Judicial battle seen as attack on faith

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The Senate's escalating war over President Bush's judicial nominees has become a fight over the role of religious faith and moral values in the courts. It could determine the outcome of bitterly divisive legal issues such as abortion, pornography and euthanasia.

Religious conservatives say liberal opposition to a rule-changing attempt by the Republicans to end the filibuster against Mr. Bush's judicial nominees represents an all-out attack on putting "people of faith" on the federal bench.

"We see this as a defensive action in response to a growing antagonism towards nominees who happen to be conservative in their judicial philosophy and devout churchgoing Christians," says Jayd Henricks, spokesman for the Family Research Council.

"It is not that we are interested in promoting a person of faith, but rather protecting these individuals' rights to believe deeply on religious matters," Mr. Henricks says.

Liberal organizations that want to preserve the Senate filibuster rule, however, are defining the conflict in terms of safeguarding "religious tolerance and diversity."

Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, a major combatant on the other side of the debate, says the group's political battle is with "radical right leaders who suggest that you can't be a good Christian unless you share their political views. We need to seek bipartisan cooperation, not inflame political divisions with religious manipulation."

But as the senatorial rules debate heated up on Capitol Hill, a new front in the battle was opening up at the grass-roots level as conservative and liberal advocacy groups began promoting their positions in radio and television ad campaigns that targeted senators in key states.

People for the American Way has been running radio and TV ads defending the filibuster rules as part of a $5 million ad campaign in conjunction with a coalition of other liberal groups. The ads don't mention the core issue in the rules debate -- in which Democrats argue that Mr. Bush's nominees must clear a preliminary 60-vote parliamentary hurdle before proceeding to an up-or-down vote.

Instead, the ads focus on religion or questions of "checks and balances." One ad, which the People for the American Way first ran 25 years ago during the 1980 presidential campaign, charges that religious conservatives seeking to overturn the filibuster rule were "manipulating religion for political gain ... threatening to destroy our system of checks and balances."

Mr. Neas' group has used its attacks on the religious right to raise millions of dollars over the years to help elect Democrats. The organization's political action committee donated $177,802 in the 2004 election, 98 percent of it to Democratic candidates and their party's national campaign committees.

On the other side of the battle line, the conservative group Judicial Confirmation Network is running a TV ad that condemns "arrogant judges" who are "ignoring the Constitution and writing their own laws."

These judges, the ad says, "want God out of the Pledge of Allegiance" and have ruled that "child pornography is protected by the Constitution." The ad ends by urging viewers to call or write their senators and "tell them to support a fair [up-or-down majority] vote on judges."

Meanwhile, moderate Democrats have warned their party that attacking religious Americans over cultural and social issues in the political arena can only hurt the party's chances of expanding its base in the next election.

"There's a reasonably strong consensus now that an inability to address cultural concerns is one -- not the only, but one -- of the reasons Democrats are struggling to build an electoral majority," the Democratic Leadership Council said after last year's elections.

A postelection poll by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that "Bush waverers" -- voters who backed Mr. Bush but could have been persuaded to vote for Democratic candidate John Kerry -- largely made their decision based on moral values, an issue that Mr. Kerry avoided in his campaign and that Mr. Bush made a part of his standard stump speech.

Last week, the council released an analysis that admonished Democrats to pay more attention to the concerns of religious voters and parents who have become increasingly worried about the "morally corrosive forces in the culture."