Progressive religious leaders from around the country are joining with DriveDemocracy to take the fight to GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the far right’s unprecedented attack on the constitution and the judiciary.

We’re going to Louisville, Kentucky, just down the street from where the Family Research Council and Frist launch their theocratic telecast. We’ll be staging a massive rally at 2 p.m. at Douglas Boulevard Christian Church.

Joining us is the Clergy and Laity Network, whose national committee includes Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Sister Joan Chittister, Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Rev. Dr. Otis Brown, Jr., Rev. Dr. Albert Pennybacker, Dr. Susannah Heschel and many more. Invites to other speakers from across the nation are going out today.

Many of you will remember George Lakoff’s plea last week on Kos that we step up and answer the right’s outrageous abuse of power. We listened (in fact we were with George in Dallas when he posted his diary). We listened to you, too. The theme is “Freedom AND Faith,” and we’ll be hammering the wingers’ efforts to stack the court against average Americans.

Their attack on the faith(s) of progressives has been widely condemned. Undeterred, the far right is continuing its effort to pack the federal judiciary with its theocratic supporters. Frist and company would outlaw the filibuster and trash the constitutional separation of church and state.

Spread the word. Help us raise a buck or two to cover our expenses. You can follow developments at DriveDemocracy.org, and we’ll keep you up to date here as well.

It’s not a matter of conscience or faith that calls Bill Frist and Tom DeLay to the extremist cultists on the religious right. It’s plain old street politics.

Frist needs the GOP base with him as he gears up for the Republican presidential primary in 2008. DeLay might need them to post his bond.

It’s guaranteed that Frist’s advisors are telling him,"Remember Bush at Bob Jones University. The GOP middle will forgive you for pandering to the right, no matter how extreme you seem. And anyway, these wingnuts dominate our primaries, that’s why we call them the base. And they will not forgive you if you fail to bow to them now.”

DeLay’s ethics problems are nearing the stuff of legend. With the authorities pounding on the door, he first hid beneath Teri Schiavo’s hospital bed. Voters on their bull horns shouted, “Come out, Tom. It’s all over. We’ve got you surrounded.” Now he’s shouting back, “You’ll never take me alive, coppers. And by the way, I’m going to take out a few judges while I’m at it. Don’t think I won’t do it. You heard me tell the NRA how happy I was that my supporters are armed.”

It is outrageous that there’s a group of people in America prepared to accuse us of being godless because we oppose their efforts to turn the American courthouse into their private parish hall. But many of these extremists are simply misguided. Frist and DeLay are not misguided. They are perfectly guided, not by God, but by the cynical and immoral consultants who serve them at court.

Senate Majority Leader Frist’s Attack on the Religion of his Opponents “Offensive,” says a Coalition of Religious Organizations

Religious Coalition Appeals to Frist to Put the American Value of Religious Tolerance Ahead of Frist’s Partisan Political Agenda of Forcing Senators to Accept Bush’s Extremist Judicial Nominees

Friday, April 15 – A coalition of progressive religious leaders and organizations today expressed outrage that Republican leaders are attacking the faith of Democrats and progressives in a cynical, partisan effort to win support for a handful of extremist judicial nominees.

“Such an action is immoral, deceitful, and beyond the pale of even politics as usual,” said Rev. Albert M. Pennybacker, Executive Director and Chair of Clergy and Laity Network and coordinator for the Building the Beloved Community Coalition. “We call on Senator Frist to immediately cancel his plans to attend the event, and we urge all Republicans to condemn this wholesale attack on the religious practices of their political opponents.”

According to the New York Times, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist will join an organization called “The Family Research Council” in a national telecast on April 24. The Council is calling it “Justice Sunday,” are saying Democrats want to use the Senate filibuster “against people of faith.”

“As people of faith, we protest the religious manipulation of the filibuster issue,” said Pennybacker. “Attacks by Republicans on the religion of those who differ politically are offensive in America.”

The Clergy and Laity Network will sponsor a national prayer vigil on April 24 and is inviting citizens of all faith traditions to protest this unprecedented attack, which is add odds with America’s religious traditions

The CLN and DriveDemocracy are the coordinators of a national coalition of more than 65 religious organizations. Their national “Breaking the Silence” campaign kicked off April 4 at Riverside Church in NYC and is continuing with a national tour of America. Details of these and other events can be found at www.clnnlc.org and here.

