E-mail a friendDr. Richard Land
airdate October 17, 2005
As CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Richard Land is the spokesman on Capitol Hill for the largest non-Catholic denomination in the country. Time magazine included Land on its '05 list of the '25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America." He's also been appointed three times to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Land has a significant radio presence, is the author of two books and executive editor of Faith & Family Values magazine.
Dr. Richard Land
Tavis: Dr. Richard Land is the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. This year, 'Time' magazine named him on its list of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the US. His most recent book is 'Imagine a God Blessed America.' He joins us tonight from Springfield, Missouri. Dr. Land, honored to have you on the program, sir.
Dr. Richard Land: Thank you. It's good to be with you.
Tavis: Let me start with the news of today. We are starting to hear reports, I think out of 'Newsweek' and a few other places, that the strategy with regard to Harriet Miers. I want to get to some issues in just a second, let me start with Harriet Miers. We are hearing now that the strategy concerning Ms. Miers is shifting, changing.
We've been trying, the White House, that is, has been trying over the last couple of weeks to get you and others to understand that she fits nicely into the matrix of your evangelical beliefs. That strategy trying to press her evangelical credentials has not worked, apparently. So now what we're reading and what we are hearing is that the strategy has changed to one of not talking about religion where she is concern, not even raising the issue. What do you know about that shift in strategy, and what do you make of it?
Land: Well, I don't know anything about the shift in strategy; I'm not part of the White House strategy. And if they had asked me beforehand, I would have said that the idea of pushing her religious credentials is a bad mistake. I don't think that a Supreme Court justice nominee's religious beliefs ought to be part of the mix.
We don't have a religious test for office in this country. And I believe that Supreme Court justices and other federal judges have an obligation to set aside their personal convictions and their personal beliefs and to rule based upon the law, based upon only the law. And the Constitution is their client, and they are to be neutral judicial umpires. So if they had asked me, I would have told them it was a mistake from the beginning.
Tavis: I respect you and what you've just articulated. But I'm having a hard time trying to juxtapose what you say with the way evangelicals behave. And by that I mean to suggest that it is very clear when you listen to many of your cohorts on the right, that you all have legitimate concerns about where people stand on particular issues like abortion, on gay rights. But I'm supposed to believe, though, that you think that their religious beliefs really don't matter?
Land: Well, when we are talking about Supreme Court justices and judges, yes. When we are talking about candidates for office, it is an entirely different answer. Candidates for office are free to share their religious beliefs and their religious convictions with voters, and then voters can decide whether that is the kind of Senator they want, whether that's the kind of President they want, whether it's the kind of Governor or Congressman or Congresswomen they want. But when we're coming to justices and judges, they are to be neutral.
They are to set aside their personal beliefs and convictions. We have criticized liberal judges for not doing that, and it would be very hypocritical of us to then turn around and ask conservative judges to do it. So we are talking about apples and oranges. If you're talking about judges, they must set aside their personal convictions and beliefs when they're ruling on cases.
When they're running for office as Congressmen and Presidents and Senators and Governors, they have every right if they choose to, to bring those convictions to bear and to share them with the country and with their colleagues, and then the voters decide whether that is the kind of person they want in that office.
Tavis: All right, so if it came to your attention through any particular source that Harriet Miers in fact was okay with gay marriage, that she didn't have a problem with that, if it were to come to your attention that Harriet Miers was in fact pro-choice as opposed to pro-life, you are telling me that that would not matter to you. She is a judge, I mean, she is being nominated for the Supreme Court, she is going to set those beliefs aside, and you are telling me that you would not have a problem with that, if that were to come to light?
Land: I want - strict constructionist, original intent jurists that are going to rule on the law and not legislate from the bench. We have had way too much legislation from the bench. Roe v. Wade was - brought about by the imagination of justices. It is not in the constitution. We want judges and justices who will rule on original intent and strict construction. Let the people decide the nation's social agenda.
One reason why the civil rights revolution was such a tremendously successful revolution, as opposed to the supposed abortion revolution, is that the civil rights revolution was done by legislation. It was done by the people's elected representatives, and then was upheld by the courts. Dr. King and his followers changed the hearts and minds of the people, and it resulted in the 1964 and '65 civil rights acts, which brought about the civil rights revolution.
That is the way our forebearers intended it. It is the people's elected representatives that set the social agenda of the nation, not judicial elites, and not nine unelected justices who decide for the nation what the nation's laws should be.
Tavis: All right, let me move off of that and ask you why, then, you support Harriet Miers?
