Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders.

I did a 4-15-05 post captioned "Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue. - A strategy fraught with danger" about Frist joining some prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

This post concluded with the following observation:

The price of poker has just gone up my friends. Dr. Frist is getting into the high stakes stuff that is fraught with danger, and could backfire big time.

Today we read in the New York Times:

As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

Dr. Frist's participation has rekindled a debate over the role of religion in public life that may be complicating his efforts to overcome the Democrats' use of the filibuster, a parliamentary tactic used by Congressional minorities, to block President Bush's judicial nominees.

Dr. Frist has threatened to change the Senate rules to eliminate judicial filibusters, and in response Democrats have threatened a virtual shutdown of the Senate. A confrontation had been expected as early as next week, but it now appears that the showdown may be delayed.

Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, plan to conduct a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast. The program is sponsored by Christian conservative organizations that want to build support for Dr. Frist's filibuster proposal.

Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member [says] "One of the hallmarks of our denomination is that we are an ecumenical church. . . . Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

A recent survey conducted for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that 50 percent of those polled believed that the Senate should retain the filibusters for judicial nominations, while 40 percent were against and 10 percent undecided.

The criticism of the telecast underscores the delicate task facing Dr. Frist, who is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign in 2008, as he courts the evangelical Protestant groups and other religious traditionalists that formed the bedrock of President Bush's winning coalition. With his patrician bearing and background in the relatively liberal Presbyterian Church, Dr. Frist, a Harvard-trained transplant surgeon, does not fit in as naturally with Christian conservatives as President Bush.

"To say that some group of Christians has a monopoly on the ear of God is especially an outrage to Presbyterians," [says Dr. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former Democratic congressman].

Mr. Kirkpatrick said Dr. Frist's participation in the telecast undermined "the historical commitment in our nation and our church to an understanding of the First Amendment that elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, said those who were offended did not have to watch the telecast.

"There are millions of other Americans who see a connection between the filibuster and judicial activism," Mr. Perkins said. "And when we talk about judicial activism, we are talking about issues that people of faith care about deeply."

(4-22-05, The New York Times.)