Speech
Reception in Winder, Georgia
Alan KeyesSeptember 11, 2003
Including Q & A with Rick Scarborough
Alan Keyes: Good afternoon. Well, I am not going to rehearse again the basic logic that I presented in my talk, but I do want to go a little bit into what I think is the significance of this issue and the timing of the general offensive that I think we are witnessing right now from the ACLU. And I want to address particularly what I believe to be both the consequences of this regime of judicially-imposed atheism over the last several decades: how it has affected our moral culture, but also what I think will be its contribution to the crisis of decision that we are now facing in America, in which, in the course of the next several years, we will be called upon to deal with issues that have to do with our understanding of marriage, with the acceptance of homosexuality; issues that strike at the very heart of the moral structure of our way of life.
And I don't think it's an accident that on the eve of dealing with those issues as a matter of both court and political consequence, we have the ACLU fanning out over America to do, what? To symbolically remove from the precincts of our law and public deliberation all things that symbolize the relevance of religious conscience to public policy and law. I think this juxtaposition is very significant, particularly for those of us who are deeply concerned with the moral foundations of the country and the issues that arise from those moral foundations.
I think we need to realize that this isn't just about the particular symbol at stake. Whether it's the Ten Commandments or a Bible in Houston. What they are doing is creating an environment in which they have established it as a point of law that religious conscience has no relevance and can have no legitimate influence on public policy.
Once they have established that point, by the way, we are in serious trouble, because it has been an established fact- -and I like to point people, for instance, to one of the decisions that was taken in the 19th Century in the context of a lot of controversy in a difficulty involving the Mormons in Utah. The Supreme Court decided cases with respect to monogamy, and folks have brought cases charging that it was a violation of constitutional rights to impose monogamy by law, because it violated the premises of separation and the individual religious freedom of the people who were involved. And when the Court struck down that position, it specifically cited the fact that you had to take account of and respect the religious heritage and traditions of the country that strongly supported the monogamous family.
Well, consider where we are if we have allowed the triumph of a movement which aims to declare that religious tradition persona non grata in our public arena; that aims to declare that anything derived from that tradition, including the most basic statements of human morality, like the Ten Commandments, can no longer legitimately be cited or referenced in our public discourse.
Believe me, that is what they are trying to achieve- -because, in point of fact, that's what they have achieved over the course of the last several decades, as we have watched them win cases that drove prayer out of the schools, and took the Bible out of the schools, and took prayer out of our games and festivities, and took all references to religion out of our public work places, and so forth.
They have also managed to alter the nature of our political discourse, to make our public officials conscious and self-conscious of any reference that they might make to their religious heart and convictions and beliefs. We've reached a stage, in fact, where according to the judges, the only way in which you can cite the name of God in the public arena in America today is if you do it in a ritualistic fashion that has no meaning.
And I think we need to think that through, particularly from the point of view of believers, because you know what they're demanding. People think this is just about what they're forbidding in this place and that. No.
See, I often tell people that I think evil is imperialistic- -meaning to say, it wants to dominate you. Now as the Bible tells us, the wolf is present. The wolf is at the door and his hunger is for you, right? And that is basically what I'm saying. Evil doesn't want to leave you alone. It wants to draw you in and force you into complicity.
And imagine what I just said: the only way that you can get away with mentioning God, according to these judges, is if you do it in a ritualistic fashion that has no religious significance. What did I just say? The only way you can mention God is if you take His name in vain. We can mention Him, but only if we're willing to violate His commandment by mentioning Him in a spirit that has no respect for who He is.
I think that should announce to us the real purpose of this agenda. It is a moral assault, yes, on institutions that we hold dear. It aims to prepare the soil for the receipt of consequences that will destroy marriage and put the finishing touches on the destruction of all sexual morality. And it aims to make each and every one of us, whatever may be our professed conscience and belief before God, complicit in the triumph of this evil in our country, so that it becomes a situation where our citizenship is no longer compatible with the sincere profession of our faith.
Now, one consequence of this, which I think we have already seen, in the course of the last several decades, is that people of sincere heart and belief, who are, of course, unwilling to check their belief at the doors of the public arena, they won't enter that arena. Because they are being asked to do something that conflicts with their sincere heart and faith and so, they don't do it.
And often people try to account for the fact that we now live in a country where, time after time, the surveys confirm that we are a pious people, a believing people. And yet, time after time, our elections confirm that those beliefs are becoming more and more irrelevant.
Why? Partly, because people are backing out of their citizenship vocations, backing out of the competition for leadership, because they refuse to compromise their religious conscience, and partly, because others are approaching their citizenship with a divided conscience that says, I'm worshipping God over here, but I cast my vote over there and never the twain shall meet.
The separation of church and state thus becomes the separation of God from the country, the separation of conscience from the judgments of the people. And that, I think, quite clearly spells our destruction. But, on a practical level also, I think one of the reasons I was so pleased to come here today is that, I think, that what is going on with your county commissioners symbolizes something that's happened, over the course of the last several decades, as a consequence of this judicial tyranny.
In addition to the direct effect of the rulings themselves, the federal courts have created a venue for the harassment of officials and organizations at every level of our nation's life. So that the ACLU- -and I use the word advisedly in my talk today. The ACLU Gestapo, these individuals, without any writ or authorization from any law or constitution whatsoever, have nonetheless been armed with the power, simply with a letter, to go across this country intimidating and dictating to people at all levels.
And what's the effect of this?
