God isn’t partisan

So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to join a telecast whose organizing theme is that those who oppose some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are engaged in an assault on “people of faith.” The New York Times reported yesterday:

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

This is a disturbing change. We read of militant Muslims, of radical mullahs, of those who call for religious war against the U.S. Isn't Frist engaging in similar behavior?

Back in 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings, former Senator George Mitchell (D-ME) said to Oliver North "Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics." Worth remembering.