Giving the Law a Religious Perspective By ADAM LIPTAK

The class in civil procedure, at the new Liberty School of Law here, began with a prayer.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul,” said Prof. Jeffrey C. Tuomala, quoting Psalm 19. “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.”

But decisions of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Tuomala went on, are not always trustworthy. “Something that is contrary to the law of nature,” he said, “cannot be law.”

The school, part of Liberty University, whose chancellor is the Rev. Jerry Falwell, is for now a makeshift affair in a vast industrial building that used to be a cellular phone factory. Its students compensate for the surroundings by dressing well – many of the men wore jackets and ties – and by showing attentive enthusiasm, even for a heavy dose of civil procedure at 8 a.m.

The school, which says its mission is to train “ministers of justice,” is part of a movement around the nation that means to bring a religious perspective to the law and a moral component to legal practice.

“People are realizing that some of the biggest issues of the day are being decided in the courts – the 2000 presidential election, the question of what is marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, cloning,” said Jeffrey A. Brauch, the dean of Regent Law School, which was founded in 1986 in Virginia Beach by Pat Robertson, the television evangelist. “And maybe there are eternal principles of justice that will tell us how to approach these questions.” …

[W]here mainstream law professors tend to ask questions about judges’ fidelity to precedent and the Constitution, Liberty professors often analyze decisions in terms of biblical principles.

“If our graduates wind up in the government,” Dr. Falwell said, “they’ll be social and political conservatives. If they wind up as judges, they’ll be presiding under the Bible.”

Many of the dozen students who chatted with a reporter over two days at the school, representing a fifth of the school’s first and only class, said they were drawn to its emphasis on fundamental and enduring truths.

“We study the law that’s written on the heart, the things that no one can deny,” Brian Fraser said.

Amend for Arnold & Jen
[mjh: who the hell is Jen?]

Orrin Hatch introduced the “Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment” into the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2003. Since then, not much has happened.

We aim to change that.

Thousands of amendments are floated in Congress every year but virtually all of them sink out of sight. The last one ratified was the 27th Amendment in 1992. (It’s about Congressional pay.)

So……

We need 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate to vote for our amendment. Then we need 3/4 of the states to ratify the amendment.

That’s 38 states. That’s a lot.

We’re going to need help in every state…..and that’s where you come in.

As long as we’re shredding the Constitution for Arnold, let’s outlaw choice and gays. Might as well restore the original intent of letting only landowners (ie, Rich White Guys) vote. mjh

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. November 5, 2004 | PBS

BUSH: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.

MOYERS: The President has the political muscle to back his claim to a mandate — and the enforcers to carry it out. One of them is with me now, Grover Norquist, one of the most prominent and powerful figures in the conservative movement.

From leading college Republicans — he himself has two degrees from Harvard — to running Americans for Tax Reform, which dubbed Senate minority leader Tom Daschle an “enemy of the taxpayer” and helped to defeat him, Grover Norquist is a prime mover on the right. In the words of Newt Gingrich, “the most creative and most effective conservative activist” in the country.

He’s also one tough hombre. This week he told Democrats to get with the program, accept the fact that they are powerless. The WASHINGTON POST quotes him saying after the election:

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’re fixed then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

Grover Norquist assures us he was speaking tongue-in-cheek, but Democrats and liberals are now accustomed to have his thumb in their eye. …

MOYERS: You’ve got the power now, power you could hardly ever dream of. What are you going to do with it in the next four years?

NORQUIST: In the next four years, you’ll see the President had four tax cuts in the first four years. I believe you’ll see four tax cuts in the next four years. We now have the votes to abolish the death tax. We have the votes to go to expensing for business investment, for expanding IRAs and 401Ks so all Americans can save tax free for their retirement. We need to get rid of that three percent federal excise tax which was put in to fund the Spanish-American War 100 years ago and is still there, hitting low income Americans. We will reform Social Security so that every American has the opportunity to save for his own retirement. We’re going to defeat the trial lawyers, these billionaire parasites who’ve been raising the cost of everything Americans buy and do. …