Well, the effect of this has been, sadly, that at the very time when our nation has been deep in moral crisis- -when year after year, and decade after decade, we have faced more and more and more critical decisions about the relevance of our moral conscience and beliefs to our public life, to our policy, to the conduct of our officials- -we have found that because of this intimidation and harassment, those groups and those voices and those churches that ought to be raised up to express our conscience have been intimidated into silence, have been backed away from the public arena.
So, instead of having a clear articulation of the conscience of our people, we have sometimes seen, as I'm afraid we did through a lot of that whole Clinton business, deafening silence. And this deafening silence wasn't because everybody approved. It was because too many people now, in all different areas (and I'm not just including public officials, because we all know the Boy Scouts have been assaulted and the churches have been assaulted, and schools have been assaulted), at every level, they have used this venue of intimidation in order to do what dictators do: rule by fear.
And I think that it's ironic that here we are engaged in a war against the physical menace of brutal terrorism, and meanwhile, our whole moral culture has for decades been subverted by what amounts to federally-sponsored judicial terrorism.
We have got to wake up, because I think what is at stake is pretty clear. I know that folks are often fond of quoting, I think it was John Adams, who said that our Constitution was framed for "a moral and a religious people."
"It is entirely," he said, "inadequate to the governance of any other." All right.
Now, that does two things, and we need to think about them both. First, it confirms that in the minds of our Founding generation, it was absolutely essential to maintain the presence and influence of religious faith and conscience in our citizen lives. That's step number one.
But, it also tells us something else. It tells us that, if and when we simply allow the erosion, decay, and destruction of the religious and moral character of this people, our Constitution will be untenable.
And here's the question I would like to put to you: how close are we to that point?
How close are we to that point? We can no longer act like what we're dealing here with is something that may happen, might happen, will happen at some point in the future. My friends, it's been going on for decades.
We are not approaching now the beginning, or even the middle, of this business. We are approaching the climax of this drama, the moment when the decision will be made that either saves or ruins this republic for good.
And the issues that are raised were recognized by our Founders as fundamental. I often, when people say the words that I quoted from the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion"- -let's keep in mind, shall we, that those are the first words of the First Amendment, the first words of the Bill of Rights.
So, before they did anything else, before they protected freedom of speech and of the press, before they dealt with due process and even the freedom to be secure in your homes from unauthorized invasion by public authorities (all these things that have been so clear and important during the course of the Revolutionary period), before they protected any of those things, they took the step that they knew would protect the right of the people to honor God.
It was the first thing they did. We've got to ask ourselves why they did it. They didn't put the last thing first, you know. They put the first thing first. And they put it there because, in the course of the history of republican self-government, they knew that this was the right that people had most especially striven for and fought for and died for in Europe. It was the one that had driven folks to the shores of America to establish the first colony.
Some people like to talk as if it was simply a matter of individual rights and religious expression. That's not true. For instance, we know that the folks who came over on the Mayflower, or in the accompanying ships, they left Holland. And in Holland, by the way, they lived under a regime that was the most tolerant of any in Europe. They had the freedom to worship as they pleased, to set up their churches and so forth.
What didn't they have the freedom to do?
They didn't have the liberty in that place to govern themselves according to their religious beliefs. And so, in spite of the prosperity that they enjoyed, in spite of the businesses they had to give up, in spite of all that they risked and might lose, they got on these little boats, sailed across an ocean in order to establish a colony in which, what? In which they would be able to establish, at the level of their community, at the level of their government, at the level of their schools, something that reflected their faith and heart.
That's what religious liberty is about. It's not just a liberty of individuals. It is the liberty of a people to see reflected in its laws those things which, according to God, are right and just and necessary. And, over the course of the last several decades, we've been through, I think, a combination of chicanery and neglect, we have been backing away to the point where now we have just about let this slip.
And we have let it slip in a manner, by the way, that also ratifies a way of governing in this country that utterly subverts the Constitution of our country. Now I used the word a minute ago, "republican," and I didn't use it as a partisan word, because that's not what it was about. Matter of fact, when I use the word "republican," I like to remind people I'm using it in a precise constitutional sense. Only, sadly, we have forgotten this part of the Constitution, too, apparently.
Article IV, Section IV, of the Constitution says that the United States shall guarantee to each of the states of the Union a republican form of government. Now what does that mean? It basically means what Lincoln said: government of the people, by the people, for the people. What the Declaration said: government based upon consent of the people. What the Federalist Papers said: government conducted through the elected and chosen representatives of the people, where nothing has the force of law until and unless it has been passed by the representatives, or ratified by the people themselves. That's a republican form of government.
Now tell me something. If we are allowing our most precious right, the right to honor God, to be ripped away from us by edicts having no basis in any written law or constitution, coming from the bench, then we're no longer under a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We're no longer under a system of government where the only law can be made with the consent of the people.
That's what I don't understand about some of these so-called conservatives who have been standing up and saying, "Well, we've got to obey the law." Without the basis in written law, and without the basis in our Constitution ratified by the people, judges can't make laws. And if we accept the notion that their dictates are law, then we have not only submitted to tyranny, we have abandoned a republican form of government.
And if this is being done to us by the federal judges, guess what? They have violated that essential provision of the Constitution. And, as I said in one of my articles, and this I will say carefully, because I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm trying to cause trouble, which I'm not, but y'all, what was it that the Founders fought the Revolution over? The form of government, because the King of England had subverted the form of government and sought to impose an irresponsible tyranny upon states that had been used to governing through their elected representatives.
