Comments for: “Courting Disaster: Honaker Nomination Is An Insult To The Constitution”

Honaker is a Theonomist, the worst kind of Christian Reconstructionist.

http://media.pfaw.org/OppositionToHonaker.pdf

Note the disparaging way he uses the word “autonomy.” Autonomy, of course, means individual freedom. Only Theonomists use the term with such a disdain and cast it as some evil opposite of Christianity.

Combine that with his statement about a “Biblical” view of economics, the tell-tale way he uses the word “worldview,” and the fact that his statements appear in the Reformed Herald (theonomy is a subset within Reformed theology), you have a convincing case that honaker is indeed a wanna-be Dark Ages executioner.

(Unfortunately, I predict that what little media coverage is given this — and I predict little to zero — will mention only the anti-choice stances, with zero attention given to his religious extremism.)

Having served this wonderful country as a uniformed service member, and having passed two different state bar exams the first sitting of each, I consider it a personal insult that King W would make such a nomination.

To the best of my current knowledge, every lawyer, in order to be a member of any state bar, must take an oath, or affirm, that he/she will honor and defend the Constitution of the United States. In my humble opinion, any person who states that he/she will place his/her religious beliefs before the written law of the land should not be accepted to any state bar, or be allowed to practice before the Federal bar. The reason?: he/she has already shown disrespect for the law of the land!

But look out folks, the Liberty University School of Law apparently has provisional ABA approval (accreditation), so apparently even the ABA doesn’t see any problem with religion coming before the law of the land!

For some bizarre reason, 2/3 of the Religious Right’s web sites refuse to respond today. AFA’s won’t; none of Focus’ sites will; maybe there is a God…

Having finally found an RR site that actually works today, I found this:

http://www.cwfa.org/legal/judicialnominations.asp

Nevermind your disbelief over how these lying P.O.S.O.B.’s can claim to believe in “individual liberty”…

The real killer is this:

“Concerned Women for America (CWA) works to stop judicial activism by promoting a proper understanding of the constitutional role of our judiciary. Judges are to interpret the law as enacted by the legislature and must not make new law or change the law to what they think the law should be by disguising it as interpretation.”

Nevermind the fact that the positions they demand from judges are demands that judges interpret the Constitution to be something other than as written, here we have Honaker, who has a stated intention to overlay an entire religion on the Constitution in an opaque manner, dramatically transforming the Constitution into something very unlike the written letters of the law.

Will CWFA utter a peep in complaint? Don’t bet on it.

From the pfaw.org link that David provided:

“Autonomy is the new secular religion sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court no longer talks about America as a Christian nation or about the Christian underpinnings of law. In moving even beyond the pale of neutrality, it openly advances the idea of autonomy, stating that ‘personal dignity and autonomy are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.’”2

2 Richard Honaker, “Heralding the Good News of Jesus Christ,” Reformed Herald, Nov. 1992, available at: (visited January 25, 2008) (hereafter “Heralding the Good News”).

What “…Christian underpinnings of law” exactly is Honaker referring to? If I recall my history correctly, early Christianity was essentially considered an outlaw cult, and it was only when Rome embraced Christianity that Christianity started having any say in what was to be law.

What I’m trying to say is that the concept of “law” utterly predates Christianity. “Law” even predates written language, for that matter. In prehistoric times the concept of law existed at least in social mores, folkways, and taboos that were verbally expressed and handed down. If Honaker is referring to the fairy tale of Moses and the stone tablets, he still has it wrong. That was Judaism, not Christianity.

What I don’t understand is how religious nutjobs like Honaker can even bring themselves to become lawyers in the first place, given the fact that current U.S. law is singularly based upon the notion that its authority derives solely from the U.S. Constitution, which declares itself “the supreme law of the land”. The utter absence of reference to any “higher” law such as some scripture or religion may allude to makes a liar out of Honaker. In American jurisprudence there is no such thing as “Christian underpinnings” of our law, period. How people like Honaker can handle the cognitive dissonance just baffles me.

