Organized by the Family Research Council and cosponsored by Focus on the Family, Justice Sunday II was brimming with all sorts of what Mick Jaggger called “Sweet Neo Cons.”

From a podium appearance by Chuck Colson of Watergate fame to a video address by James Dobson of SpongeBob fame, the stage at Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville could barely hold all the neo-conmen (and women) who used arguments for civil rights to argue against civil rights, who used their version of “Christianity” to argue against the Gospels’ prime directive, and who then followed up after the event by using the Old Testament to justify and encourage global disaster.

With unabashed hypocrisy Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals said,

If we believe in civil liberties, we must speak out. If we believe that people have dignity, we must speak out. … Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us all – “All it takes is a God-intoxicated people, one generation, to alter the course of history from then on.”

A belief in “civil liberties” and a belief “that people have dignity”? Where are these beliefs when it comes to gay Americans and their families? The leaders and organizations of the Christian Right are notorious for vehemently opposing their civil liberties and adamantly refusing to acknowledge that their families and gay “people have dignity.” This is, of course, in direct opposition to the Gospels’ call to the faithful to dedicate themselves to creating a more ethical and just world, and to work toward assuring justice and equality for all “God’s children,” especially the socially disenfranchised.

Haggard was also neo-conning when he quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. out of context. The metaphor “God-intoxicated” has a long history in many belief systems. Among those most frequently called “God-intoxicated” was Sri Ramakrishna. Dr. King knew that, and the meaning of the metaphor. I doubt if Haggard did. He just seemed “intoxicated.”

The organizers, sponsors and participants of Justice Sunday II had good reason to get intoxicated. The event was a bust.

To be sure, there was the usual megalomaniacal rhetoric from James Dobson who yet again railed against “unelected, unaccountable, and arrogant” judges who didn’t rule as he told them to. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council chimed in with his brand of absurdity when he played the victim card and claimed “They’ve said that our children don't have a right to pray.”

Many of the other speakers also played the victim card, just as pathetically as Perkins. The American Prospect’s Rob Garver took note of that theme in his article “‘Megachurch’ Madness: The persecution of Christians in America and other themes of ‘Justice Sunday II’”:

In the imaginary world painted by the leaders of “Justice Sunday II,” conservative Christian Republicans may control the White House, the Congress, and several seats on the Supreme Court, but they remain oppressed and victimized. Speakers invoked Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Susan B. Anthony, all in service of the meme that Christians in America are being silenced, persecuted, and prevented from practicing their religion.

It was a Dorian Grey portrait of the event when the Christian Right felt “honored” that ethically-challenged Tom DeLay headlined Justice Sunday II. That picture was suitably framed by an Associated Press report:

Federal prosecutors are seeking [and got] bank fraud charges against lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a key figure in investigations involving House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. … The charges stem from the 2000 purchase by Abramoff and his partners of SunCruz Casinos and the alleged use of a fake wire transfer of $23 million aimed at influencing lenders to provide millions of dollars for the deal.

To their credit, even the “friendly” bloggers the Family Research Council brought in – at its expense – to cover the event acknowledged the fiasco. Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters reported

Cathy Cleaver Ruse [of the Family Research Council] also notes that courts have ‘enshrined homosexual activity’ as a constitutional right. I know I’m puzzled; is she arguing that we should outlaw homosexuality? If so, that's pretty darned dumb. … Footstomping over what two consenting unrelated adults do in a bedroom in terms of its legality plays into the worst stereotypes of this kind of rally. … However sympathetic I am to the main message, I have some reservations about the secondary messages. As a Christian, I also have some reservations about staging this in a church.

Beth Woodfin of Yeah Right Whatever duly worried that the JS II speakers were “hitting every single ‘negative’ stereotype out there” especially when it came to gay Americans, a tactic that brought into focus the “Christian” speakers’ own depraved bigotry and hatred.

Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost yawned “For many evangelicals, Justice Sunday II was a familiar song reinterpreted in an unfamiliar way. Some of the notes were in harmony with the gospel, others were discordant, and a few merely fell flat.”

Leon H. of RedState summarized what many thought after the event: “While the message of democracy through legislation is one that appeals to the center, it was presented in a format that almost certainly missed the center entirely. … I came away from this event puzzled a little by the point of it all.”

The point of it all was that JS II had no real point, but it did make one: the sour, fermenting neocon leaders of the evangelical Christian Right are alienating more and more people of faith, conscience and knowledge.

That was made clear a few days after JS II when James Dobson and Focus on the Family launched an attack on Christianity Today magazine. The reason was Andy Crouch’s article “Environmental Wager” that urged Christians to become concerned about and active in fighting global warming. Dobson and FOF believe global warming is “junk science,” despite the fact that virtually every reputable scientist in the world supports the idea. It’s hard not to given the overwhelming evidence. But Dobson’s bible-based environmental science is not new.

On October 8, 2004 Dobson and FOF issued their “Must Read Election Message”:

Three Focus on the Family executives – including founder and chairman Dr. James C. Dobson – have signed on to an open letter to the American people stressing the importance of relying on biblical values in selecting candidates on Election Day.

The sixth item on their list read, in part,

Natural resources: God put human beings on the earth to “subdue it” and to “have dominion” over the animals (Gen. 1:28). … The Bible does not view “untouched nature” as the ideal state of the earth, but expects human beings to develop and use the earth’s resources wisely for mankind’s needs (Gen. 1:28; 2:15; 9:3; 1 Tim. 4:4). … We believe the ethical choice is for candidates who will allow resources to be developed …

What Dobson and FOF were less than subtlety advocating was opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other currently protected areas to exploitation by the oil industry George W. Bush was part of and is still indebted to. In other words, continue (and increase) current levels of industrial pollution and the resulting destruction of the planet’s ecosystems that are leading to increased global warming, actions that those American and international scientists not gagged or ignored by the Bush administration assure humanity is a global disaster in the making. From a New York Times editorial, October 31, 2004:

The Bush administration’s well-deserved reputation for tailoring scientific information to fit its political agenda was reinforced last week when James Hansen, the government’s pre-eminent climatologist, said that he had been instructed by Sean O’Keefe, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not to discuss publicly the human contribution to global warming. The charge came as part of a broader indictment, delivered in a speech in Iowa, of the administration's refusal to confront the consequences of climate change or to do anything meaningful about reducing the industrial emissions that contribute to it.

Theocratic capitalism at its devastating worst. And the rape goes on, as a recent New York Times editorial pointed out: “The White House has given the industry no reason to consider restraint. Its energy policy is based entirely on expansion, extraction and consumption, with little thought for conservation or the environment.”

One of their latest efforts involves Valle Vidal, a part of the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, which the Bush administration and the energy industry want opened to coal-bed methane development. The “Yellowstone of the southern Rockies” was given to the nation by Pennzoil in 1982 on condition it be managed as a wildlife habitat. It is currently home to the largest elk herd in New Mexico. But who cares? As Dobson and Bush believe, “God put human beings on the earth to ‘subdue it’ and to ‘have dominion” over the animals.”

It seems the leaders of the Christian Right and their political minions are not content with destroying American government’s system of checks and balances. Their jaundiced bible-based worldview demands the Earth and its system of checks and balances be destroyed as well.
 

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