As soon as President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the religious right began to grumble with
more than a hint of — surprise, surprise — bitterness. Call it lingering resentment over Bork that will never go away call it the frustration of being sidelined from the Beltway fray call it a need to have something to say and a way to raise money. The best ammunition the religious right has — and it is a thin reed, to be sure — is off-the-cuff remarks Sotomayor in 2005 about how policy is made in appellate courts. This truism is not an endorsement of the dreaded “legislating from the bench,” nor is it a call to disregard legal precedent. Yet the religious right is already accusing her of “judicial activism,” which is to say that she’s a baby-murderer (because for them Roe is a classic example of judicial activism) who endorses a radical homosexual agenda (because the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision invalidating a same-sex marriage ban is another). Jay Sekulow, the head litigator of Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice (and a prominent evangelical endorser of Mitt Romney in 2008), immediately concerns about Sotomayor “legislating from the bench.” The American Family Association’s news service warned that she is not just an “extreme liberal ideologue but also an unethical jurist.” While Sotomayor’s views on abortion and gay marriage remain unknown, she has several decisions on religious-freedom issues that should hearten proponents of religious liberty, something the religious right claims to endorse. Church-state separation activists, meanwhile, remain guarded about her nomination until more is known about her views on the establishment clause. Nonetheless, the religious-right base is unafraid of smearing her and of revealing its true intentions. Richard Viguerie, one of the movement’s godfathers, crowed in a statement, “This is an enormous opportunity for conservatives to define President Obama as a radical liberal in a way that Republicans have so far failed to do.” 2. Court Decision on Proposition 8 Thrills Religious Right. Had the California Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 yesterday, religious-right activists would have used it as a demonstration project for their “judicial activist” argument. Instead, they were pleased that court decided to
But while the battle will continue at the ballot box in California (and in legislatures and courts around the country), it’s worth noting that it’s not just the religious right that supported Proposition 8. Recall that pastors frequently touted as “new” and less divisive evangelicals, like Saddleback’s Rick Warren and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference’s Samuel Rodriguez, supported the gay-marriage ban. When Democrats seek “common ground” with these evangelicals on issues like LGBT rights, their efforts actually enable the religious right by giving cover to religious objections to the full equality of marriage.