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Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 07:41:03 PM EST
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Tony Perkins got the short shrift on Fox News' Rivera at Large tonight. Megyn Kendall was guest hosting for Geraldo and she had two guests, law professor Marci Hamilton and Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. Perkins was outside the Kentucky church where the Justice Sunday broadcast was televised. He got one less chance to talk than Marci, and Marci got the last word. At the very end, Perkins tried to break in but couldn't. Just as he was about to chime in, Megyn said, "Sorry, Tony, have to wrap it up." I'm sure it wasn't intentional, it was probably a hard break or time was just up, but still, Perkins was not pleased.

When he did get a chance to speak earlier in the segment, Perkins said that Sen. Harry Reid and Democrats were bringing faith into the judicial nominations issue by talking about their "closely held personal beliefs." He repeated that phrase three or four times, it was clearly his "talking point." Marci made short shrift of it and her last sentence was that the American people aren't buying it and Frist is making a mistake. And then time was up so Mr. Perkins couldn't repeat his talking point.

Marci, by the way, is not only a constitutional law professor, she was a a visiting scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Center of Theological Inquiry. She clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Here's her latest column on why Frist and DeLay's claims of judicial activism and anti-religion bias by Supreme Court justices are unfounded.

Don't feel bad for Perkins, though. "Justice Sunday", according to FRC's website, made its way into 61 million homes tonight. Marci probably reached only 2 million.

Update: Crooks and Liars has the Justice Sunday videos of Dobson , Frist and Donahoe.

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    Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs | 14 comments (14 topical)
    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 08:31:54 PM EST
    Wouldn't be too sure about the 61 million: here in AshcroftBluntistan (SW Mo.), only two radio stations carried the simulcast (both obviously small religious stations) and the only church hosting a video feed was the first baptists of Branson. Can relate that the shorter version of Justice Sunday can be stated: "It's all that moral relativist John Marshall's fault, that godless Marbury v. Madison." No kidding: what's "wrong" with American is the principle of judicial review. This from James Dobson.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 08:41:41 PM EST
    Hey, born in Joplin - and Jefferson felt the same way about Marbury

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 08:47:32 PM EST
    61 million homes? I call shenanigans. If you figure one home = 2.5 people on average (I'll admit, I'm pulling these numbers out of...thin air, but it seems reasonable, and these people do tend to have larger families) that would mean just over 152 million viewers. That's half the population of the entire country. Shenanigans.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 10:16:19 PM EST
    As a progressive/liberal Christian, I'm pretty sick of politicians and their neo-cons in sheep's clothing clergy hijacking my faith for their political agenda.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 10:37:41 PM EST
    Sounds to me that they are not only debating an intangible divisive trick of rhetoric (i.e. anyone has "closely held beliefs"), but they're reducing an already nonsensical debate to a collection of disjointed soundbytes (whether intentional or not). Someone here said something a few threads ago about the amazing influx of new sources of information that Americans are now enjoying. I agree. We have exponentially increasing access to information of exponentially decreasing quality. Opinion instead of news. Punditry instead of news. Advertisements portrayed as news. News transformed into entertainment. Press Releases and Mission Statements disguised as news (we used to have an eloquent word to describe that idea, but its meaning has been intentionally destroyed).

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 11:41:05 PM EST
    I'm really curious about why you highlighted this particular case of the media not giving both sides equal access and opportunity to be heard. FauxNews,CNN and MSNBC do this all every day, and its definitely not weighted against Tony Perkins and his ilk. It's fine to point this out, but what about putting on 1 anti-war speaker for every 15 or so pro-war speakers?

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#7)
    by cp on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 04:08:17 AM EST
    purrplegrrl, i think this is a classic case of "man bites dog"; it's such a rarity, it makes the news. think of it as one of those ubiquitious million dollar malpractice judgments we hear so much about, but almost never actually see. in fairness, i think both TC & JM have done a yeoman's job of highlighting the other side of this coin: the almost constant string of situations where the radical right has been granted carte blanche by the media, with little or no representation by the other side. it would be unseemly to not comment on this rare instance of the opposite happening, planned or otherwise.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 04:24:40 AM EST
    Posted by JCHFleetguy at April 24, 2005 09:41 PM\ Hey, born in Joplin - and Jefferson felt the same way about Marbury
    Hey JCHFleetguy: Jefferson felt that way because he lost the case, and he lost because the Marshall court recognized the political shenanigans he was playing through James Madison. Would be that our own court could be bothered to be as astute.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 10:17:57 AM EST
    Jefferson felt that way because he lost the case, and he lost because the Marshall court recognized the political shenanigans he was playing through James Madison.
    Yes, Mr. Brandon. But that is why President Jefferson, and after him President Madison, pushed through a cooperative Democratic-Republican Congress all that legislation stripping the courts of jurisdiction. Jefferson and Madison also used their executive powers to utterly repudiate judicial review, even pushing for the impeachment of the justices that ruled against them. In fact, I still don't understand how the Supreme Court was ever able to use judicial review again. I suspect Justice Blackmun.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 02:30:52 PM EST
    In fact, I still don't understand how the Supreme Court was ever able to use judicial review again.
    Ladeedah, "mds." Still the law of the land. Cheers.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 03:18:31 PM EST
    Anon - I think (hope?) mds was making a joke.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 05:05:48 PM EST
    I think (hope?) mds was making a joke.
    Yes, yes, I was, SFAW. Sorry. I was also trying to make a point, which is that history clearly shows that neither President Jefferson nor President Madison acted as if they thought Justice Marshall's action was illegal, regardless of whether they liked it. The contrast with the present day's pack of crybabies is instructive. I mean, Tom DeLay has the nerve to blather about how something should have been done about judicial review? He is, appropriately enough, a mere insect next to Jefferson and Madison. How dare he speak as if correcting their mistakes?

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Apr 27, 2005 at 05:44:59 AM EST
    61 million homes. Believe the numbers because this was carried through the internet as well and was featured on many of the blog sites. The text was also carried on many of the sites. This issue is a very core principal to many who voted in the last election and they are still very active in the move to end the left wing agenda being pushed through courts instead of through legislation. The left knows that they are losing the battle in the legislature and the tide has turned. They talk about wanting to preserve the integrity of the senate but Chuckie boy, the NY Senator was screaming about the population base of each senator as if the senate should change the constitution where each state gets two senators no matter the population. We are seeing the wailing of a left who are out of touch with where America is going now that the people of faith are engaged, assembling, working hard at the grass roots level, and voting. The MSM is screaming because the successful blogs with millions of readers are now getting their news from other sources and they are losing control. 61 Million Homes... Believe it. It is only the beginning of taking America back.

    Re: Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Apr 27, 2005 at 06:31:35 AM EST
    Believe it. It is only the beginning of taking America back
    ...to Salem, MA. Or 15th-century Spain. Or the Eastern Empire under Theodosius. No, seriously, back to what? The days when Deists and Unitarians could openly play a major role in forming and serving in the US government? The days when the author of the Declaration of Independence deferred to the judicial review of the Supreme Court? Or simply the days of 2000, when the Southern Baptist Convention's Faith & Message said
    Church and state should be separate.
    The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends.
    Yeah, those were good days. Better than the days when Dominionists brag about the vast army they are marshaling against the "leftists," or the "homosexual agenda", or the "secular Jews."

    Tony Perkins and Closely Held Personal Beliefs | 14 comments (14 topical)