Black Religious Leaders on Left and Right Join Filibuster Debate

c. 2005 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ African-American religious leaders on both the left and right joined the fray Thursday (May 19) in the battle over President Bush’s filibustered judicial nominations. After hearing that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., might join a conference of conservative black pastors in calling for an immediate up-or-down vote […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ African-American religious leaders on both the left and right joined the fray Thursday (May 19) in the battle over President Bush’s filibustered judicial nominations.

After hearing that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., might join a conference of conservative black pastors in calling for an immediate up-or-down vote on Associate Justice Janice Rogers Brown, a group of Democratic black pastors hastily arranged a meeting of their own Thursday. They rebutted the claim that racism and sexism underlie opposition to Brown, an African-American judge from California.


“I flew all night to make sure I would be here to respond to the call to speak truth to power,” said the Rev. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.

The event was organized in part by the liberal group African American Ministers in Action.

“We just can’t take it that they’re making this nation a theocracy and not permitting it to be a democracy as our founding fathers intended it to be,” Brown said of Republican threats to dismantle the filibuster, which has blocked some of Bush’s most conservative nominees.

“We have looked at their records and we are deeply troubled,” said the chairman of the African American Ministers in Action, the Rev. Timothy McDonald, referring to Brown and another nominee, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen.

“Theirs are the records of ideological and pro-corporate judges who will not give ordinary Americans a fair hearing.”

At a news conference later in the day, more conservative black pastors saw the issue differently.

Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, said that Brown was being blocked because of her stance on moral issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. Frist did not attend as previously advertised.


“We’re here to declare a moral imperative to the nation,” Jackson said. “I’m pro-Justice Brown and I’m also pro the issue that we need the right people in those higher seats of power.”

But the fight is not just over judges like Brown. It’s about an expected opening on the U.S. Supreme Court.

As the last line of defense for the Senate minority party, the filibuster would allow Democrats to block Bush’s nominees. Frist has promised to change filibuster rules if Democrats don’t give a clear up or down vote to the current nominees.

As Jackson finished his conference amid chants of “up or down on Janice Brown,” he said there was another issue at hand: African-American churches could no longer be counted on to universally support Democrats.

“It’s important for you to understand that something has happened to American moral values and the African-American church,” Jackson said. “This black church will not be intimidated by a handful of people who believe the black community is a monolithic one-size-fits-all.”

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