David quotes the CWFA website:

“Concerned Women for America (CWA) works to stop judicial activism…”. These ridiculous complaints about an activist judiciary go back further than I thought.

I am reading a biography of Earl Warren, former SCOTUS Chief Justice. It turns out that in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education and the sordid incidents in Little Rock, Arkansas, the court was accused of “judicial activism”. Calls for impeachment of Warren were commonplace in this era. There were also efforts to limit appellate jurisdiction of the Court at the time, today we call it court stripping. I was naive enough to think that the RR had invented a new strategy. I was wrong, it is just warmed-over racist shenanigans.

Apparently, demanding integration of schools is “judicial activism”. What a sad and tired song it all is. If requiring the state to avoid entanglement with religion is another example of “activism” and given the history of those who have opposed this so-called activism, it must be a good thing.

What many of these RR pro-life activists miss is that there is no Biblical reference against abortion, and though I cannot quote book/chapter/verse at the moment, God cares little for the feutus. I’ve referenced these verses here before and will attempt to find them again.

That’s just one illustration of the wrong-headedness of fundies. They either stand for Biblically incorrect ideals or are completely opposed to Christ’s teachings.

Titania, I’d argue that ALL theists (whether liberal or conservative, leftist or rightist, evangelical or Quaker) indulge in bible buffet–picking out the parts they agree with and conveniently ignoring that which disagrees with them.

Hooray for “Prince” and “…Sky” who appear to have done some serious reading and studying!

“day”, where did “Titania” say anything about “…ALL theists…”? Seemed to me she was talking about “…fundies…”.

“Titania”, some great wag once said something on the order of, when an individual suffers from a delusion we call it mental illness, but when a whole group of people suffers from the same delusion, we call it religion.

How many “fundies” do any of us think will ever read anything on the AU site?

Maybe all of us who take the time to leave our comments here should devote more time to becoming active in something like a local secular humanist organization or something similar?

I just reread “day’s” blurb and think that he was actually agreeing with “Titania” but going further than she did w/r to what almost all religious denominations do; i.e. become their own denomination because they have a different interpretation than what their original “parent” group had.

I apologize to “day” if I misread his meaning the first time!

In the meantime, those religious bodies which do support the nomination of Honaker should go all out with it– endorse him in assemblies and ‘official’ literature. By au’s example, claiming to be a 501.c.3 organization, this can be done.

Brad, thanks for the compliment. Yes, I have studied the Constitution to some extent as a lay reader, and law fascinates me. Had I grown up in different circumstances I might have become a lawyer myself, but who knows?

Regarding gary l. day’s comment, I’d say he wasn’t putting words in Titania’s mouth (oops, just read your own clarification, so disregard if you wish…); rather he was raising a further point, which I happen to agree with. Anyone who looks to the Bible as a source of moral authority must cherry-pick and lemon-drop certain parts. Otherwise they’d have to agree to all the horrid parts of that book (which are myriad), and they’re not going to do that.

Otherwise, I enjoyed your quip about individual versus group delusion. I’ve got another one for you: what’s the difference between a cult and a religion? Answer: the number of people in it.

Work(ing) for peace,

Forrest

To nominate Honaker to the federal courts would be like naming Yogi Bear superintendent of Jellystone Park so he can help himself to the tourists’ “pic-a-nic” baskets (he would, of course, fire Ranger Smith).

The Republican Party’s support for stacking the federal judiciary with right-wing appointees, in my opinion, is the same as giving the tobacco and fast-food industries control over public health and nutrition, the alcoholic beverage makers control over our DUI laws, or, for another example, allowing major league baseball players free reign to use performance enhancing drugs, corked bats and spitballs, thus making a mockery of our national pastime.

In other words, the foxes (the enemies our civil and religious liberties) are being put in charge of the henhouse (the federal courts).

Or, graduating with a law degree doesn’t necessarily make one a qualified practitioner of Constitutional law.

You can study Constitutional law to practice it, the way that you study something that you love — or you can study Constitutional law in order to destroy the Constitution, because you hate it and regard the Constitution as your enemy.

