One of the two judges voted out of committee to prompt the Personal Nuclear Privatized Constitutional Option (or whatever we are allowed to call it these days) is Judge Janis Rogers Brown. So when I heard about the Justice Sunday telecast, billed as a defense of these fine Christian judges againt evil secular Democrats, I was puzzled. Judge Brown seems an odd choice for conservative Christians to rally around.
Judge Brown is an ardent adherent of the Constitution in Exile school of legal thought. Jeff Rosen recently wrote a profile of its adherents in the Times Magazine (now in the pay section). While this is a diffuse intellecutal movement, the main tenet is that the Constitution guarantees broad economic rights that trump efforts to regulate economic activity for the public welfare.
To me, elevating economic rights above all other values does not sound terribly Christian. To me, this sounds like inviting the money changers back into the Temple.
The pro-corporate and Conservative Christian strands of Republicanism have long seemed on a collision course. The jurisprudence of Judge Brown offers an example of how the two philosophies conflict.
Judge Brown doesn't believe in zoning. Zoning is theft, she says (p.13). But one of the prime agenda items of the conservative Christian movement is using zoning laws to regulate adult entertainment. See here and here. It is unclear how Judge Brown would rule in a case on point -- she has been criticized before for bending her jurisprudence to fit the result she wants.
But one has to ask -- did Dobson et al. do nothing to vet this judge before holding her up as a person being denied a judicial seat because of her faith? Is there no limit to how fully the pro-business wing of the party can play the Christian shock troops for fools?
And most importantly, can we make hay out of this? What if we, say, leaflet fundamentalist churches to Write Now!! Oppose Judge Brown!!!
The clash between the corporate Republicans and Conservative Christians is inevitable. But it sure would be fun to give it a nudge.