Louisville, Ky. – Addressing a Sunday telecast organized by Christian conservatives to denounce the Democrats as being “against people of faith” for blocking judicial nominees, Sen. Bill Frist reiterated his threats to change Senate rules while simultaneously calling for “more civility in political life.”
In a short videotaped statement included in the telecast, which emanated from a packed Baptist mega-church in Louisville, the Senate majority leader from Tennessee never referred to religious faith.
Instead, he focused on the allegations of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader, that Frist was a “radical Republican” for participating in the telecast. The program was aimed at building conservative Christian support for Frist’s threat to eliminate the filibuster of presidential nominees for federal judgeships.
Democrats have vowed to virtually shut down Senate business if Frist follows through.
“I don’t think it’s radical to ask senators to vote,” Frist said, “Now if Sen. Reid continues to obstruct the process, we will consider what opponents call the ‘nuclear option.’ Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote. Most places call that democracy.”
About 3,000 people packed into the Highview Baptist Church for the telecast, and organizers said it was broadcast to several hundred churches and thousands of individuals over the Internet and was available to 61 million households over Christian radio and television stations.
Liberal groups, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on Frist and the proposed rule change. About 1,200 liberal Christians gathered at a rally at a Louisville Presbyterian church to protest what the left- leaning evangelical Jim Wallis called “a declaration of a religious war” and “an attempt to hijack religion.”
Meanwhile, senators scrambled to find a safer middle ground. In the same telecast, Frist repudiated the comments of some in his party, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, about punishing judges whose rulings they consider out of line.
“When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so,” he said. “But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect, not retaliation. I won’t go along with that.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and an organizer of the telecast, declared at the outset, “We are not saying that people who disagree with us are not people of faith.” He argued that Democrats were forcing nominees to choose between public service and their conservative Christian views by denying them judgeships because of their stance on abortion or other social issues.
Other speakers in the telecast took a different view.
Dr. James Dobson, founder of the conservative Christian Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, defended DeLay and his attacks on the judiciary, calling the Supreme Court “unaccountable,” “out of control” and “the despotism of an oligarchy.”
Dobson accused the court of “a campaign to limit religious liberty” through 40 years of decisions limiting publicly supported expressions of religion.
“The founding fathers intended for those two branches of government to check the judiciary, and it hasn’t done it,” he said. “You have a court that is out of control.”
Other Republican senators, however, distanced themselves from the telecast as well as the attacks on the judiciary.