Frist leads
gathering to win antigay support for GOP

The National Stonewall Democrats on Monday criticized Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee for leading a political event Sunday in Louisville, Ky., where participants routinely ridiculed gay families while calling for legalized discrimination against them. Frist joined, via video, a live simulcast broadcast by the Family Research Council titled "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith." The event was designed to build support for Republican efforts to change Senate rules in order to approve the most radically far-right judicial nominations of the Bush administration. "Senator Frist just led an event that focused more energy defending Tom DeLay from his ethical problems than it spent on issues of faith," said Eric Stern, NSD executive director. "Republicans are ready to change Senate rules to confirm the most radical of President Bush's judicial nominees, and they are willing to exchange personal faith for partisan pandering in an effort to do just that. It is telling that Senator Frist regularly appears at Family Research Council functions but refuses to meet with gay families regarding his extreme Senate agenda." Shortly after Frist addressed the simulcast, Catholic League president Bill Donohue took the stage and preceded to laughingly mock gay families. Specifically, Donohue claimed that support of marriage equality "is a notion that belongs in an asylum." The comment drew wide laughter and applause from the audience at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, where the simulcast originated. During the simulcast, organizers devoted much of their time urging the confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. Although her nomination was rejected by the Senate in 2003, President Bush renominated her earlier this year. Rogers Brown holds a ideological judicial record that has consistently attacked the stability of gay families. In 2003, Rogers Brown was the only justice on the California supreme court to rule against recognizing the right of gay Californians to legally adopt their children. Brown argued that allowing a gay parent to legally adopt the biological child of their partner "trivializes family bonds." "What we detect instead is the work of a political organization using Christian language to exploit Americans' desire to preserve religious values by framing their political strategy in terms of religious liberty," said the Reverend Joe Phelps of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville. During the simulcast Phelps led an opposition rally of churches from across the city. Their efforts were joined by representatives of the Jefferson County Democratic Party and through a letter signed by more than 400 religious leaders across the country.