The Group Behind Prop 8 | Stuart Whatley in The American Prospect

Ultraconservative legal organization the Alliance Defense Fund is backing a California marriage ban with rhetoric about "defending" family and children.

by Stuart Whatley | October 22, 2008

In her October column on ballot initiatives, Dana Goldstein points out conservatives' tendency to employ language in their initiatives that is antithetical to their intended goal. Ward Connerly's "civil-rights initiatives," for example, seek to quash affirmative-action programs. But perhaps no group has demonstrated greater dissonance between rhetoric and reality as the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). The ADF is a primary player in the push to pass the California Protection of Marriage Act (Proposition 8), which calls for the explicit revocation, not protection, of the gay community's new-found right to marry.

Following the ADF's defeat in California's In re Marriage Cases in May, when the court ruled that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the ADF found reinforcements in other conservative groups such as ProtectMarriage, the National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family. In the following months, this conservative conglomeration successfully garnered over one million signatures to place Prop 8 on the ballot with hopes of overturning the court's ruling. The ADF's role in the case was to "defend" its position on the legal definition of marriage -- that it is exclusively between a man and a woman -- under the aegis of traditional Christian family structures.

The ADF is a Christian conservative consortium of lawyers, founded in 1994 as an answer to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Its stated purpose -- to "defend the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation" -- reflects an underlying paranoid worldview entirely antithetical to reality: that Christians in America are persecuted by the government and secular society. Given the ADF's incessant litigiousness and efforts at national ubiquity, this puts their defensive posturing somewhere between farcical and downright mendacious. The reality is that the ADF is a legal powerhouse that spends over $20 million a year to project its paranoid argument into courtrooms across the nation.

The ADF's main prerogative is to defend the Christian majority's "right" to suppress respective minorities' liberties. Glen Lavy the group's head of marriage litigation, claimed in May that the ADF was not challenging same-sex couples' right to marry, but rather "defending" the traditional Christian notion of marriage as a necessary condition for children's healthy development. Following the court's decision to allow same-sex couples to marry, he told reporters that "the government should not, by design, deny a child both a mother and father." Thus, the ADF spins its efforts as defensive in the interests of children rather than offensive against the interests of the minority gay community.

This, of course, is a compelling argument for those who share the ADF's traditional Christian values, and maybe even for some moderate voters. However, the "we're defending children" rhetoric is quite obviously an obfuscation of the initiative's true intent. In fact, in an April 20, 2007 memo to Congress, Lavy provides valuable insight into his actual beliefs by expressing his support for groups and individuals who consider homosexuality to be "physically and psychologically harmful" as well as "immoral."

Having lost its legal battle in May, the ADF has since redirected its efforts to guaranteeing Prop 8's passage in November. Specifically, the group has attempted to finagle the initiative's language, controlling how it will be read by voters at the ballot box. In early August, ADF lawyers filed an appeal with the court to reverse state Attorney General Jerry Brown's decision that changed the words "limit on marriage" to "eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry" in Prop 8's title. While the modification is much clearer as to the initiative's true intent, ADF Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco seemed to realize that such clearly worded language would turn off moderate voters. By arguing that "election ballot titles should be neutral and not intentionally prejudice voters," while at the same time advocating for vaguer language, Infranco perhaps revealed his own suspicion that Prop 8 must be misrepresented in order to pass. However, the court denied the appeal, affirming Brown's new wording.

California's judiciary has thus far demonstrated immunity to the ADF's rhetoric. Unfortunately, however, the organization does not limit itself to waging just one war at a time. Elsewhere, beyond California's same-sex marriage debate, the ADF held an event called Pulpit Freedom Sunday on September 28, under the banner of Free Speech, to brazenly violate the federal tax code that prohibits such political activism by tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Pulpit Freedom Sunday, or the Pulpit Initiative, fulfilled the ADF's goal of recruiting pastors to explicitly discuss partisan politics. All told, 100 pastors were willing to participate, and the ADF selected a third of them. With each pastor endorsing a presidential candidate "on the basis of Scripture," abortion and same-sex marriage were elevated from marginal culture-war issues of this election to the paramount concern. One need not have been in each of the 33 congregations on Pulpit Freedom Sunday to guess in which direction the partisan winds blew.

