Filibuster Fray Lifts Profile of Minister (Wingnut Scarborough)

[struggle4progress]

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 8, 2005; Page A01

In his home town of Pearland, Tex., Baptist minister Rick Scarborough was tireless in promoting his conservative Christian way of thinking.

He attacked high school sex education courses, experimental medical treatments and transsexuals trying to change their gender identification. He recruited like-minded candidates to run for the local school board and city council. He crisscrossed the country to protest the ousting of Roy S. Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, for installing a Ten Commandments tablet at his courthouse. And Scarborough created a network of "Patriot Pastors" to lead evangelicals to the polls in 2004.

Now he has set his sights on bigger stakes: pushing Senate Republicans to change the rules so that Democrats cannot block President Bush's judicial nominees. The fight over the judgeships was once a largely academic argument over the constitutionality of the filibuster. But now it provides a fiery new front in the culture war. And Scarborough is emblematic of the Christian right leaders who have been drawn to the fray.

Scarborough and other grass-roots conservative religious leaders believe the federal courts are trouncing Christian values on marriage, abortion and other right-to-life issues raised in the Terri Schiavo case. While he lacks the name recognition of more prominent religious activists, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and evangelist Pat Robertson, Scarborough is a potent force with close ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and influential Senate conservatives. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050701266.html