Religious Right leader warns Supreme Court bringing wrath of God on United States
Televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson has launched Operation Supreme Court Freedom, a campaign urging his supporters to pray for changes in the Supreme Court to prevent America’s destruction at the hands of a God provoked to wrath by the Court’s rulings.
The campaign appears to go hand-in-hand with redoubled Religious Right efforts to ensure that President Bush appoint a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to any future vacancy on the High Court.
“[T]here is a higher tribunal than the United States Supreme Court,” says Robertson in a letter to supporters posted on the Web site of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which has been promoting Operation Supreme Court Freedom.
“There is the Judge of all the earth. We must earnestly come before Him now and cry out for redress of our grievances. He loves America as much as we do, and He does not wish to destroy it. But no culture has ever endured which has turned openly to homosexuality. And no society has ever been spared the wrath of God which has been guilty of slaughtering tens of millions of the innocent.”
In the letter, Robertson criticizes the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning laws that criminalize private sexual conduct between consenting adults, as well as earlier decisions on separation of church and state, saying “we are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy” and complaining that justices “can change the moral fabric of our nation.”
“Pat Robertson has a long list of people he holds responsible for leading the nation to destruction,” said People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. “In the past, his list has included everyone from feminists to Harry Potter. Now the Supreme Court has landed at the top of Robertson’s list for a ruling that most fair-minded Americans believe reflects the principles of common sense, fairness, and basic respect for privacy.”
Robertson disagrees, and he wants God to weigh in. “One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and another has a heart condition,” reads Robertson’s note. “Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire? With their retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive change in federal jurisprudence can take place.”
Robertson’s missive is only the latest in a series of outraged reactions by right-wing leaders to recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and privacy.
The text of Robertson’s recent letter follows:
Dear Fellow American,
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote:
"You seem to think that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutional interpretation, a very dangerous doctrine indeed and one that would place us under the tyranny of an oligarchy."
How wise Jefferson was. Yet even Jefferson could not have foreseen what the Supreme Court has done to the Constitution of the United States since 1962. Just think what five unelected judges have done to our nation's moral framework.
- In 1962, they ruled prayer out of the public schools.
- In 1963, they ruled the Bible out of public schools.
- In 1973, they applied a "right of privacy" not found in the Constitution as the basis for opening the door to the slaughter of more than 43,000,000 innocent unborn children.
- Subsequent federal courts have ruled the Ten Commandments were illegal in schools, that statues of Jesus were illegal in public parks, that prayers on a map in North Carolina were illegal, and that it was illegal for little elementary school children to give thanks over their milk and cookies at snack time.
- Now, the Supreme Court has declared a constitutional right to consensual sodomy and, by the language in its decision, has opened the door to homosexual marriages, bigamy, legalized prostitution, and even incest.
The framers of our Constitution never intended anything like this to take place in our land. Yet we seem to be helpless to do anything about it. Why? Because we are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy. Just think, five unelected men and women who serve for life can change the moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected legislators have wisely put in place.
But there is a higher tribunal than the United States Supreme Court. There is the Judge of all the earth. We must earnestly come before Him now and cry out for redress of our grievances. He loves America as much as we do, and He does not wish to destroy it. But no culture has ever endured which has turned openly to homosexuality. And no society has ever been spared the wrath of God which has been guilty of slaughtering tens of millions of the innocent.
In short, by its distorted reading of the religion clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and its "discovery" of emanations from the 14th Amendment called "penumbras," the Supreme Court is bringing upon this nation the wrath of God when the precious liberties that we love so much may be taken away from all of us.
Would you join with me and many others in crying out to our Lord to change the Court? If we fast and pray and earnestly seek God's face, then He will hear our prayer and give us relief.
One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire? With their retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive change in federal jurisprudence can take place.
We can have a court that no longer legislates from the bench the wishes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, but which will earnestly seek to interpret the Constitution as it is written and to give meaning to the centuries of moral standards which have undergirded this wonderful country called the United States of America.
Please join us in prayer to support a massive prayer offensive that we are going to call Operation Supreme Court Freedom.
"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
God bless you.
Yours in Christ,
Pat Robertson