Many people have been proven prescient by the "cloying thank-you note to Focus on the Family head James C. Dobson sent by new Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
But even those of us who knew that Alito was bad news for Jews and other religious minorities because of his deeply retrograde opposition to the separation of church and state [ here's why weopposed his nomination ] never imagined that a political player as savvy as Alito would (nearly?) explicitly proclaim fealty to a figure as divisive as James Dobson.
As Americans United for Separation of Church and State puts it,
The Associated Press reported today Dobson received a six-paragraph
personal note from Alito. In the letter, Alito thanked Dobson for
backing his nomination to the Supreme Court.
Read the note, "This is just a short note to express my heartfelt
thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help
and support during the past few challenging months. I would also
greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good
people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they
were praying for me and for my family during this period."
Alito went on to write, "As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I
will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me" and expressed
his desire for a personal meeting with Dobson.
As Max Blumenthal notes,
Not only is it unprecedented for a Supreme Court justice to send a
thank you note to an interest group, it is highly unethical. Alito has
admitted that he owes his job to a man who told his listeners today to
"please be in prayer that by the time that probition on abortion
reaches the Supreme Court, there will be one more conservative justice
sitting there." From now on, plaintiffs and defendants in cases dealing
with issues from abortion to gay rights to school prayer should demand
that Alito recuse himself. Alito is deeply embedded in the pocket of
the Christian right and perhaps more compromised than anyone could have
imagined.
But should we be surprised? As US News & World Report arguedafter the 2004 election, "Dobson, perhaps more than anyone, will be most credible in leveraging
evangelical power at the voting booth. That's partly because, politics
aside, he's unrivaled as an evangelical leader."
US News also noted,
"For the last 20 years, all the centers of power have been
influenced by a different worldview than what we share as evangelical
Christians," [Dobson] says, mentioning Congress, the judiciary, universities,
and Hollywood as examples. "Our strategy has been to let people who see
things the way we do know what's at stake and encourage them to hang on
until change occurs."
For Dobson, his followers, and many American evangelicals--who made
up nearly a quarter of the electorate last Election Day and who voted
for President Bush by a factor of almost 4 to 1--change might finally
be in the offing. Next week brings the second inauguration of the most
religious evangelical president in modern history; he is expected to
fill a string of Supreme Court vacancies with strongly conservative
voices. And a handful of newly elected senators allied with the
evangelical movement have already taken their seats on Capitol Hill.
As NJDC noted last June,
James Dobson, the far-right founder of "Focus on the Family" and a central speaker on Sunday, asserted
that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision resulted in "The biggest
holocaust in world history that came out of the Supreme Court." Dobson
has previously compared the current Supreme Court justices to the Ku
Klux Klan (click for more). Dobson is widely credited with playing a major role in President Bush's victory in 2004.