RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS SEEK THEIR OWN 'ACTIVIST' JUDGES

[jefferson_dem]

By Cynthia Tucker

Friends of Florida judge George Greer describe him as a low-key conservative Christian, a Republican, a family man, a dog lover. Appellate courts have found over and over again that Greer simply followed the law in deciding a sad and controversial case. But for that sin, the Pinellas County Circuit Court judge was invited out of his Southern Baptist Church.


Apparently, Greer's critics, including his pastor, didn't like his rulings in the Terri Schiavo case, which landed in his courtroom in 1998. They wanted him to be an activist judge -- a jurist who ignored the law and ruled according to the passions of a group of partisans.


Ultraconservatives want you to believe the term "activist judge" applies to a group of determined liberals whose rulings have overturned historic precedent, undermined morality and defied common sense. But the controversy that erupted around Schiavo, who died on Thursday, ought to remind us once and for all what "activist judge" really means: a jurist whose rulings dissatisfy a right-wing political constituency.


Over the next few months, you'll hear the term "activist judge" often as President Bush nominates justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. The president could end up appointing as many as four. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, is ailing with cancer; John Paul Stevens is also an octogenarian. Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are cancer survivors in their 70s.

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1317&u=/ucas/20050403/cm_ucas/religiousextremistsseektheirownactivistjudges&printer=1

[Zuni]

1. this is exactly right

Judge greer executed the law as it was written. If people have a problem with that, they should talk to the florida legislature

[jefferson_dem]

3. Amazing (but so predicable) that the fundie freaks are using the Schiavo

case to drum up opposition to so-called activist judges when THEY were the ones demanding that the FEDERAL Courts overturn the proper ruling of a Florida state judge based on Florida state law, in an area of the law that has historically been reserved for the states. This...after the US Congress's ramrods through a Constitutionally dubious "law" which seeks to compel the reversal of that state ruling.

Again...which side is crying about unwarranted "activism"?

Amazing.

[tofubo]

2. mid term elections

this is why the midterms are do or die
we have to make sure the vote is not tampered with
we have to make sure the republicans lose congress
we have to start impeachment of the administration
we have to hope that those 4 can hold on till then

[paineinthearse]

4. * next round of nominees

In 1478, Pope Sixtus IV granted the monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, the right to establish a special inquisition in Spain to deal with baptized Jews who were suspected of remaining faithful to Judaism. Among Spanish clergy, these Jews, known as Marranos, were considered heretics who threatened Christianity. The Spanish theologians developed the doctrine known as Limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) as a means of distinguishing genuine converts from false converts. Thousands of Marranos were burned at the stake by order of the Special Inquisition. Tomás de Torquemada was a Dominican priest and Isabella's confessor. He established himself as the head of the Spanish Inquisition. In 1492, King Ferdinand decided that all Spanish Jews should be banned from Spain. It was feared that Jews were a danger to Christianity. Approximately 150,000 Jews were forced to leave Spain.


The Spanish Inquisition by Pedro Berrugete. Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe created 1475.Oil on wood. 60 5/8 X 36 1/4"(154 X 92cm). Prad Museum, Madrid.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"