EDITORIAL – Faith-based anti-filibuster campaign a bust

For many people, watching television on Sundays is meant to be a relaxing experience. There’re… For many people, watching television on Sundays is meant to be a relaxing experience. There’re cartoons, maybe a little televangelism, perhaps a football game or two. Most people don’t tune in Sundays to get the latest on judicial confirmations, as brought to viewers by the radical fringe.

But this Sunday, that’s what people channel-surfing are going to get. “Justice Sunday,” a telecast dedicated to addressing the judicial confirmation process, will broadcast to churches, the Internet and select networks. Sponsored by the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group, Justice Sunday preaches against the almost certain filibuster that will delay the Senate from confirming the president’s judicial nominees.

Calling this holdup a “filibuster against faith,” the group won the support of Senate Majority Bill Frist, R-Tenn. — everybody’s favorite anti-science doctor — who will speak during the telecast. The group also has the gall to compare its fight against the filibuster to civil rights activists’ fight against the filibuster — a revolting move, considering that those activists were fighting for basic human rights and these are fighting to get partisan judges approved.

Further exacerbating this already absurd programming, another group, the Judicial Confirmation Network, will broadcast ads accusing Democratic senators of supporting “arrogant judges” who “say child pornography is protected by the Constitution.”

Given that no court has ruled child pornography legal, these ads are a deliberate attempt to mislead viewers into associating judges and Ted Kennedy with pictures of naked children. Such political fearmongering has sadly become one of the main tactics of a small but fierce radical fringe, one whose influence is grossly disproportionate to its numbers.

Now, who sits on the judiciary is an important matter. Legislators on both sides of the aisle hoped the process of getting qualified jurists on federal courts would be a bit smoother than it has been.

But not confirming certain judges doesn’t mean that senators are against people of faith. In fact, bringing God into a debate about Senate procedure is insulting to the faithful. This is yet another instance of radical fringe groups equating opinions with which they don’t agree with godlessness.

Several non-Christian groups have already spoken against this telecast and ad campaign. As a statement released by the Reform Jewish Movement asserts, these organizations can’t pretend to have a monopoly on faith. There are millions of proud religious people — not just whackjob fundamentalists — in the United States who don’t resort to the sort of hate-breeding methods that these groups use.

Furthermore, these groups do not have a monopoly on conservatism, though the words “Christian right” and “Republican” are rapidly becoming synonymous. Plenty of people who want privatized social security don’t want to be on the God-powered spaceship these groups seem to be launching.

This sort of religious demagoguery is infecting our national discourse. Whoever thought that those who supported a filibuster would be accused of hating God?

Groups like the Family Research Council and the Judicial Confirmation Network are well within their rights to say whatever they want. Still, members of Congress shouldn’t indulge them, support them or glean political gains from them. Invoking God to get what you want is the dirtiest of dirty tricks. But then, who said anyone on Capitol Hill played fair?