Furthermore, the ADF intends to send the IRS a copy of each sermon transcript as a direct instigation. As of this writing, the IRS has not revealed its course of punitive action, which will determine if the ADF wins its day in court or not. The ADF's ultimate objective is to spur a U.S. Supreme Court battle over what it considers to be a pastor's prerogative to determine "the proper role of church in society" and to have the law thrown out for good.

In a September 9 press release, ADF President and CEO Alan Sears goes as far as to suggest that such tax-exempt demagogy is not only a First Amendment right, but also the historical foundation for "many Americans' attitudes and actions toward slavery, child labor, civil rights, and even the American Revolution."

Like "protection of marriage" and "civil-rights" ballot initiatives, the ADF's rhetoric here is basically opposite its intent. The end of slavery, child labor laws, the civil rights movement, and the American Revolution were driven by Enlightenment calls for democracy, human equality, and liberalism -- not the exploitation of an organization's charitable status to endorse its favorite politician.

However, mirroring the campaign in California, the ADF's disingenuous representation of its true motives has drawn skepticism, if not outright condemnation, from others in the legal community as well as religious leaders. Notably, Reverend Eric Williams from the United Church of Christ in Ohio, partnered with former IRS lawyer Marcus S. Owens, regard the ADF's actions as ethically questionable and doubt that the Supreme Court will sympathize with its retrograde position.

The Pulpit Initiative appears to be more extreme than past actions and may be the beginning of the end as the organization loses clout, and possibly its tax-exempt status, from its unbridled ambition. While 33 pastors participated in the event, more than 180 are participating in an Interfaith Alliance pledge that seeks the exact opposite -- to uphold the separation of church and state by promising not to discuss partisan politics in their sermons.

So far, this election cycle has shown that the ADF's deceptive rhetoric may not be as effective as it's been in the past, mirroring Ward Connerly's recent failures to pass anti-affirmative-action measures (only two of the five target states have chosen to participate in his "Super Tuesday for Civil Rights"). With a larger trend of dubious claims from the right this election season, it is reassuring to see indicators that the public and judiciaries are growing wiser to dishonest political charades. One can only hope this response will continue through November 4.

Another Invitation to Abuse - Editorial in The New York Times

The New York Times - Editorial - October 18, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently issued new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use a range of intrusive techniques to gather information on Americans — even when there is no clear basis for suspecting wrongdoing.

Under the new rules, agents may engage in lengthy physical surveillance, covertly infiltrate lawful groups, or conduct pretext interviews in which agents lie about their identities while questioning a subject’s neighbors, friends or work colleagues based merely on a generalized “threat.” The new rules also allow the bureau to use these techniques on people identified in part by their race or religion and without requiring even minimal evidence of criminal activity.

These changes are a chilling invitation for the government to spy on law-abiding Americans based on their ethnic background or political activity.

Mr. Mukasey has promised that investigations conducted under the new rules will be consistent with the Constitution. Clearly, the Bush administration cannot be trusted to find the right balance between law enforcement and civil liberties. Even before this administration the F.B.I. had its own long history of abusing its powers to spy on civil rights groups and antiwar activists.

Critics also warn that the new rules could impede legitimate law enforcement efforts by alienating communities whose cooperation the F.B.I. needs and by distracting agents from focusing on genuine criminal activity and national security threats.

Mr. Mukasey and Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, refused requests from several senators, including Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, to delay the new rules until Congress and the public could thoroughly review them. Instead they rushed to put the changes in place before President Bush leaves office.

The next president will have to order a full and transparent review of this latest change, and all of the Bush administration’s policies that threaten Americans’ most fundamental rights.

Upper Class Pillaging - Mike Garibaldi-Frick in The Huffington Post

by Mike Garibaldi-Frick

October 19, 2008 - 01:07 AM (EST)

Even today as the U.S. Treasury is being pillaged by corporate America, there has been an absence of any significant economic middle class(*) backlash here in America. As the wealth gap between the middle class and upper class has increased more than any time in our history, Americans seem to be mostly helpless in stemming this trend toward inequality.

