil rights” demands by homosexual activist groups. If you fall for the semantics—“prohibiting workplace discrimination,” “expanding gay rights”—in the article, this all sounds pretty innocuous.

But the untold story is the very real threat these policies pose to religious freedoms, which is made abundantly clear by the public statements of those pushing them.