More than 150 attorneys hired by the federal government during the Bush administration have been graduates of Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," the Boston Globe is reporting.The story opens with this chilling paragraph:
The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with "amens," about the need to preserve their Christian values.Monica Goodling, a Regent graduate and until last week top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, recently resigned. She was one of a handful of officials who oversaw the firings of U.S. attorneys in what has become another Bush scandal.
She recently refused to testify to Congress, citing the Fifth Amendment.
Regent University's 21-year history is that of a school that has turned out a high number of graduates unable to pass the bar exam. It was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1996.
"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website. "...[T]hat a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."
Monica Goodling's undergraduate work was done at Messiah College, a Christian school "committed to an embracing evangelical spirit." Her entire higher education has been steeped in evangelical tradition and beliefs.
Shortly after Bush became president, he picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James, to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management, and she has since packed the upper echelons of the Dept. of Justice with attorneys with Regent degrees.
"We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow, who heads a non profit law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in key positions," the Globe reports.
Regent University is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place.
Sixty percent of the graduates in Goodling's 1999 class failed the bar exam on the first attempt. It has improved, according to the Princeton Review, to a 67% pass rate today.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is the university's newest instructor. He co-teaches a course called "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security."
Creeping theocracy, or just typical of Washington politics?
UPDATE, Wed., April 25: The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday 32-6 to authorize a grant of immunity for former Justice Department official Monica Goodling.
Image: Karl Rove and Monica Goodling
Theocracy | Politics | Evangelical | Regent University | Monica Goodling | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com
Looking at this from the vantage point of another country, the US is becoming very scary indeed...
ReplyDeleteYep. Sinclair Lewis: "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
ReplyDeleteThe Jesusistanis have been trying to take over the Government by a thousand little cuts for a quarter century.
ReplyDeleteInstalling one of their own in the White House had greatly accelerated this process. So much so that it appears the wheels may be coming off now. But that's what happens when you get greedy.
Mr. Widow's Son, I'm beginning to think you have a problem with Christians. Is it because of the venom evangelicals spew toward Masons?
ReplyDeleteYou're just beginning to think that?
ReplyDeleteWhere have you been? I've been posting things like this quotation since this blog began.
From January 6, 2006:
"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens have ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history." — Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love
a reminder from the treaty of tripoli:
ReplyDeleteArt. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Hi. I'm anonymous from Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:36:00 PM
ReplyDeleteYou said:
Widow's Son said...
You're just beginning to think that?
Where have you been? I've been posting things like this quotation since this blog began.
From January 6, 2006:
"The most preposterous notion...(snipped)." — Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love
If that quote is representative of what you truly believe, then why are you a Mason? I thought Masons had to believe in a supreme being of some sort, or they could not be Masons. I don't understand your position.
Also, I’m a Christian, and I don’t worry about or care what goes on inside Masonic Lodges. Why tar us all with the same brush?
The Heinlein quote doesn't imply that he (or I) doesn't believe in a Higher Power. Read it again.
ReplyDeleteIt says that He doesn't need (or necessarily want) adoration and that He doesn't get angry if He doesn't get it.
It also says that men have created that illusion to further their own agendas. Being the leader (priest, minister or shaman) of any religious organization is a great way to gather power and/or riches for oneself without providing anything tangible in return.
— W.S.
Tublican: To put the Treaty of Tripoli into historical context… As I’m sure you know this treaty was made with the Muslim Pirates off the Barbary coast during a time when the US didn’t have a navy or the where withal to fight them. Most nations of the time were paying ‘tribute’ to the Barbary states which was really a form of a protection racquet. Thomas Jefferson tried to organize a multi-National force to deal with them but this effort quickly died. From my reading it appears it was easier and cheap to pay tribute than to deal with it. This language was used for a simple reason: Countries like England and their official State Church had been persecuting Muslims for centuries in Europe. By placing this language in the treaty (which we paid a handsome sum for them to accept) it was telling the Muslim Barbary States we have not had a history or persecuting them and didn’t want to be in conflict with them. As an aside, it was later translated into Turkish and used to form a treaty with the Ottomans… If memory serves, the cost of this treat was around $800,000 US at the time plus an annual ‘blackmail fee’ of around $10,000 but I may be wrong, its been a long time.
ReplyDeleteWS: I understand your points, but part of religious tolerance is being tolerant of ALL religions, not just the ones you happen to approve of. Painting all of Christianity in a broad-brush stroke of condescension is worse that what many of the fundamentalists you so readily blast are doing.
There should be some oversite in hiring obviously, but this isnt the first time there has been 'school favorites' played and it sure wont be the last! The company I work for has a very large amount of graduates from one school. And I know a lot of people are from the same fraternity (hummmm not Masons before someone asks).
On the other hand there is a good reason politics and religion arent discused in Lodge :)
Seeker of Light wrote:
ReplyDeleteWS: I understand your points, but part of religious tolerance is being tolerant of ALL religions, not just the ones you happen to approve of. Painting all of Christianity in a broad-brush stroke of condescension is worse that what many of the fundamentalists you so readily blast are doing.
Religion (from Dictionary.com): A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
I am tolerant of all religions. I have no problem with people praying, meeting together to worship, sing songs, do charity work, etc., on their own property. I have no problems with those who believe in snake handling or speaking in tongues; I have no problem with incense, votive candles, baptizing, faith-healing, grape-juice-and-cracker-eating, or anything people want to do in the practice of their religion. I am not only tolerant; I am supportive. People can worship as they please. I am glad I live in a country where freedom of religion is a listed right in the Constitution.
I am intolerant when religion, of whatever denomination, ideology or belief system, attempts to apply its moral code, whatever it is, to life outside their group.
Whatever the Westboro Baptist Church does on their own property is no concern of mine. I don't care what the Catholics or the local Southern Baptists or the Muslims do in their own cathedrals, churches or mosques. It's when they try to cajole, convert or control others who don't agree with them that I become EXTREMELY intolerant.
When they want to hang the Ten Commandments or put a Nativity Scene on a courthouse lawn, I am intolerant. When they want their religio-conservative views to be the law of the land by infiltrating schools, courts, legislatures and city councils, I am intolerant. When they want to blow up buildings in the name of Allah, I am intolerant. When they want to pray to Jesus in a Masonic lodge room, I am intolerant.
— W.S.
Then again, in 1885 Pope Leo XIII wrote in Immortale Dei: "The equal toleration of all religions... is the same thing as atheism."
ReplyDelete— W.S.
"Then again, in 1885 Pope Leo XIII wrote in Immortale Dei: "The equal toleration of all religions... is the same thing as atheism."
ReplyDeleteWhich is the exact point many of the anti-Masons use...
"I am glad I live in a country where freedom of religion is a listed right in the Constitution."
ReplyDeleteWhat the 1st Amendment says is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The term ‘separation of church and state’ was taken from Jefferson in a letter he wrote. Since then of the Supreme Court has used it, which of course makes it case law, and well the rest is history. I’ve seen the argument made that the 1st Amendment says “freedom OF religion” nor “freedom FROM religion”. A better, and I think more fascinating argument is, that by passing laws that restrict religion, such as prayer in school, the government is in effect violating the 1st Amendment since its “making a law prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Just an example…
As to the nut case from Westboro… I don’t think he is what Id call a Christian or Baptist or even human for that matter. He is preaching hate, plain and simple. There is a special place for him, Tim McVeigh, Jim Jones and those like them.