Land: I support Harriet Miers because I trust President George W. Bush. For four and a half years in the midst of unprecedented opposition, this President has stayed the course; he has nominated original intent, strict constructionist jurists. He has given us stellar, suburb nominees. He has refused to blink. He has refused to back up.
He's refused to flinch in the face of the unprecedented filibusters of Appeals Court nominees, and this President has earned our trust. If he tells us that Harriet Miers is a strict constructionist, original intent jurist, who is going to interpret the law and not seek to legislate and make law from the bench, I believe he has earned the right to our trust until there is demonstrable evidence to the contrary.
Tavis: All right, fair enough, but to the extent that Mr. Rove and others in the White House leading this charge to get Ms. Miers confirmed, felt the need to reach out to religious conservatives to make the case to them that she was okay. Then clearly there must be some concern in the White House that if she does not meet their standards, if she does not pass muster on the issues that are important to them, that she can't count on their support, yes?
Land: Well - I personally think that the White House was completely blindsided by this. I think that the White House had no reason to believe there would be this kind of uproar on the conservative side. And I would point out to you that most of that uproar, not all of it, but most of it is not coming from evangelical social conservatives. It is coming from other kinds of conservatives who are itching to re-fight Bork.
I had one commentator say to me, 'Don't you think the President has deprived us of a positive, healthy beneficial debate about the role of judges in America, by nominating Harriet Miers?' And I said 'No, I don't think so.' In this swear in this which we are today, where there is a poisonous - atmosphere concerning confirmation hearings, I think the President is attempting to spare us such a negative, divisive, corrosive debate that will do no one any good, particularly a nation that is at war.
Tavis: All right, so speaking of a nation, in this new book, 'Imagine a God Blessed America: How it Could Happen and What it Would Look Like.' Tell me, I assume by this title that - you believe that at the moment that we are not a God blessed America, if you want us to imagine a God blessed America. So if I'm right in my assumption that we are not at the moment a God blessed America, tell me what it would look like, and how - these issues of abortion and gay rights - factor in that matrix.
Land: Well, first of all, I believe God has blessed America in many ways. I'm referencing Second Chronicles 7:14 where it says, 'If my people which are called by and in my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and forgive their sin, and heal their land.' And what I am saying is there has never been a 'heal our land' kind of blessing.
I think God has blessed American in manifold ways. But there's never been a 'heal the land' kind of blessing for which I yearn and which I know many other Americans yearn. The way it would impact many things, I had someone ask me, well, 'Dr. Land, what is your poverty plan, what's your anti-poverty plan?' Well, my anti-poverty plan is an America in which the society affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values, rooted in Biblical authority.
If we had a society, I didn't say government, I said a society, that affirmed and practiced Judeo-Christian values rooted in Biblical authority, then divorce would be rare, illegitimacy would be even rarer, and few children would be being reared in single-parent families. And we know that the thing that would eliminate the most poverty in America would be if most of our children were being reared in two-parent families. So my mega anti-poverty plan is marriage, one man, one woman, raising children within the confines of holy matrimony for life.
Tavis: Does government have a role to play in that to ensure that people are not socially, politically, economically and culturally disenfranchised, so that they are allowed to - pursue the dream of living the kind of lifestyle that you just mentioned a moment ago?
Land: Well, if you are talking about gay marriage, you know, I was at Harvard last spring, and I had a student ask me, they said, 'You seem like a nice guy; why would you want to interfere in the personal private relationship of two people, two homosexual males, or two lesbian women?' And I said, 'First of all, where did you get the idea that marriage is a personal private relationship?'
Marriage is a social and civic institution, and every society in human history has regulated, has determined that it has the right to regulate who can get married to whom, and under what circumstances, and under what circumstances they can dissolve that relationship. And the decision about whether or not people of the same sex can get married is a decision that should be made by American society, not by the courts.
And right now, two thirds of the American people adamantly oppose it. And I say to those who advocate it, if you want same sex marriage, do what Dr. King did. Go out and change the hearts and minds of Americans, don't try to shove it down our throats through nine unelected justices.
Tavis: Let me ask you in ten seconds right quick, whether or not you think when all is said and done, Harriet Miers can and will get through?
Land: I believe that unless something very unforeseen emerges in the hearings, she will be confirmed, and five years from now, there will be a less than a one percent difference in her voting record and Chief Justice John Roberts.
Tavis: Wow, what a bold prediction. The new book is 'Imagine a God Blessed America: How it Could Happen and What it Would Look Like' by Dr. Richard Land. Dr. Land, nice to have you on, sir.
Land: Thank you.
Tavis: Up next, former Episcopal Bishop, John Shelby Spong. Stay with us.
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