Will the tide finally turn during an Obama Presidency? After analyzing Obama's economic positions (including health care, tax policies and budgeting), most economists say "yes!"

After eight years of the Bush Presidency, McCain style deregulation and tax policy that favors the rich, the American middle class has been taken hostage and told they will lose everything (trickle down financial ruin) if they do not bailout the big banks, investment firms and insurance companies. Bush & Cheney have perfected the panic mode wealth transfer that Naomi Klein describes so well in "The Shock Doctrine." This multi-trillion-dollar parting gift is their payback to the upper class that helped orchestrate their election.

The U.S. Treasury gained support for the bailouts by promising stricter rules on grossly excessive executive compensation. But now we find out that financial workers at Wall Street's top banks -- the greedy ones that got us into this mess in the first place -- are going to receive payouts worth more than $70 billion and, according to the Guardian, "... a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash."

Last year, for instance, Merrill Lynch's chairman Stan O'Neal took a golden parachute deal worth over $160 million, after announcing losses of nearly $8 billion at his firm. Did Mr. O'neal's labor bankrupting Merrill Lynch really justify $159,935,000 more dollars from society than a teacher or fireman?

The politics of capitalism attempts to fool us into believing in extreme individualism --e.g., that every man is an island. But, the truth (starkly exposed by Mainstreet needing to bailout Wallstreet) is that we are closely interconnected even if worlds apart in wealth and influence. Mr. O'Neal taking $160 million out of the money system to spend on extravagances, does effect the teacher and fireman via the national debt they will incur to bailout Mr. O'Neal / Merrill Lynch.

Where did the billions of dollars lost by the banks go? Did the money just evaporate? No. Most of it went to these huge CEO and executive payouts to expand the obscene wealth of the upper class. Someone has to pay for the mega-yachts, extravagant parties, multiple mansions and other extravagances of the rich. If you want to see where your money is going, just tune into "Lifestyles of the Super Rich."

Once again, responsible hard-working citizens are paying for the lavish lifestyles and reckless financial abandon of the upper class. How ironic that the same institutions that have been feeding off the middle class like leeches for decades (via unreasonable fees, large interest rate spreads, insurance rate hikes, hyped-up investment schemes, etc.), are now begging for more blood money.

The middle class and poor get crumbs from measly "bailouts" such as the lackluster sub-prime mortgage assistance program and a tax rebate check for $600; while the rich get more tangible bailouts to the tune of billions. Capitalism for the middle class, socialism for the rich, indeed! This is what you get when corrupt Republicans and the Corporate sociopathic personality rule the economy. One of the ways to change this dynamic is to remove corporation's status as a separate entity unbound by individual consequences and place more responsibility on the executives that direct corporate actions.

We need to end the the welfare era for the rich via tax cuts, Halliburton / war "no bid" handouts, oil company gouging and corporate bailouts. Instead, the American government needs to lift the middle class with investments in education, job training, energy independence (from domestic oil companies too!), health care and economic programs such as small business development and tangible mortgage assistance.

The only choice for fiscal conservatives in this election is Obama. By electing Obama POTUS and other fiscally sympathetic representatives, the middle class can then exercise its newfound power over insurance companies, corporations and bankers. You want us to bail you out? Here are some of our demands:

1) Corporations and the rich need to pay higher taxes, period. We are tired of hearing that higher corporate and upper class taxes will increase the jobless rate and slow the economy.

Even Warren Buffet (an Obama supporter) says that our current tax system unfairly puts more of the tax burden on the working class than the rich. The rich pay more taxes as a total collected, but much less of a percentage as the middle class.

Mr. Buffet goes on to say, "There's class warfare, all right," Mr. Buffett said, "but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

2) We want tougher consumer regulations on the insurance, credit card and banking industries along with fair mortgage lending practices. It's time for Wallstreet, insurance company's and banks to forgo some of the excessive profits we have seen in the past and pass savings along to their clients.

3) Middle class and small business tax cuts. It's time for some "trickle up" economics.

When Obama becomes President of the United States with a Democratic Congress, the middle class will once again have a strong voice in national politics. If you were advising Obama as he begins his Presidency in 2009, what policies would you suggest he initiate to stimulate and strengthen the economy and middle class (instead of corporate bailouts)?