This is not just any issue, y'all, it's the most fundamental. It's the issue over which constitutions are made or broken. And it will mean, if we let it slip, that our free way of life and our constitutional system will depart this earth. The last, best hope will be extinguished, not with a bang, but a whimper. Not through the terrorists overthrowing this or that, but through the people of this country just silently letting go.
And that's why I'm so encouraged to be here today, because in the course of the last few weeks, after many years of thinking about this, and never being sure in my heart that a moment would come when these issues would come crystal clear before the mind and touch the hearts of our people, I am seeing in the last several weeks, finally and at last, I believe, to the overweening arrogance of these ACLU dictators, they have finally done it.
They have awakened the people of this nation, and we won't go back to sleep. They have encouraged people now to stand up and take a stand as the county commissioners have been doing, and that's the only way we're going to preserve this republic. And I pray and hope that this example will spread all over the country, that it will be followed and supported by people of faith who will understand the role that we have to play, both in preserving the Constitution itself and in preserving the moral heart that allows that Constitution to work- -because after all, it is through maintaining that moral heart that we maintain our fitness for this free way of life.
Our Founders were right: we're not going to keep the Constitution unless you remain a people who deserve it, and in the end that depends not upon us, but upon our willingness to acknowledge and follow the will of God.
Thank you.
Q & A
I'd be glad to take questions, inviting discussion. This, I think, is a time that's not only about questioning, but also about exchanging views, because I know there's much on the hearts of people.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, this is a key point, and when it comes down to it, there are a lot of scenarios. The one that I think did not come about in Alabama, but that might have, would have involved the state officials hanging tough behind Roy Moore, which, of course, would have put the ball in federal court, not in federal court in terms of the court house, but in their court. Now, who would have then had a decision to make?
Well, the federal judge has already made his decision, and the [11th] Circuit Court made theirs, and the Supreme Court basically sat back and said, "Let it go forward." But, if you posit that none of the state officials were willing to submit to the judgment, what then happens- -you're right, then federal marshalls, but who do the federal marshalls work for? They work for the President of the United States. No part of the Executive Branch of government can move without his say-so.
And so, at the end of the day, the ball would then be in the court of the President, and it would be his responsibility, by the way, to abide by his oath. His oath doesn't say that he is sworn to uphold, preserve, protect and defend the judgments of the Supreme Court. His oath says that he is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And if the Court is blatantly running afoul of the Constitution, it is the obligation of the President, under his oath, to refuse to enforce their will. And that, by the way, has been done by presidents in the past. I don't know why folks act as if this is some big revelation.
Famous ones like Andrew Jackson, who looked the courts in the eye and said, "Look, you make that judgment, you enforce it." And guess what? He knew that the Constitution gives them no enforcement power. So if the Executive refuses to obey the dictates of the Court, because he believes those dictates run afoul of the Constitution, they fall.
Now, is the Executive without responsibility? No. If the Congress thinks the Executive is abusing his power, they have the right to impeach him and kick him out. That's what the system of checks and balances is all about. It is not about people sitting back and kowtowing to tyrants and accepting whatever the other branch says, not when that branch is violating the terms of the Constitution.
And from the point of view of individuals, it means that, for instance, at the county level, the state level, or whatever, you stand, you take a firm stand. At the end of the day, if the Constitution is abused by all, you might, at that individual case, be forced into it. Federal marshals can come, they can take the Ten Commandments off the walls of this courthouse. I wouldn't want to be the president that sponsored them, not at the next election, see? And George Bush knew this. That's why his folks worked so hard to make sure that the folks in Alabama didn't take the first step. I hate to say it, but they worked real hard to make sure that happened.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Here, take this one.
RICK SCARBOROUGH: I was just going to illustrate Dr. Keyes' point. The first time that Chief Justice Roy Moore then the Circuit Court in Alabama was ordered to take down the Ten Commandments, Fob James was the Governor, and stood up and said, "I'll call the National Guard out. You will not take down the Ten Commandments," and it threw the thing into a crisis.
If we'd have had that kind of courage surface through the existing Governor Riley, this would have thrown it right to the President, and we would have been resolving this issue. It is still an issue, because it hasn't been resolved yet.
KEYES: Now, there is one thing, I think, we need to face, though, and I'm not saying it's going to happen now, but we need to understand how profoundly important this issue is. The reason we need to understand it is so that we can impress it on our representatives.
I think the country's playing with fire here, y'all, and folks have so long lived in this complacent attitude that they don't realize when we're approaching a real crisis. I don't think this is an issue that will go away. And that means, in the case of Alabama just now, that Judge Roy Moore stood firm. But the rest of, if you don't mind my saying so, the gutless officials at the state level, did not stand firm. And so- -but let us posit the next step, and I noticed that the governor of Mississippi had sent a note through one of our rallies saying that he'd be glad to have the Ten Commandments in his state, and I'm hoping that somebody's following up to provide him with what he needs, see. Because what happens if a governor does this?
If a governor brings the Ten Commandments, sets it up in his state, and some judge says, "You can't have it there," and the governor looks at him and says, "Well, I'm the governor of this state, not you, and I'm going to keep it right where it is." What happens then? Right? And, of course you could say, "Well, fine the state." And I'll tell you I'm a little upset about this. Hasn't anybody realized that the states retain sovereign power and they must represent the dignity and defend the integrity of those residual powers left to them by the Constitution?
