WASHINGTON (ABP) — As Chief Justice William Rehnquist put to rest rampant rumors he would retire from the Supreme Court, religious conservatives announced plans to ratchet up the culture-war rhetoric over the replacement for another retiring justice.
After a week of near-constant speculation about his impending retirement, Rehnquist — who is ailing from thyroid cancer — issued a late-evening announcement July 14 that he has no intention of resigning from the bench.
“I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement,” Rehnquist said, in a statement first released to the Associated Press through his family members. “I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits.”
Rehnquist's announcement means that, in the near term, President Bush will be able to focus only on replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who announced her retirement July 1. The moderate justice was often the critical “swing vote” in 5-4 court decisions on controversial matters, such as abortion rights and the role of religion in public life.
Emphasizing the importance of O'Connor's replacement, a group of religious conservatives also announced July 14 they would once again host a telecast aimed at building support for appointing a social conservative to replace the justice.
The Family Research Council announced it will broadcast “Justice Sunday II” from Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, a large Southern Baptist congregation, Aug. 14. The telecast is a follow-up to a controversial “Justice Sunday” telecast from a Southern Baptist church in Louisville, Ky., in April.
The event takes its subtitle, “God save the United States and this honorable court,” from an invocation the Supreme Court's marshal pronounces every time the court sits. It is designed to highlight the issues important to social conservatives and the opportunity they have to shift the court to a solid 5-4 majority in favor of many of their positions.
The telecast will feature FRC President Tony Perkins along with a host of religious conservative leaders, such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, and Zell Miller of Georgia, a former Democratic senator turned conservative activist.
Progressive and moderate groups criticized the event, saying it would once again attempt to inject partisan politics into the judicial-selection process and the pulpit.
“Most people I know go to church to connect with God, not hear a rant posing as a sermon from Tony Perkins about which judges God wants to see on the Supreme Court,” said Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a July 15 press release.
The original Justice Sunday telecast, subtitled, “Stop the filibuster against people of faith,” was aimed at Senate Democrats, who had blocked a handful of Bush's nominees to lower federal courts because of what they considered extremist views on a variety of issues. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) — widely expected to be a presidential candidate in 2008 — addressed the rally via a videotaped message.
Frist's appearance, and the telecast's claims, garnered strong criticism from Democrats as well as moderate and progressive religious leaders. They said it was unfair to claim any judicial nominees were being filibustered because of their faith.
Of the handful of judges and lawyers around the country being mentioned as potential replacements for O'Connor, only Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is generally viewed as a moderate comparable to O'Connor. Religious conservatives began criticizing him shortly after O'Connor's announcement, but Bush asked them to tone down their rhetoric.
The FRC announcement comes shortly after the release of a series of polls that suggest Americans are divided on whether Bush should pick a replacement for O'Connor that would make the court more liberal, more conservative or more moderate.
A Harris Interactive poll released July 13 said 43 percent of adults surveyed favored a moderate replacement for O'Connor, while 23 percent preferred a conservative and 15 percent a liberal.
Polls have consistently found that a large majority of the public does not favor a justice who would vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that guarantees women a constitutional right to abortion. A Gallup poll, released July 1, found 63 percent of respondents opposed to overturning Roe, while only 28 percent were in favor of doing away with the decision.