According to the New York Times, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist will join an organization called “The Family Research Council” in a national telecast on April 24. They are calling it “Justice Sunday.” They are saying Democrats want to use the Senate filibuster “against people of faith.”

Republican leaders are attacking the faith of Democrats and progressives in a cynical, partisan effort to win support for a handful of extremist judicial nominees.

Such an action is immoral, deceitful, and beyond the pale of even politics as usual. We call on Senator Frist to immediately cancel his plans to attend the event, and we urge all Republican elected to condemn this wholesale attack on the religious practices of their political opponents.

DriveDemocracy.org and our friends at the Clergy and Laity Network and the entire network of progressive religious organizations we’ve been building with the ongoing Break the Silence Bus tour are not going to sit still for this. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting details on our counter-attack soon.

Those on the left who are waiting for progressive religious leaders to add their voices to the national political debate need wait no longer. A powerful assembly of religious leaders from a variety of traditions gathered at Riverside Church in New York on April 4. Their message was loud and clear: the militarism of Bush, the widening divide between rich and poor, the failure to provide families with health care, education, safe neighborhoods, even food, demands a revolution.

It was three-hour rally, but you can watch a brief video recap of the Riverside event here. DriveDemocracy.org, helped co-sponsor Riverside, and, with Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry’s and True Majority.org) the subsequent national campaign.

You can read more about the event by clicking on the Break the Silence graphic. If you think this emergence of progressive religious leaders is as important as we do, hit the contributions button and help sponsor the campaign.

At a time of growing religios fanaticism and its embrace by the right, Americans need to see there is a community of conscience that speaks up for their values while preserving the essential constitutional separation of church and state.

Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., senior pastor at Riverside, is quickly emerging as a powerful new voice in American religion and politics. He led the event at Riverside. Also speaking were Sister Joan Chittister, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Imam Feisal Rauf, Rev. Dr. William Sinkford, and others.

Among the most compelling speakers were Celeste Zappala and Cindy Sheehan, mothers of American soldiers slain in Iraq.

Take a look for yourself. You have to go all the way back to Civil Rights and Vietnam era to hear voices such as these speaking out against militarism and for freedom and economic justice at home.

The April 4 event marked the 38th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside. I think he would have been proud of the gathering at Riverside on April 4, 2005.

Fox’s “news analyst,” Tammy Bruce, commenting on Tom DeLay’s woes (his “death of a thousand cuts,” according to another commentator) described George Soros this morning as “a virus in the system that has to be dealt with” (a threat?). This is about what The Hill refers to as “a burgeoning ethics war on Capitol Hill” with Republicans “circulating research that details links among Democrats, George Soros and government watchdog groups that have criticized Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and the House ethics process.” The Republicans are hoping they can shout the words “liberal” and “left-wing” loud enough to obfuscate the pattern of ethical breaches by Delay. As Ken Bode says, “When you begin to build a record – three ethics citations in one year – you also begin to attract attention.”

As part of the Building the Beloved Community project the Declaration below was completed on April 2. It was read for the first time in Riverside Church, New York, on April 4 by Kelley Ogden, of Houston, Texas, the final consensus leader of the Peace Not Poverty Write-In.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Thirty-eight years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us of those moments in life where silence is betrayal. Our collective conscience tells us now is the time to speak. Today we walk in the footsteps of Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi, Fred Korematsu, and countless others who have walked this road before. We follow their footsteps along a path of moral evolution so we may forever change the way we see ourselves and those with whom we share this earth.

War poisons the moral fiber of every individual and rips the intricate fabric of life. As a nation, our core values are peace and non aggression towards other sovereign states. The war in Iraq, however, violates this principle of non-aggression for the Iraq war is a war of choice. We did not engage in diplomacy, but rather, bullying. Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and Iraq did not invade or attack our country. It is painful to face this nation’s arrogant and brutish tactics but our conscience tells us that we must end this war.

read the full declaration here.

Jesse rolls on bus tour for values
BY TANYANIKA SAMUELS NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to the city yesterday to launch a national campaign that evoked the fiery leader’s glory days.

