Liberty Counsel’s Aggressive Tactics
Thursday June 3, 2004
The Christian Right is not simply a bunch of people sitting around in their living rooms planning the next public protest - they are also lawyers fighting in the courts in order to promote their narrow agenda via the law. One of the most prominent and vociferous legal groups is the Liberty Counsel, based in Florida.
The Orlando Sentinel reports on Mathew Staver and his law group, the Liberty Counsel,:
His group is spearheading fights in California, New York and Massachusetts, crafting appeals that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also working to roll back other rights for gays, overturn Roe v. Wade and ensure that Christians can freely evangelize in public schools. ... He fought to force two mentally retarded Florida women to give birth to children of rapists; supported "Choose Life" license plates; opposed gay adoptions and fought to retain "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Staver, who attends First Baptist Church of Orlando, does have a very conservative agenda, including that Christians should pull their children from public schools, where he says religious freedoms aren't protected. And he believes that even in cases of rape and incest, abortion should be banned. .. Staver threatened to sue a library in Jacksonville because it gave children certificates for completing Harry Potter's "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," a collection of books. Staver accused the library of promoting witchcraft.
"They certainly don't stand for freedom because they engage in a Talibanish-like approach," said Lance Block, an attorney who fought Staver over the fate of a mentally retarded woman who was impregnated while in a Miami-area group home. "They're trying to force mentally retarded women to have babies. There's nothing free about that."
Staver is commended by others for not engaging in the same sort of hateful rhetoric as many others, but that’s not exactly a glowing recommendation, now is it? Even if it isn’t the slightest bit hateful, the sort of society that he must envision for America (judging by the cases described above) would be a truly dark and atrocious place to live (unless you are a white Christian male, I would presume).
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I’m curious if the Orlando Sentinel feels the same way about the ACLU’s tactics for trying to remove God from the public forum as they do about the Liberty Counsel. Their approach to removing God is no less “Talabanish”. Just because you’re removing religion doesn’t make the motive “clean”.
Mr. Cline, since when does choosing life make society a “dark place”? On the contrary, a society that allows, and dare I say promotes, the killing of unborn babies is already a “dark place”.
Care to cite any examples of your claims?
Because they only want people to choose live on their terms rather than on the terms of the pepople who have to live those lives.
Mr. Cline, you wrote, “Even if it isn’t the slightest bit hateful, the sort of society that he [Staver] must envision for America (judging by the cases described above) would be a truly dark and atrocious place to live (unless you are a white Christian male, I would presume)”. Do you “presume” the same for a black Christian male or female, or an Asian Christian male or female, or a Hispanic Christian male or female, or any male or female who is a Christian? This world is “dark and atrocious” enough as it is with all the people who don’t value human life (senseless shootings/murder, innocent people killed by drunk drivers or by people under the influence of drugs, gang activity, rapes, beatings, cheating, stealing, etc., etc.). There needs to be some value system in place to maintain some kind of order in the world.
You also stated, “The Christian Right is not simply a bunch of people sitting around in their living rooms planning the next public protest - they are also lawyers fighting in the courts in order to promote their narrow agenda via the law.” Aren’t those who are at the other end of the spectrum (those who oppose the “Christian Right”) doing the very same thing? Aren’t atheists and homosexuals taking their agendas to court and fighting to promote their ideals?
For most I would expect it to be atrocious, though some may be happy.
Why do you assume there has to be just one value system?
They aren’t fighting to impose religious doctrines and assumptions on a secular nation. That, however, is the raison d’être for Christian Nationalism.