Rallying around Alito II

Posted by Frank James at 2:58 pm CST

Note to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito: For those to whom much is given, much is required. At least that was one biblical message I was reminded of by the Justice Sunday III, the pro-Alito rally held last night at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in North Philadelphia.

What religious conservatives gave through their grass-roots muscle over decades was political power to like-thinking politicians like President Bush, power to make nominations to the federal judiciary, especially the Supreme Court.

They now fully expect that those judges Bush chooses-including Alito-will agree with the Christian conservative agenda to overturn Roe v. Wade and permit open prayer in school. They are very clear about that.

(Read Jan Crawford Greenburg and Jill Zuckman's coverage of Monday's Alito hearing in Tuesday's Tribune.)

And woe unto Alito if he is confirmed and, by extension the president if, when Alito is given the chance to help decide issues important to conservative Christians, he votes with the court's liberals.

"What we've worked on for 30 years, to mobilize people of faith and values in this country, is coming to consummation right now," said Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the nation's best-known Christian conservative leaders, speaking to the packed church and a national Christian audience watching and listening by simulcast.

"We were able to hold off Michael Moore and most of Hollywood and George Soros and (Edward) Kennedy and others in that crowd who fought so fiercely against the re-election of George Bush. That was just a year ago," Falwell said.

"Now we're looking at something that really started 30 years ago, a reconstruction of a court system gone awry."

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and another top Christian conservative leader, spoke a few minutes before Falwell and laid out just what had gone so wrong and seemed confident Alito could make it right.

"I think the effort to help get judge Samuel Alito confirmed may be one of the most important efforts that has occurred in recent history because of the issue of judicial tyranny."

Alluding to numerous Supreme Court decisions Christian conservatives, Dobson engaged the audience in a call and response

"Do you believe that school children should be able to read the Bible?"

"Yes"

"Do you believe that school children should be able to pray?"

"Yes"

Do you believe there should be prayer at graduation and sports events?"

"Yes"

The last question was "Do you believe that every child in this world should be welcomed into this world and protected?" Read that as "Do you oppose abortion?"

You get the picture.

Dobson went on to say a supermajority of Americans agreed with every one of those questions. I just checked, however, and as recently as November, Gallup found only 16 percent of people surveyed saying abortion should be illegal under all circumstances.

Sen. Rick Santorum, the only elected official on the church stage, was the equal of the preachers in bashing the court. He quoted an unfamiliar (to me) line from Thomas Jefferson in which the great man said something about the seeds of the nation's destruction lying in the judiciary. "

"We've seen Jefferson's fears come true with extreme liberal judges destroying traditional morality, creating a new moral code which prohibits any dissent. The Supreme Court has become the supreme branch of the government imposing its unrestrained will on all the people… The only way to restore this republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito who will replace the hubris of this court with humity and respect for the common sense of the American people."

Despite being held in an African American church, I don't call the issue of affirmative action being mentioned a single time, maybe because that was an issue on which many black and white Christians disagree. Alito's past opposition to affirmative action might have marred the mood of harmony that filled the church.

Speaking of harmony, the mass, as in very large, choir that sang during the praise service before the formal program started, rocked the sanctuary, achieving a truly awe-inspiring decibel level that seemed like it might be the prelude to the Rapture itself.

Anyway, I acknowledge I may have missed any mentions of affirmative action, however. I left the sanctuary several times to check out the protesters across the street. More than 100 mostly shouting young people carried signs like "Focus on Your Own Damn Family" and "No Alito, No Religious Agenda in Our Courts."

In talking with some of the people in the audience, it was clear they hadn't been following the fight over Alito or the federal judiciary.

"Our pastor told us a little bit about the program though we're a little bit vague about that," said Sabrina Foster, 30, a member of another church, Faith and Deliverance Outreach Ministries. "We know that there are some important issues concerning different lifestyles of people (gay marriage) and pro-life concerning abortion," she said.

"And basically we're here to support the service concerning those issues," she said. "We do believe Jesus is Lord and according to the Bible there are certain things we must live by."
Herbett Lusk II, Greater Exodus's senior pastor who hosted the event, took up the issue of race.

For embracing Bush and prominent white Christian conservatives, including Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, Lusk told the audience he's been "called a sellout, I've been called an Uncle Tom. The New York Times called me a maverick to the black church."

"Well my friends I just want the Times to know if a maverick can be defined as one who is pro black, then I'm that," said Lusk. "If a maverick means I am one who supports the original intent of God Almighty to have a husband and a wife, then I'm a maverick."

This was after Lusk, at the very start of the 90-minute event clenched Perkins hand and raised it in victory. "This is what the devil doesn't like," he said. And that came after he had said "Black folks and white folks and yellow folks. We're not supposed to be together like this. Jesus is bringing us together."

Many years ago, Martin Luther King (his niece Alveda King was one of the speakers) said something that is still largely true; that the Sunday morning church hour was the most segregated time in America. Justice Sunday III accomplished nothing else, it brought a lot of whites on a Sunday evening to a black church in the hood. Some might call that progress.