Day: March 28, 2011

In 2008, John McCain sought and won the endorsement of megachurch pastor John Hagee. However, within months, McCain rejected the endorsement  principally because of unflattering remarks made by Hagee about Catholics. 
Now fast forward to 2011 and GOP candidate lookalike Newt Gingrich is courting Hagee’s congregation. Christian Post has the story:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke Sunday at a Texas megachurch where he railed against secularism and called for the defense of the nation’s Christian values.
Gingrich, who shows signs that he is interested in the GOP presidential nomination although he has yet to officially declare his candidacy, told thousands of conservative evangelical Christians at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, that liberal college professors and mainstream media are turning America into a godless society.
He called on evangelical voters to protect the nation’s Christian roots and its freedoms, citing prayers of past U.S. presidents and the Declaration of Independence.
“I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re (Gingrich’s grandchildren) my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American,” said Gingrich, according to Politico.

Hagee vowed never to support a candidate again after the McCain debacle and he may not do so. However, this does not stop Gingrich from seeking favor. Aren’t historians supposed to learn something from history?

Last Friday, Eugene Volokh analyzed Bryan Fischer’s claims about the First Amendment and found them wanting.  You’ll remember Mr. Fischer, I’m sure; I have written about his views a few times. Last week, Fischer said:

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment. 

By referring to non-Christian religious traditions as those to which liberty is extended by courtesy and not fundamental right, Fischer extends his vision much wider than ever before. I addressed Fischer’s claims here. A more authoritative legal source is Mr. Volokh who wrote:

Actually, both the First Amendment and the No Religious Test Clause of the original Constitution were quite deliberately written to cover all religions. Many state constitutions of the era did limit their protection to Protestants (New Jersey, North Carolina, and Vermont) or Christians (Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts). Some others (New Hampshire and South Carolina) provided for funding of Protestant or Christian teaching, or more broadly established Protestantism, but did not limit religious freedom protections or office-holding.
But the U.S. Constitution did not have any such limitation. James Iredell, later one of the first Justices of the Supreme Court, specifically defended the No Religious Test Clause on precisely these grounds:

I consider the clause under consideration as one of the strongest proofs that could be adduced, that it was the intention of those who formed this system to establish a general religious liberty in America…. 

But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened.

To get the rest of the good, read the remainder of the post at Volokh Conspiracy.

From Indianz.com

Press conference to announce settlement in Indian abuse suit
Friday, March 25, 2011
Filed Under: Law
A press conference is being held this morning to announce a $166.1 million settlement for victims of abuse by Jesuit priests on reservations in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
The Tamaki Law Firm filed the lawsuit in February 2009. It represents about 450 Indian victims, who suffered abuse from the 1940s through the 1990s in the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus.
“I kept the sexual molestation hidden in the dark, in my soul, for years and years. Finally, when I came forward and saw that others did too, it was as if the blanket that had hidden our secret was pulled off and we could move into the light again,” plaintiff Katherine Mendez, 53, a member of the Yakama Nation, said in a press release.
The press conference is scheduled to be held in Yakima, Washington, at 10am.

H/t – Gay Kingman, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

I asked the question, Is Bryan Fischer the New GOP Kingmaker?, in a January 19 post. Apparently, in Iowa, socially conservative GOP candidates believe they must pass through Fischer’s radio show on their way to a GOP victory. As I proposed here and here, this is lunacy and will come back to haunt the candidate that manages to prevail and win the nomination. In a more direct and entertaining manner, George Will advanced essentially the same argument, with Gingrich and Huckabee in focus. 
The left will hammer this home every chance they can. Case in point, this article from Mother Jones.

For GOP presidential hopefuls, its become necessary to court the crazy. Earlier today, Tim Murphy told you about Newt Gingrich’s remarks at an American Family Association forum in Iowa, where the former House Speaker—and likely Republican presidential contestant—lavished praise on Islamophobe conspiracy theorist David Barton.
But wait, there’s more: The Iowa Independent reports that Gingrich, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are scheduled to appear on Bryan Fischer’s radio show today. Fischer, the AFA’s issues director, has long been a leading basher of Muslims and gays and lesbians. He has said that inbreeding causes Muslims to be stupid and violent; he has equated gay sex with domestic terrorism; and he has claimed that Hitler and his stormtroopers were gay. Yesterday on his blog, Fischer wrote that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion does not apply to Islam:

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.

I addressed Fischer’s out-of-context quotes from Justice Joseph Story last week. Fischer cited the 19th century legal scholar to support his views of the First Amendment. However, considering Story’s views in the context of his massive commentary on the constitution revealed that there is no religious test for involvement in government and no intent of the framers to limit religious freedom to Christian denominations.
The MoJo writer forgot another group Fischer’s has had in his supremacist view – Native Americans. Maybe the GOP hopefuls think that Fischer is safe because he attacks Muslims and gays – two groups not high on the GOP constituent list. But Native Americans?
Circling back to Fischer’s comments about the First Amendment, Fischer would have to carry his thinking further and say that religious freedom does not apply to Jews, Buddhists, Latter Day Saints, etc. His reading of the First Amendment is dangerously flawed. John McCain initially courted the religious right through John Hagee during his election run in 2008 which failed miserably due to Hagee’s public statements on Catholics and more. Fischer is building up a treasure trove of such statements on a variety of groups which make Hagee look like a moderate.