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But we can ignore all that, right? Since it wasn't "a protest against anything." What did Justice Sunday speakers want?

"Call, write, visit, e-mail, fax your senators, contact their local offices, and then pray urgently that God's perfect will will be done," Dobson said. "Future generations depend on us."

Call them to say what? That we need "a constitutional judiciary"? Would that mean calling them to support John Roberts? Not necessarily. Remember: This wasn't a "Roberts rally."

"Most speakers mentioned the nominee, Judge John G. Roberts Jr., only in passing," noted The New York Times. Exceptions were those such as Perkins's closing prayer, "We pray for Judge Roberts that he would, in fact, be a justice who would honor the Constitution," and Dobson's remark that "for now at least, [Roberts] looks good." Hardly ringing endorsements—nor was Perkins's earlier comment about Roberts: "As Ronald Reagan said, 'Trust, but verify.'" When Reagan said that, he was talking about Soviet communists.

So if not Roberts's confirmation, what were Justice Sunday viewers supposed to "call, write, visit, e-mail, fax" about? Perhaps legislative action. Bill Donohue has a surprising suggestion: a constitutional amendment that would require "unless a judicial vote is unanimous, you cannot overturn a law created by Congress."

Donohue really means it. "Putting strict constructionists on the Supreme Court may help thwart the forces of judicial activism, but it isn't enough," he says in a press release.

The Justice Sunday folks really aren't just against the Supreme Court majority—they're against the whole Court. "Conservative" Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia have been the most inclined to strike down a law passed by Congress. (There's some debate about whether this makes them "activist" or not, but Weblog hasn't seen anyone dispute the facts.) Is Donohue so convinced that conservatives will have long-term control of the White House and Congress that he's willing to redraw dramatically the constitutional separation of powers?

(While it's true that Donohue was the only person from the platform to suggest this constitutional amendment, DeLay seemed to support it. )

Donohue made clear that he sees this moment as a time for conservative Christians to seize more power. The Left, he said, invoking Rosa Parks, had told Christians to "sit in the back of the bus" as second-class citizens. Now, he said, "Catholics and other Christians together, we are going to move to the front of the bus and take command of the wheel!"

This he said immediately after saying, "They make it sound like we are theocrats. We are simply saying that religion is an important part of life. … It's a matter that we want to stand up and be counted."

Stand up, be counted, and "take command," apparently.

Did FRC get what it paid for?
A few days ago, CT's Rob Moll asked the Family Research Council and other organizations what they were going to do with all the money they set aside for the Supreme Court confirmation battle now that the battle looks unlikely.

Apparently one of the things that FRC is spending it on is paying the travel expenses of bloggers—who covered Justice Sunday 2 from Nashville.

"The rationale here is simple: Bloggers are not MSM [mainstream media] with large travel budgets," FRC's Charmaine Yoest said on her personal blog. "Most of us have day jobs."

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August (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49