My Sunday will be a little different
This weekend I will be on a retreat with the high school youth group in our church. We do this every spring as we spend a weekend growing as a group, growing in the Lord, and preparing to lead two weeks of Vacation Bible School for the summer.It also means that I will be missing "Justice Sunday". For those of you who don't know, Justice Sunday is an effort of Conservative Christians to rally together to encourage a change in system that will end the Senate's ability to filibuster a president's judicial nomination. This is needed because currently the ultra-liberal Democrats are a minority, but with the filibuster they can still stop nominees from being accepted. Since George W. Bush is God's right hand man, all his nominees are devout, perfect Christians and the use of the filibuster is simply the evil, God-less, left wing radicals attempts to attack "people of faith".
At least that's what I keep hearing. And that's what I would be hearing at church, too, since my church is very reflective of the national political and media scene - in reality it's fairly balanced, but the people who talk the loudest and the most are the extreme conservatives/Republicans. People who would prefer to re-shape the facts to distort the truth than to actually hear the truth.
People who on Sunday will talk about how for 200 years when the Senate majority didn't match politically with the President how they went along with nominations and how only now the Democrats are using the filibuster. People who won't mention how the Senate Republicans during the Clinton administration not only filibustered but used several other dirty tricks to stop the process of accepting judicial nominations - most of their tactics were so underhanded and wrong that they are no longer allowed (in truth those Republicans tried to block FIVE times as many judicial nominees of Clinton's than the Democrats have tried to block of Bush's).
People who will cheer for Senator Bill Frist as he speaks to a mega-church in Louisville and millions others on simulcast and roar as he claims anyone against him is against God and Christianity and Christians everywhere. People who won't bother to question why Frist himself was central in the filibustering of Richard Paez, a Clinton nominee for circuit court.
People who will nod in agreement as speakers in Louisville get up and demonize the Democrats as being against Christians AND against women because of two nominees (Owens and Rogers Brown) happen to be female (of course which party actually gets more women to vote for it, more women's organization to support and endorse it, and actually fights for the rights of minorities). People who will ignore the valid concerns about Owens record of rampant legislating from the bench, failure to support anti-discrimination law, and failure to support worker's rights to compensation when hurt on the job. People who will pretend the real objections to Rogers Brown aren't actually about her record of not supporting worker's rights, not supporting anti-discrimination law, not supporting affirmative action, and defending the rights of using racial slurs.
People who will continue to believe George W. Bush does everything in line with Biblical practices (which works as long as you don't think the Bible has anything to say about dishonesty, slaughter, torture, destroying the earth, ignoring the poor, etc., etc.) and believe his nominees are perfect for representing this country. People who won't think about how many millions of people wouldn't be represented by these politically extreme nominees and who won't even question why Bush couldn't find someone more moderate (like Clinton did - which is why his nominees always beat the filibustering process - they didn't totally alienate the other side).
Nope, I'll miss out on all these people getting up in front of my church and indirectly attacking me and my political beliefs for the sake of their own. I'll be sipping coffee as I read my Bible watching the sun come up over a beautiful lake, having slept in a little after a night of sharing the gospel with some amazing high school kids (and then playing Capture the Flag in the woods at night!). Maybe there is justice on this Sunday, after all.
posted by gurufrisbee @ 4:44 AM