If a federal judge is, without warrant in the Constitution, dictating to a state governor- -the governor isn't some appointed official in some province somewhere. He is an elected official who represents the constitution of a state that has under our Constitution reserved certain clear elements of sovereignty, which is to say, the right to govern yourself. And if the judge infringes on that, the governor is obliged to say "no," because he is not to surrender to the federal government what the Constitution does not delegate to them. See?
And then we have a major problem, and I don't want to go too far in this because the specter that's raised is pretty grim, but y'all, how can I put this in a historical sense? This is why wars were fought. See? Because somebody decided they were going to ignore the basic rules, start dictating to people in a society, and at the end of that dictation would be the destruction of their faith, the surrender of their conscience, the suppression of their liberty.
I think it will happen, maybe in this generation, maybe not. Maybe in the next one, but assuming that we still maintain some semblance of our sense that we're a free people, at some point don't a free people have to stand up and say, "No more of this"? And my sense is that we could do a wonderful thing for the future.
We can make sure that this happens, as the Constitution provides, by the duly elected representatives, through a process that doesn't require a lot of confrontation and hurtfulness, but that simply requires that, using the rights we have, we preserve the rights the Constitution has given to us.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, I am not sure what "ism" it is. The only thing that I know is that whatever "ism" it is, it's going to rule by dictatorship. It's going to rule on the basis of an empowered oligarchy that no longer has to consult the people- -and that means that our way of life is destroyed.
I think that in terms of its economic approaches and other things, communism thoroughly disproved itself. Even the folks who still call themselves Communists over in China don't practice communism in economics any more, because it doesn't work. See? They're good capitalists. The problem with them though is that they're good capitalists who rule by dictatorship. See? And frankly I don't care if you're capitalist or communist: don't try to rule me by dictatorship.
We're not all about "isms," but we are all about self-government, and all about liberty, and all about making sure that whatever is going on, it goes on under the basis of a form of government that consults the consent of the people, because according to our principles, all government, in order to be just, must derive its power from the consent of the people.
So that's what's going on here. And this is what I'm fearful of, because that is exactly why we opposed the communists, because they did everything they wanted to do by dictatorship of the party and the proletariat- -and that brutal dictatorship we rejected, along, of course, with their silly and destructive economic ideas. But at the heart of it, we must reject dictatorship in whatever form it takes. And especially when it rears its head in our own midst on the bench.
Think about these poor folks who are being run roughshod over on the bench, and the very next week, or month, or whatever, they're trying to go back to the same court to seek redress. Are we crazy or what? The guy who just "mugged" you is going to say he's sorry? No. I assume if you go back into the court, he'll mug you again, probably take some more.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, I am going to defer to Rick on this, because he has been thinking about this and working on it for many years. So, take the microphone, don't forget the mike.
SCARBOROUGH: My answer to that is, and I think you're going to agree with this, having worked with them yourself, is that you might as well, you're going to be continually disappointed if you look for a majority of pastors to do that, but what we've got to do is look for that minority who will. You know, God has never needed a majority, He only needs a committee of minorities. So when we sat down and plotted the course for Vision America, we did a little studying and strategizing and we set a goal for ourselves for the next eight years, and that's to connect with three to five percent of the pastors in this country.
George Barnard research identifies that 350,000 senior pastors of all brands in America. If we connect with three to five percent of them, that's fifteen to twenty-five thousand, fifteen to twenty-five thousand pastors on any given Sunday speaking in a concerted voice to these issues, reflecting their own theological slant, but standing up in their pulpits and saying, for instance, "Our country's being subverted by activist judges, and we need now to galvanize and first educate our people and then mobilize to get enough elected officials to rein them in so that we stop this tyranny." We can have a remarkable effect.
Twenty-five thousand pastors on any given Sunday speaking to the great issues of our day, not every Sunday, but as the need and as the crisis arises that necessitates its, would give us an enormous power that we've never wielded as Evangelicals and so that's really what we're doing. As I'm walking along side Alan, I sit here and I'm amazed at the wisdom and the amount of, the treasure-trove of insight that he has.
Dr. Keyes, I don't think you realize how many of the phrases you say make the rest of us stop and snap our heads, because you say things in passing that we all think, "Well, you know, I hadn't thought about that, but I agree with that." Now, if we can take that and translate that into pastoral action, instead of inaction, so that we've been galvanized and unified, who knows what we can accomplish in this nation toward the moral good.
I've had pastors for 10 years say to me things like, "Well, I don't get politically involved, and I don't want to do the things you're asking us to do. I'm just going to pray for revival." And I've said to them every time, "Well, if the revival you pray for ever comes to pass, the way you're going to know it is you're going to see people like me, working through elected officials, getting the job done."
How do you think the revival is going to come in this nation? We have in our hands the tools to see a national revival. Ungodly men aren't going to do the things we're now espousing and that's impeach judges. You know the scriptures say, "Strike a scoffer and strive will cease." One select impeachment would serve notice to every federal judiciary that they'd better check this kind of activism, because as much as they love power, none of them want to go down in the history books as the only judge impeached.
Now we haven't had many impeachments in this country. It don't take many, it's the threat of impeachment. And the good news is, yesterday in Congress, there was a meeting with Chief Justice Roy Moore and he was laying out how to get this thing stopped. So for the first time there is [action] among legislators who want to do something.
I don't know that that's a majority. It certainly is not in the Senate yet, but we lack about six votes in the Senate turning that tide, six votes in the Senate. The reason we can't get God-fearing conservatives, who are pro-life, even, I should say, judges affirmed, we can't even get them for a vote in the Senate because it takes a sixty percent majority, because they're manipulating the Constitution. But instead of cursing the darkness, why not band together as men of God, find those candidates in the key states and get them elected, so we can turn this tide.
