Robertson’s
Rage – There He Goes Again
People
For the American Way Foundation, July 8, 2003
Contact: Nathan Richter or Tracy Duckett
Email: tduckett@pfaw.org
Phone: (202) 467-4999
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=11422
Religious Right leader warns Supreme Court bringing wrath
of God on United States Televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat
Robertson has launched Operation Supreme Court Freedom, a campaign urging his
supporters to pray for changes in the Supreme Court to prevent America’s
destruction at the hands of a God provoked to wrath by the Court’s rulings.
The campaign appears to go hand-in-hand with redoubled
Religious Right efforts to ensure that President Bush appoint a justice in the
mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to any future vacancy on the High
Court.
“[T]here is a higher tribunal than the United States
Supreme Court,” says Robertson in a letter to supporters posted on the Web
site of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which has been promoting Operation
Supreme Court Freedom.
“There is the Judge of all the earth. We must earnestly
come before Him now and cry out for redress of our grievances. He loves
America as much as we do, and He does not wish to destroy it. But no culture
has ever endured which has turned openly to homosexuality. And no society has
ever been spared the wrath of God which has been guilty of slaughtering tens
of millions of the innocent.”
In the letter, Robertson criticizes the Supreme Court’s
recent decision overturning laws that criminalize private sexual conduct
between consenting adults, as well as earlier decisions on separation of
church and state, saying “we are under the tyranny of a nonelected
oligarchy” and complaining that justices “can change the moral fabric of
our nation.”
“Pat Robertson has a long list of people he holds
responsible for leading the nation to destruction,” said People For the
American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. “In the past, his list has
included everyone from feminists to Harry Potter. Now the Supreme Court has
landed at the top of Robertson’s list for a ruling that most fair-minded
Americans believe reflects the principles of common sense, fairness, and basic
respect for privacy.”
Robertson disagrees, and he wants God to weigh in. “One
justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and another has a heart
condition,” reads Robertson’s note. “Would it not be possible for God to
put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?
With their retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive
change in federal jurisprudence can take place.”
Robertson’s missive is only the latest in a series of
outraged reactions by right-wing leaders to recent Supreme Court decisions on
affirmative action and privacy. To read People For the American Way
Foundation’s recent Right Wing Watch Online report on more of that reaction.
The text of Robertson’s recent letter follows:
Dear Fellow American,
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of
Independence, wrote:
“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.”
How wise Jefferson was. Yet even Jefferson could not have
foreseen what the Supreme Court has done to the Constitution of the United
States since 1962. Just think what five unelected judges have done to our
nation’s moral framework.
-
In 1962, they ruled prayer out of the public schools.
-
In 1963, they ruled the Bible out of public schools.
-
In 1973, they applied a “right of privacy” not
found in the Constitution as the basis for opening the door to the
slaughter of more than 43,000,000 innocent unborn children.
-
Subsequent federal courts have ruled the Ten
Commandments were illegal in schools, that statues of Jesus were illegal
in public parks, that prayers on a map in North Carolina were illegal, and
that it was illegal for little elementary school children to give thanks
over their milk and cookies at snack time.
-
Now, the Supreme Court has declared a constitutional
right to consensual sodomy and, by the language in its decision, has
opened the door to homosexual marriages, bigamy, legalized prostitution,
and even incest.
The framers of our Constitution never intended anything
like this to take place in our land. Yet we seem to be helpless to do anything
about it. Why? Because we are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy.
Just think, five unelected men and women who serve for life can change the
moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected
legislators have wisely put in place.
But there is a higher tribunal than the United States
Supreme Court. There is the Judge of all the earth. We must earnestly come
before Him now and cry out for redress of our grievances. He loves America as
much as we do, and He does not wish to destroy it. But no culture has ever
endured which has turned openly to homosexuality. And no society has ever been
spared the wrath of God which has been guilty of slaughtering tens of millions
of the innocent.
In short, by its distorted reading of the religion clause
of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and its
“discovery” of emanations from the 14th Amendment called “penumbras,”
the Supreme Court is bringing upon this nation the wrath of God when the
precious liberties that we love so much may be taken away from all of us.
Would you join with me and many others in crying out to
our Lord to change the Court? If we fast and pray and earnestly seek God’s
face, then He will hear our prayer and give us relief.
One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and
another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in
the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire? With their
retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive change in
federal jurisprudence can take place.
We can have a court that no longer legislates from the
bench the wishes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, but which will
earnestly seek to interpret the Constitution as it is written and to give
meaning to the centuries of moral standards which have undergirded this
wonderful country called the United States of America.
Please join us in prayer to support a massive prayer
offensive that we are going to call Operation Supreme Court Freedom.
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things
are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
God bless you.
Yours in Christ,
Pat Robertson
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