Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Their reasons may be corrupt. Their emotions may be out of control. Their motivations may be wrong. But insofar as the Democrats seek to block President Bush’s nomination of former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the federal courts, their actions should be applauded by every Christian who believes that evil should not be rewarded with good (Proverbs 17:15), that judges must fear God more than men (Exodus 18:21), and that Jesus Christ is Lord even over America’s judiciary (Psalm 2:10-12).

Mr. Pryor is remembered for five defining events in his public career:

1. According to a sworn affidavit by former Alabama Governor Fob James, Bill Pryor was appointed to Attorney General on a promise to the Governor that he would stand against unlawful decisions of judges on the Ten Commandments issue — a promise he later broke.[i]
2. Pryor not only reversed his position on non-compliance to unlawful federal orders, he even went so far as Attorney General to nullify a state law against partial birth abortion, based on his view of the “rule of law.”[ii]
3. As Attorney General, he vigorously prosecuted and persecuted Chief Justice Roy Moore, asking him three times on the witness stand if the great Christian jurist would “continue to acknowledge God” even if a court told him not to do so. (To watch the chilling interchange between Attorney General William Pryor and Chief Justice Moore, click here.) Upon hearing his answer, Mr. Pryor declared the Chief Justice “unrepentant” and successfully demanded his expulsion from office, thus making Mr. Pryor the first man in American history to oust a sitting Chief Justice for his Christian faith.
4. As a nominee before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Pryor argued, in effect, that though he personally opposed abortion, he would enforce the rights of mothers to vivisect their children because the most important issue was not life, the law of God, nor the Constitution, but instead the decision of judges, which he terms “the rule of law.” During his hearings and throughout the debate for his position for federal judge, Bill Pryor bent over backwards to repeatedly assure liberal Senators that his personal opposition to abortion and his belief that killing babies is unconstitutional would have no bearing on his recognized duty to follow the “rule of law” by defending abortion rights as defined by the Supreme Court.[iii]
5. As acting federal judge with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, he voted against the life of Terri Schiavo, by refusing to consider new evidence in the case.[iv]

The Senate’s Dirty Little Secret

My current problem with the Democrats is that they are neither serious, nor committed to opposing Bill Pryor. There are two reasons for this. First, the current filibuster is not about judicial qualifications, but about politics. It is about positioning for future Supreme Court nominations. If the Deomocrats make a big enough stink over these federal judges, they know from experience that they will cow the President from selecting anyone who remotely appears to be a real Constitution-defending, God-honoring justice when the time comes to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court. Fearing a fight, the Administration will select relatively unknown judges with ambiguous records who they know will make it through without much of a real fight. Meanwhile, they will quietly call conservatives and appeal to them: “Hey, trust us on this one.”

The second reason why the Democrats are not serious in their opposition to Mr. Pryor is because he has established a consistent track record of being with them on the critical issues. To put it bluntly:

The Democrats are not concerned one whit about Bill Pryor and many of President Bush’s judicial nominees!

My hometown paper, the left-wing San Antonio Express-News, explained why liberals need never fear Bill Pryor:

William Pryor is undeniably conservative. However, the test is not whether a judge has conservative or liberal views, but whether he will yield to the demands of the law despite such views. Pryor has proved he can do that. As Alabama Attorney General he vigorously prosecuted former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore... despite his personal agreement with Moore’s legal view on the issue. (“A Liberal Urges Democrats to Judge the Judges on Criteria Other Than Party Politics,” April 24, 2005, San Antonio Express-News)

Democrats know what doe-eyed, naïve Evangelical Christians have refused to acknowledge — despite overwhelming data and the fact that there is no real argument to the contrary. Namely, that regardless of a judicial nominee’s “personal convictions,” there are no practical differences of judicial result between the Republican and Democrat judges, because both subscribe to the evolutionary view of the “rule of law.” (More on the evolutionary view of the “rule of law” below.)

The Democrats remember that it was Republican appointees like O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter who have reinforced abortion, advanced the cause of sodomy, replaced original intent of the Constitution with adherence to foreign law, and insisted on judicial supremacy over the other branches of government. They know it was Republican judges like Myron Thompson who ruled against the Ten Commandments and declared unlawful the acknowledgement of God by public officials, and Republicans like Judge Greer who ordered the execution by forced starvation of Terri Schiavo.