It's time for us to quit wringing our hands and start doing something, gentlemen, because ultimately, if this nation is lost, God is going to hold pastors, first and foremost accountable for her being lost. Our churches have been filled with people who have being saying that to us, and we wouldn't listen. It's time for pastors to become astute and understand what the issues are and be like the men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what they should do.
I believe God's calling pastors to take this kind of information and translate it into activism by encouraging our people to get informed and involved, registered and voting. And if we'd do those simple things, we'd see a national revival take place in this country. I have thought about this a little.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Part of this is a problem with the particular issue we're dealing with. I have found from my little time in the government, though, that part of it is just a problem with attorneys and people in the government.
I used to encounter the most exasperating moments when I was in the government dealing with the legal counsel, because I always thought that you hired an attorney because you wanted to get his legal mind applied to your problem in such as way as to advance your case, right?
And so often these attorneys come in and their first job seems to be to tell you what you can't do. And I used to very quickly look at them and say, "If you want to stay in this office, you are going to change your attitude. Your job isn't to come in here and tell me what I can't do, your job is to apply your legal expertise to find a way to get it done." See?
But they often don't think that way. And I think that might be part of why we're here overall, because the mentality that seems to predominate in the legal profession may be fostered by the nature of our legal instruction. I don't want to say that, because I never went to law school, but it does seem to me that there is a lack of imagination and initiative. And, of course, in certain areas of the law, that probably does fine.
When you're dealing with issues that have to with self-government, government policy, and, in particular, with constitutional issues, then it's ridiculous- -because, in point of fact, constitutional issues are not legal issues. By their very nature, they are issues that involve broad questions of political rights and duties. And those broad questions can't just be confined to silly legalisms.
And I don't think it's an accident that on the eve of dealing with those issues as a matter of both court and political consequence, we have the ACLU fanning out over America to do, what? To symbolically remove from the precincts of our law and public deliberation all things that symbolize the relevance of religious conscience to public policy and law. I think this juxtaposition is very significant, particularly for those of us who are deeply concerned with the moral foundations of the country and the issues that arise from those moral foundations.
I think we need to realize that this isn't just about the particular symbol at stake. Whether it's the Ten Commandments or a Bible in Houston. What they are doing is creating an environment in which they have established it as a point of law that religious conscience has no relevance and can have no legitimate influence on public policy.
Once they have established that point, by the way, we are in serious trouble, because it has been an established fact
Well, consider where we are if we have allowed the triumph of a movement which aims to declare that religious tradition persona non grata in our public arena; that aims to declare that anything derived from that tradition, including the most basic statements of human morality, like the Ten Commandments, can no longer legitimately be cited or referenced in our public discourse.
Believe me, that is what they are trying to achieve
They have also managed to alter the nature of our political discourse, to make our public officials conscious and self-conscious of any reference that they might make to their religious heart and convictions and beliefs. We've reached a stage, in fact, where according to the judges, the only way in which you can cite the name of God in the public arena in America today is if you do it in a ritualistic fashion that has no meaning.
And I think we need to think that through, particularly from the point of view of believers, because you know what they're demanding. People think this is just about what they're forbidding in this place and that. No.
See, I often tell people that I think evil is imperialistic
And imagine what I just said: the only way that you can get away with mentioning God, according to these judges, is if you do it in a ritualistic fashion that has no religious significance. What did I just say? The only way you can mention God is if you take His name in vain. We can mention Him, but only if we're willing to violate His commandment by mentioning Him in a spirit that has no respect for who He is.
I think that should announce to us the real purpose of this agenda. It is a moral assault, yes, on institutions that we hold dear. It aims to prepare the soil for the receipt of consequences that will destroy marriage and put the finishing touches on the destruction of all sexual morality. And it aims to make each and every one of us, whatever may be our professed conscience and belief before God, complicit in the triumph of this evil in our country, so that it becomes a situation where our citizenship is no longer compatible with the sincere profession of our faith.
Now, one consequence of this, which I think we have already seen, in the course of the last several decades, is that people of sincere heart and belief, who are, of course, unwilling to check their belief at the doors of the public arena, they won't enter that arena. Because they are being asked to do something that conflicts with their sincere heart and faith and so, they don't do it.
And often people try to account for the fact that we now live in a country where, time after time, the surveys confirm that we are a pious people, a believing people. And yet, time after time, our elections confirm that those beliefs are becoming more and more irrelevant.
Why? Partly, because people are backing out of their citizenship vocations, backing out of the competition for leadership, because they refuse to compromise their religious conscience, and partly, because others are approaching their citizenship with a divided conscience that says, I'm worshipping God over here, but I cast my vote over there and never the twain shall meet.
The separation of church and state thus becomes the separation of God from the country, the separation of conscience from the judgments of the people. And that, I think, quite clearly spells our destruction. But, on a practical level also, I think one of the reasons I was so pleased to come here today is that, I think, that what is going on with your county commissioners symbolizes something that's happened, over the course of the last several decades, as a consequence of this judicial tyranny.
In addition to the direct effect of the rulings themselves, the federal courts have created a venue for the harassment of officials and organizations at every level of our nation's life. So that the ACLU
And what's the effect of this?