In this case, any familiarity with Constitutional law can be likened to his studying his enemy.

That applies to pretty much all of the Federalist Society, the hatful of black magic that Bush pulled Roberts, Alito, and countless other judicial nominees from. This cadre of scholarly subversives study the Constitution to better empower them to disable it.

“J”, don’t let yourself get confused between the rules regarding candidates for elected political office and appointees to federal offices. Different strokes for different folks.

“David”, good points! I would emphasize that, to be admitted to the bar, one has to swear an oath, or make an affirmation, to uphold the Constitution as it is written at that point in time and space, not how they wish it was written.

Obviously any US citizen has a right to undertake legal political actions that might ultimately lead to the Constitution being amended. Fortunately the “Founding Fathers were just as brilliant in establishing the amendment process as they were in facilitating the separation of church and state.

“ don’t let yourself get confused between the rules regarding candidates for elected political office and appointees to federal offices. Different strokes for different folks.”

Uh, yes. Those who are put into office by election are a different matter than those put into office by those elected to put them there. And since the US President and US Vice President are of the latter, and appointed by the Electors who are elected, that can bring up an interesting matter. Has there been a case where the tax status of a non-profit was threatened because of endorsing a candidate for Pres. or VP, as long as the institution does not specfically say to vote for or against the candidate or party, as that’s how the ballot will read? though in essence it is an Elector being voted for, and the Pres. and VP are appointed.

Above wrote- “Apparently, demanding integration of schools is “judicial activism”.’

This reminds me of when the Judge Jones decided the Dover case. All the RR nutjobs and pundits were crying “judicial activism”!!
The punchline is that Jones was Bush’s man all the way. His ‘activism’ amounted to doing his job and putting the law first.

Definition of an ‘activist judge’: One who makes a ruling the fundies don’t like.

Actually, the far right’s new definition of “activist judge” is any judge who overturns a freedom-depriving law anywhere, for any reason, regardless of how unconstitutional it is.

http://churchstatewall.typepad.....-reli.html

Their exceedingly dangerous new and rising argument is that judges should never overturn acts of legislature, ever.

Does anyone here know how the RR squares Brown v. Board of Ed with their dislike of “judicial actisism.” Surely, Brown was a case of “judicial activism.”

I can only see 3 alternatives for them. The first: Brown was judicial activism but that was okay. That would undercut their hatred of judicial activism. The second: it was not judicial activism. But they literally created new law in opposition to laws passed by the legislature. The third: don’t mention Brown, ever.

As far as reality is concerned, David is right; “judicial activism” is simply used whenever judges make a decision against the wishes of the RR.

I don’t know what the RR thinks of Brown v. Board of Ed, but I have heard the term “judicial activism” used to characterize both Brown and Roe. The analysis runs that the court “got the timing right” with Brown because the decision was in wide spread concordance with our evolving understanding of race relations. Emboldened by success with Brown, they “got it wrong” with Roe because the issue had not been discussed enough and there was not enough legislative history.

I hasten to add that this is just what I have read, not necessarily my opinion.

I’ll never forget the day, the 50th anniversary of Brown, where Bush praised the decision in a speech — and bashed “activist judges” that very same week.

The slack that they cut Brown v. Board of Education today consists entirely of political positioning. They had better speak fondly of Brown, since the RR is trying to dupe Black voters into supporting their regressive social agenda.

(This was the exact and sole motive, BTW, for the Southern Baptist Convention’s “apology” for complicity in perpetuating segregation, and their predecessors’ complicity in slavery. They tried to build bridges with Blacks in hopes of converting some of them into RR voters.)

Brad, stick around for a while. You will find that fundies not only read the AU blog, they also post. One has already posted on this thread.

Titania, Why do you think that God cares little for the fetus?

There are passages int he OT the require a woman accused of adultery to determine her innocence by taking dust from the temple floor and drinking it with water. The results were determine her guilt or innocence and if she were pregnant, she would likely miscarry–regardless of who inpregnated her. There are other passages as well, though I haven’t been able to locate them. I posted them here several months ago, but that thread is likely not available any more. If I find them again, I will include when an appropriate thread allows.

