Disturbing Justice Department Nominees

Injustice

By Chuck Colson, Christian Post Guest Columnist Thursday, March 05, 2009

President Obama continues to fill out his Cabinet and sub-Cabinet positions. These are the officials who really run the U.S. government.

Some of his Justice Department appointments are causing particular alarm among Christians.

The three top appointees—David Ogden, Thomas Perrelli, and Elena Kagan—are, in the words of Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, "three of President Obama's most objectionable nominees. . . . [They] have a legacy of championing abortion on demand, legalized obscenity, special rights for homosexuals, and euthanasia."

Let's look at these.

David Ogden, the President's nominee for deputy attorney general, is now waiting for the full Senate to vote on his nomination. Ogden has been a consistent advocate for the pornography industry. He has an especially disturbing record of opposing laws against child pornography. For example, he once argued that a law designed to ensure that models were of legal age would "burden too heavily and infringe too deeply on the right to produce First Amendment protected material."

Ogden has also disputed the adverse mental health effects of abortion on women.

Thomas Perrelli is a name you may already know. Before becoming the President's nominee for assistant attorney general, Perrelli served on Michael Schiavo's legal team in the Terri Schiavo case. He helped fight the successful battle to allow Michael to have Terri starved to death, even though she was not suffering from any terminal illness and even though her parents offered to assume the entire burden of her care.

This appointment is a vivid reminder of the President's statement last year that he, Obama, when he was a senator, had made a "mistake" in voting to help save Terri's life. It seems that he's now determined to correct that "mistake" in future life-and-death cases. Perrelli is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Then there's Elena Kagan, who's before the Judiciary Committee, nominated to be solicitor general. According to Perkins, "[Kagan] and other law school officials sued to overturn the Solomon amendment, adopted by Congress to ensure that law schools could not use homosexual rights rules to deny U.S. Armed Forces recruiters access to law school campuses."

In other words, Kagan wants the military barred from on-campus recruiting because the military supposedly discriminates against homosexuals. Also, she has advocated continued federal funding for abortion clinics.

Well, Perkins is right when he observes that these three, if confirmed, "will [help] determine U.S. legal policy for years to come."

The battle for life, for traditional marriage, for protecting our children—born and yet to be born—seems never ending. But now is no time to grow weary in proclaiming the truth and in doing good.

I urge you—call your Senators and ask for a "no" vote on Ogden, Perrelli, and Kagan.

Now, I have no illusions, with the political lineup the way it is in Washington, that we could block these nominations. But it's terribly important that the Congress know that ordinary Americans are watching them, and are gravely concerned. They need to know that there are millions in this country ready to fight to defend life and the family.

Some "no" votes in the Senate will at least send that message.