Well, the effect of this has been, sadly, that at the very time when our nation has been deep in moral crisis
So, instead of having a clear articulation of the conscience of our people, we have sometimes seen, as I'm afraid we did through a lot of that whole Clinton business, deafening silence. And this deafening silence wasn't because everybody approved. It was because too many people now, in all different areas (and I'm not just including public officials, because we all know the Boy Scouts have been assaulted and the churches have been assaulted, and schools have been assaulted), at every level, they have used this venue of intimidation in order to do what dictators do: rule by fear.
And I think that it's ironic that here we are engaged in a war against the physical menace of brutal terrorism, and meanwhile, our whole moral culture has for decades been subverted by what amounts to federally-sponsored judicial terrorism.
We have got to wake up, because I think what is at stake is pretty clear. I know that folks are often fond of quoting, I think it was John Adams, who said that our Constitution was framed for "a moral and a religious people."
"It is entirely," he said, "inadequate to the governance of any other." All right.
Now, that does two things, and we need to think about them both. First, it confirms that in the minds of our Founding generation, it was absolutely essential to maintain the presence and influence of religious faith and conscience in our citizen lives. That's step number one.
But, it also tells us something else. It tells us that, if and when we simply allow the erosion, decay, and destruction of the religious and moral character of this people, our Constitution will be untenable.
And here's the question I would like to put to you: how close are we to that point?
How close are we to that point? We can no longer act like what we're dealing here with is something that may happen, might happen, will happen at some point in the future. My friends, it's been going on for decades.
We are not approaching now the beginning, or even the middle, of this business. We are approaching the climax of this drama, the moment when the decision will be made that either saves or ruins this republic for good.
And the issues that are raised were recognized by our Founders as fundamental. I often, when people say the words that I quoted from the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion"
So, before they did anything else, before they protected freedom of speech and of the press, before they dealt with due process and even the freedom to be secure in your homes from unauthorized invasion by public authorities (all these things that have been so clear and important during the course of the Revolutionary period), before they protected any of those things, they took the step that they knew would protect the right of the people to honor God.
It was the first thing they did. We've got to ask ourselves why they did it. They didn't put the last thing first, you know. They put the first thing first. And they put it there because, in the course of the history of republican self-government, they knew that this was the right that people had most especially striven for and fought for and died for in Europe. It was the one that had driven folks to the shores of America to establish the first colony.
Some people like to talk as if it was simply a matter of individual rights and religious expression. That's not true. For instance, we know that the folks who came over on the Mayflower, or in the accompanying ships, they left Holland. And in Holland, by the way, they lived under a regime that was the most tolerant of any in Europe. They had the freedom to worship as they pleased, to set up their churches and so forth.
What didn't they have the freedom to do?
They didn't have the liberty in that place to govern themselves according to their religious beliefs. And so, in spite of the prosperity that they enjoyed, in spite of the businesses they had to give up, in spite of all that they risked and might lose, they got on these little boats, sailed across an ocean in order to establish a colony in which, what? In which they would be able to establish, at the level of their community, at the level of their government, at the level of their schools, something that reflected their faith and heart.
That's what religious liberty is about. It's not just a liberty of individuals. It is the liberty of a people to see reflected in its laws those things which, according to God, are right and just and necessary. And, over the course of the last several decades, we've been through, I think, a combination of chicanery and neglect, we have been backing away to the point where now we have just about let this slip.
And we have let it slip in a manner, by the way, that also ratifies a way of governing in this country that utterly subverts the Constitution of our country. Now I used the word a minute ago, "republican," and I didn't use it as a partisan word, because that's not what it was about. Matter of fact, when I use the word "republican," I like to remind people I'm using it in a precise constitutional sense. Only, sadly, we have forgotten this part of the Constitution, too, apparently.
Article IV, Section IV, of the Constitution says that the United States shall guarantee to each of the states of the Union a republican form of government. Now what does that mean? It basically means what Lincoln said: government of the people, by the people, for the people. What the Declaration said: government based upon consent of the people. What the Federalist Papers said: government conducted through the elected and chosen representatives of the people, where nothing has the force of law until and unless it has been passed by the representatives, or ratified by the people themselves. That's a republican form of government.
Now tell me something. If we are allowing our most precious right, the right to honor God, to be ripped away from us by edicts having no basis in any written law or constitution, coming from the bench, then we're no longer under a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We're no longer under a system of government where the only law can be made with the consent of the people.
That's what I don't understand about some of these so-called conservatives who have been standing up and saying, "Well, we've got to obey the law." Without the basis in written law, and without the basis in our Constitution ratified by the people, judges can't make laws. And if we accept the notion that their dictates are law, then we have not only submitted to tyranny, we have abandoned a republican form of government.
And if this is being done to us by the federal judges, guess what? They have violated that essential provision of the Constitution. And, as I said in one of my articles, and this I will say carefully, because I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm trying to cause trouble, which I'm not, but y'all, what was it that the Founders fought the Revolution over? The form of government, because the King of England had subverted the form of government and sought to impose an irresponsible tyranny upon states that had been used to governing through their elected representatives.
This is not just any issue, y'all, it's the most fundamental. It's the issue over which constitutions are made or broken. And it will mean, if we let it slip, that our free way of life and our constitutional system will depart this earth. The last, best hope will be extinguished, not with a bang, but a whimper. Not through the terrorists overthrowing this or that, but through the people of this country just silently letting go.
And that's why I'm so encouraged to be here today, because in the course of the last few weeks, after many years of thinking about this, and never being sure in my heart that a moment would come when these issues would come crystal clear before the mind and touch the hearts of our people, I am seeing in the last several weeks, finally and at last, I believe, to the overweening arrogance of these ACLU dictators, they have finally done it.