Anne S: I don’t want to speak for Titania, but reading her post carefully, I don’t think that she said that God cares little for the fetus. What she said is that the Old Testament provides little indication that God does so. How little or how much insight the Old Testament gives us into God’s mind is, of course, a matter of personal opinion.

I’m not very good at offering up “proof texts” for any one religious opinion or another, but suffice it to say that there is not a universal consensus amongst Christians and Jews (or Muslims for that matter) on the question of abortion. This indicates to me that the bible, in its various manifestations, is not very clear or authoritative on the issue. This isn’t surprising, since in the times of the Old and New Testiment, such issues would not have much relevance.

“Honaker’s nomination… A nomination like this is little more than an insult to the Constitution.”
This is an ironic statement… The Constitution enables freedom (encluding the right to submit one’s own nomination no mater what beliefs accompany that man) But then again, we are all a little bit one sided these days…

“But then again, we are all a little bit one sided these days…”

Amen, you got that right, brother.

The pro-separation viewpoint gets almost zero representation in the mainstream media.

John says: ‘“Honaker’s nomination… A nomination like this is little more than an insult to the Constitution.”
This is an ironic statement… The Constitution enables freedom (encluding the right to submit one’s own nomination no mater what beliefs accompany that man) But then again, we are all a little bit one sided these days.’

The real irony is the nomination to a position charged with upholding the Constitution of a man who has shown more respect for his own unfounded views than he has for the Constitution.

Alan, I hold that God cares little for the fetus since it is the priests who preside over this process and they would be acting on God’s behalf. On the other hand, given that the Bible was written by men, it would be safe to say that the Biblical view as written by men is that the fetus has little value. Further, the Genesis account of the creation of man indicates that life began when it was breathed into Adam by God; therefore, the fetus still has little value from a Biblical point of view. Since the Bible is the alleged inspired word of God, we now come full circle and I conclude that God, at least the Abrahamic one, cares little for the unborn. Whew!

Jax hit the heart of the matter for all political offices: charged with upholding the Constitution (state and/or US).

Titania, that’s an interesting view. I wonder what the RR would say to it…

On another note, abortifacients were not at all unknown in ancient times. Certainly any divine author would have been aware of their availability. The glaring lack of reference to them in biblical texts could logically be taken for tacit approval.

Jax, another good point. Several things have been around pretty much since the dawn of man kind: sex-including pre-marital, homosexuals, and unwanted pregnancy (this one may have been a little later in coming, but use of herbs for terminating an unwanted pregnancy, as well as use of herbs to prevent preganancy, have been around a long, long time.)

Titania, I found the passage you speak of. It’s in Numbers 5:11. But clearly this test is meant for the woman who is unfaithful particularly a woman who thinks she is getting away with the act of adultery. What about the woman who is faithful? There are many verses that say the God will bless those who are faithful and bless them abundantly….even in Psalm 139

RE: There are many verses that say the God will bless those who are faithful and bless them abundantly….even in Psalm 139

I bet there aren’t very many religions around that would tell the faithful they will be cursed. What is your point?

Obviously, federal judiciary appointments could hold more dire consequences than other federal appointments.

I find it troubling that Honaker would hold the attitude that his decisions could be challenged at higher levels. What a waste of taxpayer money, when a non-extremist appointment would settle things right where they should be properly settled.

Again, aside from the fact that it is the judiciary, this appointment is not much different than Eric Keroack (kerowhacko) - a man who simply did not believe in birth control, and ran a crisis pregnancy center - in charge of family planning, or David Hager, who thought women’s reproductive health matters could be “cured” through Christ.
I am no longer surprised with anything GW does. It is all par for the course.

Anne S., the passage is about women *accused* of being unfaithful. Want to get rid of a wife you don’t like and a child you don’t want to support? Just send her to the temple priests with an accusation of adultery.

Alan and Alba, good points, both of you.