Why Newt’s Crazy-Seeming Crusade On Judges May Be Rather Canny

Newt Gingrich
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Looks like there’s method to Newt’s madness. Even some of his supporters threw up their hands in despair when Gingrich went on his recent tear against the tyranny of judges. Over the weekend, he drew fire from both sides of the aisle for alleging that the President has the power to arrest judges who issue poor rulings and ignore Supreme Court decisions. But Newt has a good reason to take on this bizarre crusade.

Newt is trying to win over religious conservatives, who have ample reason to be wary of the former speaker. Not only has he been a moderate social conservative for most of his career, but his history of adultery and three marriages haven’t been the model of Christian living either. Nevertheless, it’s a group of voters Newt will have to win over in Iowa, South Carolina, and across the country if he wants the Republican nomination. Evangelicals and other conservative religious groups believe that courts and judges are out to suppress Christianity and their way of life — and Newt is there to validate those concerns.

To counteract the anti-religious courts, Newt’s campaign has produced a 20-page document outlining a Presidential Commission on Religious Freedom that Newt would establish via executive order on his first day in the White House. While not explicitly centered on the courts, that’s what it boils down to.

The commission would hold hearings and report on solutions to the encroaching secularism being imposed by the courts. “Today, the foundations of religious freedom in this country are being eroded as never before,” the document explains. After pages summarizing the founders’ dedication to both Christianity and religious freedom, the document (a draft of a final document that is supposed to arrive in September 2012) explains why today is such a perilous time for people of faith:

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion.

The quote is from the “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” a November 2009 document that brought together conservative Catholics and evangelicals to oppose recent government and court actions. On issues from gay marriage to abortion to prayer in schools, they feel their views are under attack. When Gingrich talks about the tyranny of the courts, he is talking about decisions which enforce the First Amendment’s separation of church and state mandate, but which religious conservatives believe is a violation of their rights.

The document goes on to list two pages worth of court cases, from the 1960s to the present. The cases are largely about hot-button issues like prayer in school and various displays of religion in the public square. The document specifies 12 areas where the commission would investigate with the first being: “The extent to which courts throughout the U.S. are undermining the First Amendment and misconstruing the historical basis for religious freedom in America.”

Conservatives and liberals alike have noted how ridiculous Newt’s court-packing scheme is legally. Many think it’s stupid politically as well. But Newt is looking past those concerns, straight to the evangelical votes he needs in January.

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