These Democrats know that, when push comes to shove, a majority of Republican nominees who get seated will do the dirty work of the Left. These Republican judges will do it efficiently and without compromise. True, some will express personal moral disapproval with the principles they enforce, but they will advance them, all-the-while claiming that by enforcing abortion rights, sodomite marriages, and starvation of women and children, that they are (like Pontius Pilate) “absolved” of moral criticism because they are just “following orders.” These judges will firmly stand with the culture of death and the liberal court’s rejection of the Framer’s vision for the Constitution, and they will do so with impunity. Having expended so much political capital to back up the Administration’s choices, no Republican legislator will dare censure such judges for their bad behavior. They will grit their teeth, talk about judicial reform, and continue to support men with conservative personal opinions and liberal track records.

Democrats understand this game of doublespeak because they invented it. They hear, in the words of men like Mr. Pryor, that same “Capitol Hill Two-Step,” the virtues of which have been praised by the Ted Kennedys and the John Kerrys of the world who “personally oppose abortion,” but recognize that they must “obey the laws of the land,” and thus support abortion rights.

For these reasons, savvy Democrats really don’t care what a judicial nominee says about abortion when he is “off hours,” what church he attends, or to which party he belongs. They care about one and only one issue: Will the nominee support abortion-on-demand, homosexual marriage, international law, forced starvation of women, etc., if a higher-ranking judge declares such actions lawful? To put it another way: The only issue to be determined is whether a judge holds to the evolutionary view of the rule of law or the historical and Christian view of the rule of law.

The Logic of Bill Pryor

Mr. Pryor’s logic goes like this:

1. Abortion is murder.
2. The decision of a judge is the “rule of law.”
3. The moral law of God, and the Constitution itself, are secondary to this judge-established “rule of law.”
4. Consequently, the “rule of law” must be followed, even if it involves facilitating the continued vivisection of millions of babies, the denial of God in our public arena, the persecution of Christian leaders, and the forced starvation and dehydration of innocent women contrary to the moral law of God and the federal and state constitutions.
5. Therefore, as long as higher ranking judges say that babies may be murdered, that acknowledgements of God by public officials must be excluded, or that women may be starved, a judge should do everything in his power to enforce this “rule of law.”
6. Because a judge is just following orders, he is not morally culpable for facilitating or encouraging morally wicked activity. He may wash his hands of all guilt, knowing that any judicial actions which facilitate abortion, the denial of God, the persecution of Christian leaders, or the dehydration of women are actually righteous in the eyes of God (a point he and his staff argued during their persecution of Roy Moore).

Confusion Over the Rule of Law

One of our greatest allies is the Church itself.
(The demon Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood)

Why the confusion over the “rule of law”? The answer is found in the fact that the Christian political and legal community is split down the middle on the question: who is sovereign — Caesar or God? Through a trinity of issues over the last three years (Ten Commandments, sodomite marriages, Terri Schiavo), American Christians have been challenged to think through these issues from both a Scriptural and Constitutional perspective. Two views have emerged:

The first philosophy is the historic, constitutional, and Christian doctrine that the rule of law is not the opinion of judges but the law of the land. Within this view, rights are inalienable because they are given by God, and it is the purpose of government to secure these rights, but no government may lawfully restrict them, nor is any law or rule to be considered valid which denies God as the ultimate source of law. This view holds that the Constitution, along with its preamble, the Declaration of Independence, is predicated upon and presupposes the acknowledgement of the Christian God as Lawgiver, is the supreme law of the land, and the only rule of law to be followed, notwithstanding the opinion of individual judges to the contrary.

The second philosophy is the modern view. It is upon this position that Mr. Pryor hangs his jurisprudential hat. The modern view is based on the assumption that law is not governed by fixed principles of higher and constitutional jurisprudence, but evolves based on the changing mores of society and the decrees of whatever unelected official happens to be sitting on the bench at any given time. Under this view, law is positive, meaning that law is whatever men say it is. For proponents of this school of thought, law is subject to change at the whims of judges who, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, “guide the evolutionary participation of the law.” To follow the “rule of law” is to follow the opinions of judges, regardless of whether such opinions are (a) beyond the scope of their jurisdiction; (b) contrary to our Constitution; or (c) in clear violation of the higher revealed law of God or the Constitution of our nation.

It was this theory of the “rule of law” that was advanced by the defendants on trial during the 1945 Nuremberg proceedings and is, perhaps unwittingly, being advanced by those who argue that “Chief Justice Roy Moore broke the law.” Here is the rub: Just as the German judges and lawyers who personally opposed the mass execution of Jews in the early 1940s (but nevertheless ordered them to their deaths), present-day American judges who are personally opposed to the execution of unborn babies are also compelled to actively promote such abominations through their legal careers because they are bound by “the rule of law.”