Declaring that America’s values are being eroded by the Bush administration, Jackson said the Beloved Community bus tour would hit 27 cities in a push to protect voting rights, Social Security, health insurance and education.

“This country must make some choices,” Jackson said before speaking at Riverside Church.

“We will not get better with unified blindness,” he added.

The campaign is the work of a coalition of 30 clergy and religious organizations.

It targets President Bush’s “ownership society” and aims to counter the conservative religious movement that many credit with reelecting Bush in November. The campaign also will appeal to the public to be more proactive in shaping public policy.

“This is a summons to religious voices to be heard … and to present an alternative to ‘religious talk’ that oftentimes is narrow-minded,” said the Rev. Albert Pennybacker, executive director of the Clergy and Laity Network.

“We can no longer just stand by as our nation continues to be misled by current policies,” said the Rev. James Forbes of Riverside Church.

Jackson also took aim at the Iraq war, saying the administration lied to the country to win support to oust Saddam Hussein.

Americans were led to war by what turned out to be “weapons of mass deception,” Jackson said. “People are dying for a big lie, and only the poor are dying.”

The Dallas Morning News is reporting on the Riverside Church event today in New York:

Religious progressives resist Christian right
Coalition launching campaign to redefine, broaden moral agenda

Moving to counter the success of the religious right in politics, a coalition of more than 60 progressive religious groups is organizing a national effort against the policies of President Bush and conservatives in Congress.

“We’re not going to let the Christian right set the religious agenda,” said the Rev. Albert Pennybacker, chief executive officer of the Clergy and Laity Network, one of several organizations involved.

Planners describe the campaign, which begins with a rally today in New York followed by a 27-city bus tour, as the most aggressive organizing effort by progressive religious leaders since the civil-rights movement. The event kicks off a movement called “The Beloved Community: Building a Responsible Society.”

The religious leaders and community activists say they want to redefine the debate over values in politics beyond conservative themes of abortion and gay marriage to include care for the poor, judicial nominees, the Iraq war and the environment.

Mr. Pennybacker, whose organization represents 11,000 pastors and religious leaders, said social conservatives have used churches and religious organizations effectively to affect public policy.

“They have out-organized us, and we’ve had enough of that,” he said.

A diverse group of religious leaders will speak today at Riverside Church in New York, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon on “beloved community” on this date in 1967. In that speech, the civil-rights leader expressed opposition to the Vietnam War.

Glenn Smith, a Texas Democratic political consultant advising the effort, said religious conservatives have succeeded in part because they are comfortable framing public policy in religious terms and have “a ready-made infrastructure” in conservative congregations and interest groups.

“We’ve not done that,” he said. “We’ve never used the more progressive churches as real organizing centers of gravity, not since the civil-rights movement.

“The goal is for them to get organized to articulate a values-based message to moderate progressive Americans to see there is another side to this selfish agenda of the right,” he said. “Ultimately, I would hope these people would be trained and ready for action in the 2006 midterm [congressional] elections.”

The bus tour will hold events Tuesday in Philadelphia and Washington. Rallies at other cities will follow. Texas is not currently on the list, but organizers say they are considering Dallas for a future stop.

DeLay is going after the judges in the Schiavo case:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Thursday blamed Terri Schiavo’s death on what he contended was a failed legal system and he raised the possibility of trying to impeach some of the federal judges in the case.

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,” said DeLay, R-Texas.

And he’s mobilizing his supporters on the extreme right to warn any GOP US Rep not to turn on ol’ Tom.

The Washington Times reports:

Conservative leaders say defending House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is a litmus test for any Republican lawmaker seeking their support, even as a liberal advocacy group announced yesterday it will run commercials questioning Mr. DeLay’s ethics in some House Republicans’ districts.

JesseLee of the DCCC has some great analysis on Kos.

The reason a GOP turn against DeLay would have to be en masse is because any individuals who tried to stick their necks out would immediately be served up on a platter as an example to the rest. This is DeLay’s greatest leverage, and he knows it. Thus you see him and his allies looking for every tool in their arsenal to bring the force of a million wingnuts down upon anybody who gets uppity.

And as we started to suggest yesterday, that list of potential targets most certainly includes the White House.

But the bigger picture is this: for decades now, Tom DeLay has earned the reputation as one who will put party before country every time. Now he is putting himself before the party. And of course, it was probably always so.