"The Judicial War on Faith"

Will somebody, anybody, please stop Tom Delay from further polluting our political landcsape? Earlier in the week, speaking before a conservative group in Washington on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," he once again glared his venom-spewing fangs at the federal courts, laying out his plan--an apparent follow up to his not-so-thinly-veiled threat against the Schiavo judges last week--for both retribution and change. It seems Rep. Delay believes, despite our very clear separation of powers doctrine, that it's within the power of Congress to legislate the judiciary process, and he put the blame squarely on Congress for allowing "the judiciary to run amok." But what are we really talking about here? Simply put, Delay and his Christian conservative co-conspirators want to change the system, the rules, because they don't like the decisions being handed down by judges. They want Congress to "set parameters" of courts' jurisdictions and its obligation "to make sure the judges administer their responsibilities," especially when it comes to the hot-button cultural wedge issues like school prayer, abortion, gay marriage and religious expression in public/government locations. They want to, in essence, have a pre-determined set of rulings that judges can make on these issues, and then and only then will they be satisfied. But someone needs to remind this blatant defiler of the U.S Constitution that that's not how our system works. There's a reason why our country is great, and it's the 1000% untouchable Democratic principles of separation of church and state; separation of powers; and a system of checks and balances. The theocracy that Delay envisions in his myopic little Oligarchic world is indeed a fantasy in his head, but with each passing day America inches closer and closer to his world and away from ours. Consider Delay's relentless stumping to change the rules so that Congress can impeach, punish and/or remove judges whose decisions the Religious Right does not like. Consider their quest to end the filibuster, so that the minority party can be bulldozed with Christian conservative judicial appointments. This is scary stuff, folks. And it's just plain wrong. We're spending upwards of $200 billion, and losing thousands of lives, to fight for Democracy in Iraq, yet here at home our leaders are hellbent on taking away our freedoms. This has got to stop. Let's start with taking down Delay. Check out yesterday's post for suggestions on how you can get active. Andy