They have awakened the people of this nation, and we won't go back to sleep. They have encouraged people now to stand up and take a stand as the county commissioners have been doing, and that's the only way we're going to preserve this republic. And I pray and hope that this example will spread all over the country, that it will be followed and supported by people of faith who will understand the role that we have to play, both in preserving the Constitution itself and in preserving the moral heart that allows that Constitution to work
Our Founders were right: we're not going to keep the Constitution unless you remain a people who deserve it, and in the end that depends not upon us, but upon our willingness to acknowledge and follow the will of God.
Thank you.
I'd be glad to take questions, inviting discussion. This, I think, is a time that's not only about questioning, but also about exchanging views, because I know there's much on the hearts of people.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, this is a key point, and when it comes down to it, there are a lot of scenarios. The one that I think did not come about in Alabama, but that might have, would have involved the state officials hanging tough behind Roy Moore, which, of course, would have put the ball in federal court, not in federal court in terms of the court house, but in their court. Now, who would have then had a decision to make?
Well, the federal judge has already made his decision, and the [11th] Circuit Court made theirs, and the Supreme Court basically sat back and said, "Let it go forward." But, if you posit that none of the state officials were willing to submit to the judgment, what then happens
And so, at the end of the day, the ball would then be in the court of the President, and it would be his responsibility, by the way, to abide by his oath. His oath doesn't say that he is sworn to uphold, preserve, protect and defend the judgments of the Supreme Court. His oath says that he is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And if the Court is blatantly running afoul of the Constitution, it is the obligation of the President, under his oath, to refuse to enforce their will. And that, by the way, has been done by presidents in the past. I don't know why folks act as if this is some big revelation.
Famous ones like Andrew Jackson, who looked the courts in the eye and said, "Look, you make that judgment, you enforce it." And guess what? He knew that the Constitution gives them no enforcement power. So if the Executive refuses to obey the dictates of the Court, because he believes those dictates run afoul of the Constitution, they fall.
Now, is the Executive without responsibility? No. If the Congress thinks the Executive is abusing his power, they have the right to impeach him and kick him out. That's what the system of checks and balances is all about. It is not about people sitting back and kowtowing to tyrants and accepting whatever the other branch says, not when that branch is violating the terms of the Constitution.
And from the point of view of individuals, it means that, for instance, at the county level, the state level, or whatever, you stand, you take a firm stand. At the end of the day, if the Constitution is abused by all, you might, at that individual case, be forced into it. Federal marshals can come, they can take the Ten Commandments off the walls of this courthouse. I wouldn't want to be the president that sponsored them, not at the next election, see? And George Bush knew this. That's why his folks worked so hard to make sure that the folks in Alabama didn't take the first step. I hate to say it, but they worked real hard to make sure that happened.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Here, take this one.
RICK SCARBOROUGH: I was just going to illustrate Dr. Keyes' point. The first time that Chief Justice Roy Moore then the Circuit Court in Alabama was ordered to take down the Ten Commandments, Fob James was the Governor, and stood up and said, "I'll call the National Guard out. You will not take down the Ten Commandments," and it threw the thing into a crisis.
If we'd have had that kind of courage surface through the existing Governor Riley, this would have thrown it right to the President, and we would have been resolving this issue. It is still an issue, because it hasn't been resolved yet.
KEYES: Now, there is one thing, I think, we need to face, though, and I'm not saying it's going to happen now, but we need to understand how profoundly important this issue is. The reason we need to understand it is so that we can impress it on our representatives.
I think the country's playing with fire here, y'all, and folks have so long lived in this complacent attitude that they don't realize when we're approaching a real crisis. I don't think this is an issue that will go away. And that means, in the case of Alabama just now, that Judge Roy Moore stood firm. But the rest of, if you don't mind my saying so, the gutless officials at the state level, did not stand firm. And so
If a governor brings the Ten Commandments, sets it up in his state, and some judge says, "You can't have it there," and the governor looks at him and says, "Well, I'm the governor of this state, not you, and I'm going to keep it right where it is." What happens then? Right? And, of course you could say, "Well, fine the state." And I'll tell you I'm a little upset about this. Hasn't anybody realized that the states retain sovereign power and they must represent the dignity and defend the integrity of those residual powers left to them by the Constitution?
If a federal judge is, without warrant in the Constitution, dictating to a state governor
And then we have a major problem, and I don't want to go too far in this because the specter that's raised is pretty grim, but y'all, how can I put this in a historical sense? This is why wars were fought. See? Because somebody decided they were going to ignore the basic rules, start dictating to people in a society, and at the end of that dictation would be the destruction of their faith, the surrender of their conscience, the suppression of their liberty.
I think it will happen, maybe in this generation, maybe not. Maybe in the next one, but assuming that we still maintain some semblance of our sense that we're a free people, at some point don't a free people have to stand up and say, "No more of this"? And my sense is that we could do a wonderful thing for the future.
We can make sure that this happens, as the Constitution provides, by the duly elected representatives, through a process that doesn't require a lot of confrontation and hurtfulness, but that simply requires that, using the rights we have, we preserve the rights the Constitution has given to us.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, I am not sure what "ism" it is. The only thing that I know is that whatever "ism" it is, it's going to rule by dictatorship. It's going to rule on the basis of an empowered oligarchy that no longer has to consult the people
I think that in terms of its economic approaches and other things, communism thoroughly disproved itself. Even the folks who still call themselves Communists over in China don't practice communism in economics any more, because it doesn't work. See? They're good capitalists. The problem with them though is that they're good capitalists who rule by dictatorship. See? And frankly I don't care if you're capitalist or communist: don't try to rule me by dictatorship.
