Mark Sanford and John Ensign are just the latest in a long line of conservatives espousing family values who’ve been caught having affairs. The amount of apparent hypocrisy in the Republican Party has caused many to ask if evangelicals will stop their one-sided support of the Republican Party in disgust.

Conservative evangelicals have gotten precious little for their support of Republicans in the past thirty years. Abortion remains legal. School Prayer is not allowed. Intelligent Design is not taught in public schools; evolution is. The only scraps they’ve been handed were ephemeral bans on embryonic stem-cell research and gay marriage. Still, on their biggest issues, Republicans have failed to deliver.

This is not true of the other factions in the Republican base. National security hawks and neo-conservatives got a military buildup against the Soviet Union, and an invasion of Iraq. Fiscal conservatives got large supply side tax cuts from Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Case in point: in 2005, although opposition to gay marriage had helped reelect George Bush, he spent his political capital trying to reform social security, not amending the constitution to ban gay marriage.

This is truly sad because evangelicals have paid a steep price in return for nothing. They have identified fervent Christianity with one political party in the eyes of many Americans. The result has been to turn off people who are politically moderate or liberal who might otherwise be open to religion.

Besides being counterproductive, the idea that people of faith should all support one party is just wrong. One Christian can legitimately look at scripture and church teachings and feel moved to support a party which works hard to eradicate poverty and help the least among us. A Christian could be dovish on war—“blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

And of course, there is no doubt that another Christian can conclude that abortion contravenes God’s will, and is a moral evil to be stamped out, and want to support a pro-life party. I understand too, how a person of faith could read Joshua’s declaration that “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart,” and believe that abortion is not just one issue among many. Concern over the one million abortions a year can never be dismissed as trivial.

It is largely forgotten that there is a long, proud progressive tradition in American religion. Martin Luther King and many of the participants in the civil rights movement were inspired and sustained by their strong faith. They saw their faith as providing a mandate to fight for justice and improve the human condition. Conservatives have never had a monopoly on faith and values.

I do not call for the formation of a new religious left to counter the influence of the religious right. Tying religion to worldly politics surely cheapens religion. There is no way to know whether Jesus would have been a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t know whether he would support a public option for universal healthcare, or a cap and trade scheme. The Jesus portrayed in the Bible would likely have harsh words for both parties and Americans of all political persuasions.

So, when applying faith to politics, we could do with a little humility. Said Abraham Lincoln: “my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Members of the Religious Right and would-be members of the Religious Left should keep that sentiment in mind before they dare invoke God in support of their political philosophy.

-Marcus Gadson

Read Marcus’s blog at http://thegadsonreview.blogspot.com/

The American justice system is supposed to be fair and objective. Yet it was very possibly neither according to the Supreme Court in the case of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co, perhaps the most important decision it has rendered this year.

The plaintiff, Hugh Caperton, brought a successful lawsuit alleging that A.T Massey Coal and its chief executive Don Blankenship drove Capterton’s company into bankruptcy. In the next election cycle, Blankenship spent $3 million to oppose a state Supreme Court justice he thought insufficiently favorable to his cause. When the challenger Blankenship backed won, he refused to recues himself from the case. It was little wonder when he cast the deciding vote to overturn the first verdict.

What a depressing thought that justice in the 21^st century can be sold to the highest bidder. In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts seemed to tacitly acknowledge that money can be a corrupting influence on judges. That is perhaps why he raised practical concerns on implementation instead of attempting to argue that we should not be worried about the influence of campaign contributions on judges.

He lamented that “today’s opinion requires state and federal judges simultaneously to act as political scientists (why did candidate X win the election?), economists (was the financial support disproportionate?), and psychologists (is there likely to be a debt of gratitude?).”

I understand these concerns. So I propose a simple solution: stop making judges stand for election. Even with this decision, there is potential for all sorts of abuse. A judge ruling in a case now might not favor one side because he got campaign contributions from that side. Or so we hope. Remember the decision only says that excessive contributions compel a justice to step aside. But he may well favor one side over another because of other electoral concerns.

For example, a judge who owes his election to say the Religious Right could be a tad biased on cases involving the separation of church and state. In a racially divided area, a judge who wins because of high support from one ethnic group could be predisposed to favor litigants from that group lest he lose favor the next election cycle. Even if we expect that people who are essentially politicians will put aside their electoral concerns immediately after the election, the mere fact that they have to go before voters can create the perception of bias.

Having an independent judiciary is critical to our system of checks and balances. To maintain that system, the judiciary needs to be able to make unpopular decisions in some instances. There are cases brought to court, where the correct decision polls poorly with voters. For example, decisions protecting the rights of disfavored minority groups might cause a judge to lose an election even though it’s the correct decision legally.

During his confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts compared judging to being a dispassionate umpire in a baseball game. Just imagine the havoc on the game if we let umpires stand for election each inning. Or imagine if we made the umpires take polls after each pitch to inform their decision as to whether to call a ball or a strike. Whichever team had the most fans at the game would get the most favorable umpires. Unfortunately, this is not terribly different from judicial systems in state where the judges have to raise money and go before voters.

There is of course a realm for shifting public opinion in the political process. That’s why we let people vote for who represents them in Congress and who serves in the White House. But do we really want our judges looking over their shoulders at polls before rendering a decision? Triangulation is bad enough when politicians use it. It simply does not belong in the judiciary.

-Marcus Gadson

The Hot Joints is happy to welcome Marcus Gadson as our newest contributor. Marcus is a freelance journalist and commentator on political, economic, and social issues. He has written for The Huffington Post, Indiana Herald, Cincinnati Herald, Opednews.com, and BlogCritics magazine.

You can read Marcus’s blog @ http://thegadsonreview.blogspot.com/