November 7, 2005

This week has been a busy week in Washington and in many of our members' congregations and communities.

The outpouring of grief at public commemorations of the life of Rosa Parks in Detroit and here in Washington, D.C. were a powerful testament to the impact of this remarkable woman and the movement she helped spark. However, we know the struggle for justice will never be over. Just hours after Rosa Parks was honored at the U.S. Capitol for moving the country forward, President Bush nominated an activist judge whose confirmation would undermine our legal protections and move the country in the wrong direction.

Bush's nominee, Judge Samuel Alito, is an activist judge who has compiled an extensive, extreme right-wing judicial record on numerous matters of importance to the protection of the rights and interests of ordinary Americans.

WHAT ARE THE STAKES?

With the Supreme Court narrowly divided, Alito could shift the court's approach to Civil Rights and other issues important to our communities for decades.

The nine-member Supreme Court plays a crucial role in protecting our civil rights by interpreting our Constitution and laws. In our history, the Court has sometimes made bad decisions, such as upholding slavery, and sometimes upheld our nation’s ideals, as it did when it ended legalized segregation and supported the civil rights movement’s advances toward equality for all.

Today, the Supreme Court is narrowly divided on important civil rights questions, so the people appointed to fill the multiple vacancies expected on the Court over the next few years will have a huge effect on our constitutional liberties. Here are three ways the Supreme Court could reverse civil rights progress:

#1 Affirmative action and equal opportunity: Just one more far-right vote on the Supreme Court would completely eliminate affirmative action and restrict other means of promoting equal opportunity.

#2 Voting rights: Just one more right-wing vote on the Court would make it impossible to challenge even blatantly partisan political gerrymandering. Current far-right justices Scalia and Thomas want to go even further and overturn 30 years of Supreme Court decisions that protect minority voting rights.

#3 Job and other discrimination: Just a few more far-right votes on the Court would make it much harder to prove or remedy bias based on race, age, gender, disability and other factors. In addiition, it could become impossible for state employees to address violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

AAMIA RESPONDS

In response to these stakes, AAMIA has released this statement to members of the media urging the U.S. Senate to reject Judge Samuel Alito from a lifetime post on the most powerful court in the land:

The nomination of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court is cause for serious concern among Americans who treasure civil rights, said Rev. Timothy McDonald, Chair of the African American Ministers In Action and Pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

"The President's political base made it clear they would settle for nothing less than a Supreme Court nominee they could count on to carry out their agenda," said Rev. McDonald. "That agenda puts at risk civil rights protections that have brought our country closer to the ideas that Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned. It is unfortunate that while Rosa Parks was being honored in the U.S. Capitol for moving our nation forward, President Bush was nominating an activist judge whose confirmation would undermine our legal protections and move us in the other direction."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the fifth and decisive vote in many important decisions affecting civil rights, environmental protections, personal privacy, reproductive health, religious liberty, consumer protection and much more. Replacing Justice O'Connor with an ideologue would weaken the legal protections Americans have counted on the Court to uphold, said Rev. McDonald.

Said Rev. McDonald, "We’ve come too far as a nation to turn our back on the civil rights protections that so many people, fought, bled, and died for."

AAMIA ministers will impress upon senators the importance of the upcoming vote, and will challenge senators to cast a vote for the people that they serve and reject the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

JOIN OUR EFFORTS

In the coming days and weeks AAMIA members will be hosting community forums, educational events, and town hall meetings on the potential impact of Judge Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court. We will also be producing educational materials to distribute to our congregations about the important rights at stake.

If you would like more information or would like your congregation to be involved, please contact Carleton Atkinson, PFAWF's Deputy Director of African American Outreach, at catkinson@pfaw.org or 202-467-2398.

African American Ministers In Action
a project of People For the American Way
2000 M Street NW, Suite 400 - Washington, DC 20036
www.aamia.net - aamia@pfaw.org