Conservatives Without Conscience

The New World Order is a predictable compendium of the lunatic fringe’s greatest hits…. Mr. Robertson weaves a wild tale of international and extraterrestrial conspiracies, involving everyone from deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza to Alger Hiss to Woodrow Wilson—an unwitting tool of Satan, whose role in the establishment of the Federal Reserve eventually resulted in the nation’s abdication to the most Machiavellian creature of all time: Paul Volcker…. Still, as paranoid pinheads with a deep distrust of democracy go, he’s a bit of a disappointment…. Where, for example, is the stuff about JFK’s secret meeting with Martin Borman in the Bermuda Triangle? Where is the stuff about extraterrestrials visiting the Mayans and telling them to give the Spear of Longinus to Elvis?[77]

To dismiss Pat Robertson as a loony crank, however, would be a mistake, for he takes his mission all too seriously. Realizing that he is never going to be the president of the United States himself, nor ever fully control a president regardless of how much assistance Christian conservatives provide to get a leader of their choice elected, he exercises his considerable influence in negative ways. He and his followers can block candidates for Republican nominations at the local, state, and national level, and no issue is more important in their filtering process than a candidate’s position on judicial nominations, especially at the federal level. Of late, Robertson has focused much of his energy on the federal courts, and on the Supreme Court in particular. There is no question about his goals, which he has detailed in Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Is Usurping the Power of Congress and the People (2004), a cooperative writing effort with the lawyers at his American Center for Law and Justice—a sister organization he created that litigates continuously to expand the reach of religion and chip away at the wall separating church and state. The book castigates every Supreme Court decision that the Christian right does not like—those that are preventing it from imposing its religiosity on others—and was clearly written with the 2004 presidential election in mind. After describing doom and gloom, Robertson said, “[T]hings simply cannot continue as they are. Either they will get better or immeasurably worse, and in either case those who believe in the founding vision of this nation cannot afford to be passive any longer.” If George W. Bush is reelected and conservatives get more seats in Congress, said Robertson, “we may be able to accomplish some of our more important goals.” At the top of that list are “two and perhaps three” seats on the Supreme Court.[78] His prayers are being answered.

Packing Federal Courts with Judges Who Will Do God’s Work

The agenda of Christian conservatives is, relatively speaking, limited, and they believe much of it can be accomplished through the federal courts. Broadly speaking, they want to control the right of women to have abortions; to ban all forms of gay marriage; to prevent the teaching of safe sex in schools; to encourage home schooling; to ban the use of contraceptives; to halt stem cell research with human embryos; to stop the teaching of evolution and/or to start the teaching of intelligent design; to bring God into the public square and eliminate the separation of church and state; to overturn the legality of living wills; to control the sexual content of cable and network television, radio, and the Internet; and to eliminate an “activist” judiciary that limits or impinges on their agenda, by placing God-fearing judges on the bench who will promote their sincerely held beliefs.