Pat Robertson: On his knees … to pray?

It certainly seems clear by now that the recent Supreme Court decision striking down sodomy statutes in all states and, in effect, apologizing for their formerly expressed disdain in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick has left more than the plaintiffs enjoying time on their knees.

Pat Robertson, never one to hold his tongue regardless of the law (or simple decency), has ratcheted up lamentation against the ruling through his Christian Broadcasting Network. He has issued a massive call to prayer. The goal of the mass prayer is to ask their god to help in the removal of the “liberal” justices from the Supreme Court by retirement or …

This “prayer offensive” (not to be confused with the “prayer pick and roll”) was detailed in a letter written by Robertson and sent to his “700 Club” Web site. The crux of his argument is that the liberation of “free” people in their bedrooms from intrusion by the state and federal government creates a moral “slippery slope” (slippery because of all the lubrication, no doubt). This “slippery slope” is the Christian political pundits’ favorite phrase, which basically translates as: We don’t trust you to make good, moral choices for yourself, not like we have done for ourselves; one minute a man is with a man, the next he is with man’s best friend.

Robertson, and others, preach that a zone of privacy around the bedroom is just too much freedom for free people to enjoy. Without the guidance of the moral, Christian state, who knows what dirrrrrty acts might be performed between consenting adults?

And, lest the rest of society forget, it is the social conservatives, like Robertson, who want to watch.

Don’t believe me? You only have to re-read the Whitewater Independent Council Report to witness how one branch of the government was turned into a kinky keyhole session. It is one of the greatest ironies in this political age that social conservatives feed on the supposed perversity of those “less moral” than them in bed.

Like Kenneth Starr and his league of litigating vampires, Pat Robertson and his league of extraordinary zealots are revolted by what you do, but like aging men slipping into the corner porno theater, they must make sure that it is what it purports to be.

Social conservatives were rightly stung by the Court’s decision that in effect “freed” the men and women (and others) everywhere in their bedrooms. What the “prayer offensive” engenders is another chortling right-wing attempt to turn the tide of social change into a platitude of prayer tipped with personal destruction. Similar to other right-wing attempts at social change (think: abortion-doctor-wanted posters that led to assassinations), this “prayer offensive” pleads with god for the retirement of justices, indicating that their old age and disease-ridden states should force them to retire.

In a simply disgusting way, Robertson’s prayers criticize the Supremes for their lifetimes of experience. Chillingly, this “offensive” codes Robertson’s prayer as a prayer for their retirement but, in reality, it is a prayer for the dead who have not yet begun dying. It is a prayer for those who stand in the way of Robertson’s “moral society.” It is a prayer for the Supreme Court justices to remove themselves or be removed with the righteous indignation of club members who pray for Justice Stevens’ age to overwhelm his legal discretion and for Justice Ginsburg to be overwhelmed by her cancer that is in remission.

Mr. Robertson, how Christian indeed.