(*For this blog's purpose I'm referring to the "middle class" as everyone who is not in the "upper class." Even though the "upper middle class," "lower middle class," "working class," and "lower class," combine to make up 99% of the United States population, the remaining 1% owns about one third of private wealth.)

The GOP Peddles Economic Snake Oil - Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal

Suddenly Republicans are against market values?

By Thomas Frank

OK, let me get this straight: The central axiom of conservative Republicanism is that government is inherently corrupt and can't do anything right.

Over many years of ascendancy, conservative Republicans have filled government agencies with conservative Republicans and proceeded to enact the conservative Republican policy wish list -- tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing federal work, and so on.

And as a consequence of these policies our conservative Republican government has bungled most of the big tasks that have fallen to it. The rescue and recovery of the Gulf Coast was a disaster. The reconstruction of Iraq was a disaster. The regulatory agencies became so dumb they didn't even see the disasters they were set up to prevent. And each disaster was attributable to the conservative philosophy of government.

Yet now we are supposed to vote for more conservative Republicans because we learned from the last bunch of conservative Republicans that government just doesn't work.

That is the advice of Sarah Palin, Republican vice-presidential nominee, in last week's debate with her Democratic counterpart, discussing the dread prospect of universal health care: "Unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds."

Conservative misrule, prompted by conservative disdain for government, proves that government cannot be trusted -- and that the only answer is to elect another round of government-denouncing conservatives.

"Cynicism" seems too small a word for this circular kind of political fraud. One reaches instead for images of grosser malevolence. It's like suggesting that the best way to recover from pneumonia is to stand in the rain for three hours. It's like arguing that the way to solve nuclear proliferation is by handing out weapons-grade plutonium to everyone who asks for it.

Consider also the perverse incentives that such a logic would establish. If we validate Mrs. Palin's thoughts on federal bungling by electing her to the high office she seeks, we are encouraging her to bungle everything that comes her way. After all, by her thinking, such bungling will not discredit her doctrines but rather confirm them, demonstrate the need for more Sarah Palins down the road. We will be asking for it, and it's not much of a stretch to predict that we will get it.

In the three-ring circus of conservative blame-evasion, however, that's only one act. Over in the House of Representatives, a new breed of Republican idealists spent last week dazzling the faithful by taking a bold stand against the Wall Street bailout. The administration's plan was a "slippery slope to socialism," declared their leader, Jeb Hensarling of Texas.

One might have admired their pluck but for the breathtaking opportunism of their own counterproposal, the "Free Market Protection Act," which is described on the Web site of the Republican Study Committee. True, it is not a "slippery slope." It is a headlong stampede over a precipice, a running leap out a skyscraper window.

It starts by calling for "voluntary private capital" to solve the problem of bad mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Several sentences later it asks for a "mandatory" fee to be levied on all MBS, good or bad, and apparently without regard for whether it's held here or overseas, where American law doesn't apply. I asked William Black, the University of Missouri-Kansas City professor of economics and law whom I quoted last week, what he thought of this scheme. He replied, "This is significantly insane as a matter of finance -- and unconstitutional as a matter of law. This clause would cause a world-wide financial panic were it implemented."

Back at the study committee's Web site, I see conservatives call to "Suspend 'Mark to Market' Accounting." Suddenly our "free-market protection" gang has decided it's unfair to make companies value their MBSs at . . . the market price. Somehow the all-seeing market has gone irrational, and so companies must be allowed "to mark these assets to their true economic value," meaning, one might say, to mark them however they please, a practice that, to put it shortly, is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Space prevents me from discussing the plan's provisions to temporarily suspend capital gains taxes and repeal the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. But I will note that, in discussing the derring-do of Mr. Hensarling and his hard-core colleagues, the New York Times chose to refer to them as "populists" -- friends of the common people. As an indicator of the confused state of our political discourse, the signals don't flash any brighter than this.

Years ago, conservatives realized that to destroy the legitimacy of your adversary's concepts is to destroy your adversary. Today we are surrounded by the wreckage. Much depends on our success in rebuilding.

Write to thomas@wsj.com