Bill Pryor’s commitment to the evolutionary view of the rule of law has drawn praise from some of the most ardent enemies of Christianity. The Washington Post reported that Morris Dees, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a plaintiff against Chief Justice Moore in the Ten Commandments case, is among Pryor’s defenders. “The heat of this battle certainly matured this young man,” Dees said of Pryor. “His actions behind the scenes to orchestrate the state officials handling these things saved Alabama from constitutional crisis.”[v]

Conclusion

The most dangerous man on the judiciary is the professing Christian who brazenly lives and acts like a persecutor of the Church and an enemy of women and children. May God give us a dozen left-wing judges before we embrace a wolf in sheep’s clothing who does the work of the enemy under the banner of the Cross.

The consequence for the Church in supporting such men is that (a) the collective conscience of the Christian legal community becomes seared and their tactics pragmatic and self-destructive; (b) the resolve of good men and women to resist evil diminishes; and (c) the Church becomes savorless salt in the cultural battle of our generation.

To quote Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Christians are encouraged to call their Senators — Republican and Democrat — and voice their opposition to the nomination of Bill Pryor.

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[i] Sworn affidavit by Former Alabama Governor Fob James, Oct. 22, 2003:

I talked with Bill Pryor about all this when I was considering him for the job of Alabama Attorney-General. He impressed me with his knowledge of these things and provided me with some legal papers on “non acquiescence” that he was responsible for while at the Tulane Law School. I told Bill about my view that constitutional officials needed to challenge the Supreme Court.

For instance, for twenty years my view has been that a Governor should refuse to allow enforcement of a patently unconstitutional court order, and force the president to take action one way or the other on the issue. I don’t mean that we should fight anyone with troops. I do mean that we should use our constitutional authority to force the great issue of the day into the provinces of all branches of the federal government, not just a judiciary that likes to sweep everything under its own rug where it has nearly exclusive control. Bill Pryor was aware of my views when I appointed him, because we discussed these things. Bill had indicated nothing but his wholehearted support of my position on these issues at the time.

I have now heard that Bill Pryor is prosecuting Roy Moore before the Court of the Judiciary for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the State Judicial Building. If this is true, Bill’s action today are utterly contrary to the political and legal convictions he expressed to me. Had he expressed his present view, I would not have found him qualified to be Attorney-General of Alabama. The main reason Pryor was appointed was his understanding and the ability to express that understanding well that a public official’s highest duty was to the Constitution of the United States and not to the Supreme Court or any other entity.

[ii] Sworn affidavit by Former Alabama Governor Fob James, Oct. 22, 2003:

The last conversation I recall with Bill Pryor occurred late in Governor’s James’ last term after the Governor signed Alabama’s “partial birth” abortion law. When the law passed, Mr. Pryor instructed Alabama district attorneys not to enforce the law as to pre-viable fetuses. In my view, this gutted the law and defeated its very purpose. An equivalent to Pryor’s actions would be for U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft to instruct U.S. attorneys not to enforce the Act of Congress on partial Birth Abortion that Congress passed only yesterday, and the President is due to sign shortly, as to “pre-viable fetuses.”

[iii] William Pryor, Jr.’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee June 11, 2003:

SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER, D-NY: You’ve said on several occasions that Roe v. Wade is “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.” Do you believe that as of right now?

WILLIAM PRYOR: I do.

SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER, R-PA: With that personal belief, Attorney General Pryor, what assurances can you give to the many who are raising the question as to whether, when you characterized it as an abomination and slaughter, that you can follow the decision of the United States Supreme Court, which you consider an abomination and having led to slaughter.

WILLIAM PRYOR: I would invite anyone to look at my record as attorney general, where I’ve done just that. We had a partial-birth abortion law in our state that was challenged by abortion clinics in Alabama in l997. It could have been interpreted broadly or it could have been interpreted narrowly. I ordered the district attorneys of Alabama to give it its narrowest construction.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, R-UT: You directed prosecutors to enforce the state partial birth abortion ban only to the extent permitted by the Supreme Court. Is that right?

WILLIAM PRYOR: That was what I was trying to do.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, R-UT: Even though you had people... even though you had people pushing you to go farther...

WILLIAM PRYOR: Absolutely.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, R-UT: ...to try and expand that law beyond what the Supreme Court had said.

WILLIAM PRYOR: Absolutely.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, R-UT: So you went along with the Supreme Court, which is the law of the land...

WILLIAM PRYOR: Yes.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, R-UT: Even though you might have believed otherwise...

WILLIAM PRYOR: Absolutely.

[iv] On March 23, 2005, Judge William H. Pryor, Jr. of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals voted with the majority to deny a new hearing which would have allowed the courts to look at new evidence in the Terri Schiavo case. View court documentation here (free Adobe Reader software required).

[v] The Washington Post, Monday, August 25, 2003. A Section 5.