Captain Ed has been live-blogging proceedings at Dobson’s Justice Sunday II conference. I laughed when I read this:
3:14 [p.m.] – Chuck Colson says he can’t understand why the New York Times considers this so controversial. All they want to see is justice, not money or power. The message of justice has always been central to Christianity. He said he thanks God that Martin Luther King fought for justice 40 years ago …
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3:19 [p.m.] – Jim Daly, Focus on the Family: We will spare no funding to push for conservative judges. He points out the overwhelming rejection of gay marriage in every election where voters had the option to choose.
So in five minutes, they went from saying they are seeking justice . . . to applauding the unequality in treatment of gays. Apparently, their idea of "justice" is "majority rules", a notion that was rejected in the Civil War and the Civil War amendments (or so I thought).
Yeah, nothing "controversial" about oppression in the name of "justice", guys!
UPDATE: More from Captain Ed:
6:31 [p.m.] – Chuck Colson says that this isn’t a special-interest group; "we care about what is good for our society … because that is what God wants us to do." He speaks about his prison ministry and speaks from the Bible to underscore his point — and notes that Martin Luther King read the same verses from the Book of Amos during his protests.
That’s the second time today that Colson invoked MLK. Tsk, tsk.
Oh, and Chuck? The KKK read from the Bible while they were burning crosses. You see, the Bible can be used as a tool for justice (see, King, Martin Luther) or for injustice (see, KKK, Crusades). What you need to do — I’m serious here, Chuck — is listen the people around you and determine which camp they are in. Are they for creating a world where our sons and daughters of all races and religions and lifestyles join hands in God’s love? Or are they setting people apart, creating a world of "us" and "them"? The answer is a no-brainer, if you just listen to the rhetoric you hear at Justice Sunday II, Chuck.
Maybe then you will think twice about invoking MLK.
6:41 [p.m.] – Bishop Harry Jackson is the best speaker so far. He points out that justice unfortunately knows color, gender, and so on.
But justice apparently does know sexual orientation, according to these guys.
In the final analysis, it seems that even Captain Ed (a conservative blogger) was non-plussed by some of the rhetoric he heard:
However sympathetic I am to the main message, I have some reservations about the secondary messages. As a Christian, I also have some reservations about staging this in a church. Bearing in mind that I am a guest here, it still occurs to me that putting this kind of show on here would discourage others who disagree with the politics to come to worship here. I think churches need to ask themselves which message takes priority in the sanctuary — politics or Christ? It is a concern that some of the other bloggers shared during the program.
We also need to see more clarity on the message of judicial restraint instead of the complaints about public policy, especially homosexuality. That will exist regardless of the status of the courts, and I feel strongly that the role of public policy should not extend to personal relationships between consenting adults. Focusing as much attention on homosexuality makes the message sound a lot more like they want to target gays rather than the much more realistic and desirable goal of rolling back judicial supremacy.
I’m no fan of Captain Ed, but kudos to him for at least acknowledging the unsavory people to whom his party caters. For many of them — and this is not even below-the-surface — "judicial restraint" is merely a buzzword; the real agenda is prejudice and discrimination.
UPDATE 2: Photo from Pandagon inserted into this post. God hates people think for themselves.