Thursday, January 11, 2007

Rev. Rick Scarborough -Lunatic Fringe



Rev. Rick Scarborough of Vision America Inc. is the bonehead in on the left in this photo. He looks a little tired in this photo, but not as bad as the bozo on the far right. I am sure they were praying for their guy George Bush...

" It’s easy to dismiss such talk as the rumblings of a lunatic fringe."

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From Liberty Magazine Article
by Rob Balston


The Reverend Rick Scarborough is a Texas minister with big dreams of the national stage. Welcoming attendees to a recent gathering in Washington, D.C., the stocky ex-college football player said bluntly, “This is perhaps the most important conference in the city of Washington this year.”

The topic of this momentous occasion wasn’t terrorism, the economy, or global warming. Rather, the event, as described by Scarborough, would target “renegade judges who exceed their constitutional authority.”

Bashing federal judges is suddenly all the rage among those who labor to make the United States an officially fundamentalist Christian nation. Seeking to keep ahead of the curve, Scarborough convened the conference in early April under the auspices of his newly formed Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration.

Under the fancy name lies an organization with big—some would say radical—ideas: The federal courts, Scarborough and his supporters argue, have become an unelected, out-of-control oligarchy of black-robed elitists who must be made to give quarter. The conference was designed to find the best way to do that.

“This nation cannot long exist in the vacuum of atheism that is being forced on us by the court,” Scarborough declared.
There is, however, one problem: The United States has long operated under the separation of powers. The three branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—are coequal but exercise checks and balances over one another. Thus critics say what Scarborough is proposing is nothing short of a revolution: bringing the courts under the sway of Congress would destroy that delicate balance and strike at a core principle of U.S. government.

None of this fazes Scarborough. To Scarborough and his supporters, issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, prayer in the public schools, display of religious symbols by government, and others define the national character. They’ve seen many of their legislative efforts in these areas nullified by the courts. Even a Supreme Court with seven of nine members nominated by Republican presidents has failed to produce rulings that please the Religious Right. The answer, they are increasingly saying, isn’t to change the courts; it’s to neuter them.

Link to Liberty Magazine Article

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