We're not all about "isms," but we are all about self-government, and all about liberty, and all about making sure that whatever is going on, it goes on under the basis of a form of government that consults the consent of the people, because according to our principles, all government, in order to be just, must derive its power from the consent of the people.
So that's what's going on here. And this is what I'm fearful of, because that is exactly why we opposed the communists, because they did everything they wanted to do by dictatorship of the party and the proletariat
Think about these poor folks who are being run roughshod over on the bench, and the very next week, or month, or whatever, they're trying to go back to the same court to seek redress. Are we crazy or what? The guy who just "mugged" you is going to say he's sorry? No. I assume if you go back into the court, he'll mug you again, probably take some more.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Well, I am going to defer to Rick on this, because he has been thinking about this and working on it for many years. So, take the microphone, don't forget the mike.
SCARBOROUGH: My answer to that is, and I think you're going to agree with this, having worked with them yourself, is that you might as well, you're going to be continually disappointed if you look for a majority of pastors to do that, but what we've got to do is look for that minority who will. You know, God has never needed a majority, He only needs a committee of minorities. So when we sat down and plotted the course for Vision America, we did a little studying and strategizing and we set a goal for ourselves for the next eight years, and that's to connect with three to five percent of the pastors in this country.
George Barnard research identifies that 350,000 senior pastors of all brands in America. If we connect with three to five percent of them, that's fifteen to twenty-five thousand, fifteen to twenty-five thousand pastors on any given Sunday speaking in a concerted voice to these issues, reflecting their own theological slant, but standing up in their pulpits and saying, for instance, "Our country's being subverted by activist judges, and we need now to galvanize and first educate our people and then mobilize to get enough elected officials to rein them in so that we stop this tyranny." We can have a remarkable effect.
Twenty-five thousand pastors on any given Sunday speaking to the great issues of our day, not every Sunday, but as the need and as the crisis arises that necessitates its, would give us an enormous power that we've never wielded as Evangelicals and so that's really what we're doing. As I'm walking along side Alan, I sit here and I'm amazed at the wisdom and the amount of, the treasure-trove of insight that he has.
Dr. Keyes, I don't think you realize how many of the phrases you say make the rest of us stop and snap our heads, because you say things in passing that we all think, "Well, you know, I hadn't thought about that, but I agree with that." Now, if we can take that and translate that into pastoral action, instead of inaction, so that we've been galvanized and unified, who knows what we can accomplish in this nation toward the moral good.
I've had pastors for 10 years say to me things like, "Well, I don't get politically involved, and I don't want to do the things you're asking us to do. I'm just going to pray for revival." And I've said to them every time, "Well, if the revival you pray for ever comes to pass, the way you're going to know it is you're going to see people like me, working through elected officials, getting the job done."
How do you think the revival is going to come in this nation? We have in our hands the tools to see a national revival. Ungodly men aren't going to do the things we're now espousing and that's impeach judges. You know the scriptures say, "Strike a scoffer and strive will cease." One select impeachment would serve notice to every federal judiciary that they'd better check this kind of activism, because as much as they love power, none of them want to go down in the history books as the only judge impeached.
Now we haven't had many impeachments in this country. It don't take many, it's the threat of impeachment. And the good news is, yesterday in Congress, there was a meeting with Chief Justice Roy Moore and he was laying out how to get this thing stopped. So for the first time there is [action] among legislators who want to do something.
I don't know that that's a majority. It certainly is not in the Senate yet, but we lack about six votes in the Senate turning that tide, six votes in the Senate. The reason we can't get God-fearing conservatives, who are pro-life, even, I should say, judges affirmed, we can't even get them for a vote in the Senate because it takes a sixty percent majority, because they're manipulating the Constitution. But instead of cursing the darkness, why not band together as men of God, find those candidates in the key states and get them elected, so we can turn this tide.
It's time for us to quit wringing our hands and start doing something, gentlemen, because ultimately, if this nation is lost, God is going to hold pastors, first and foremost accountable for her being lost. Our churches have been filled with people who have being saying that to us, and we wouldn't listen. It's time for pastors to become astute and understand what the issues are and be like the men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what they should do.
I believe God's calling pastors to take this kind of information and translate it into activism by encouraging our people to get informed and involved, registered and voting. And if we'd do those simple things, we'd see a national revival take place in this country. I have thought about this a little.
[question from audience, unintelligible]
KEYES: Part of this is a problem with the particular issue we're dealing with. I have found from my little time in the government, though, that part of it is just a problem with attorneys and people in the government.
I used to encounter the most exasperating moments when I was in the government dealing with the legal counsel, because I always thought that you hired an attorney because you wanted to get his legal mind applied to your problem in such as way as to advance your case, right?
And so often these attorneys come in and their first job seems to be to tell you what you can't do. And I used to very quickly look at them and say, "If you want to stay in this office, you are going to change your attitude. Your job isn't to come in here and tell me what I can't do, your job is to apply your legal expertise to find a way to get it done." See?
But they often don't think that way. And I think that might be part of why we're here overall, because the mentality that seems to predominate in the legal profession may be fostered by the nature of our legal instruction. I don't want to say that, because I never went to law school, but it does seem to me that there is a lack of imagination and initiative. And, of course, in certain areas of the law, that probably does fine.
When you're dealing with issues that have to with self-government, government policy, and, in particular, with constitutional issues, then it's ridiculous