As I’ve mentioned several times, it seems that lately the religious right has gotten more and more extreme by the minute. The latest evidence of this? A prominent religious right talk show host argues that a leading creationist facing charges of mail fraud should only face a jury composed of his fellow creationists.
Those of you who have followed the creation vs. evolution debate may remember Kent Hovind, one of the leading lights of the creationist movement. He’s best known as the guy behind Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, which pushed the creationist shibboleth that dinosaurs walked the earth alongside man. What you may not have known is that he’s a hardcore tax protester. Since the late 1980s, he has argued that as a minister, every penny he has belongs to God, and he is therefore not subject to income tax–an argument that most hardcore religious right supporters would find hard to swallow. In 2007, a federal court disagreed, sentencing him to 10 years in prison for evading over $473,000 in employee-related taxes. He was due to be released as early as this coming August, but in October the 61-year-old was slapped with new charges of mail fraud for filing dozens of fraudulent liens on properties Hovind had been ordered to forfeit after his tax evasion trial. If convicted, he could face up to 20 more years in prison.
However, if it were up to talk show host Dave Daubenmire, Hovind would have a whopper of a case for an appeal if he’s convicted–he wasn’t tried by a jury of his peers. You may remember that last year, I told you about Daubenmire, a former high school football coach-turned-evangelist who hosts a daily radio show as part of his Pass the Salt Ministries. Daubenmire is of the mind that Christians have no business voting for Democrats because their support for abortion and gay rights runs counter to “nature’s law and nature’s God.” So it should come as no surprise that Daubenmire argued earlier this week that prosecutors should have ensured that no one who believes in evolution was allowed on the jury. Watch here.
Daubenmire was in Pensacola last week to lend his support to Hovind, and couldn’t help but wonder if he was really being tried by a jury of his peers. Daubenmire thought that during jury selection, attorneys–presumably Hovind’s attorneys–should have asked, “Do you believe in evolution, or do you believe you were created in the image of God?” Daubenmire argued that any trial of Hovind, let alone any verdict in the trial, wouldn’t be legitimate unless the jury was made up only of people who believed like Hovind does. That way, Daubenmire said, the jury would be able to judge Hovind solely on the merits of the case, without any chance of bias against creationists leaking into deliberations. This seems to go along with arguments Daubenmire has made in recent months that Hovind is only on trial because of his faith.
I hope I’m wrong here, but by Daubenmire’s logic, would it be acceptable for prosecutors to have all-white juries for the trial of a white man, or all-black juries for the trial of a black man? Never mind that excluding jurors who believed in evolution would be blatantly unconstitutional. It would definitely be a First Amendment violation, and you can make a pretty good argument that it would amount to an impermissible religious test under Article Six of the Constitution. Oh, that’s right–in the minds of Daubenmire and other Christianists, the First Amendment, and the Constitution as a whole, were only intended to protect Christians.
Daubenmire argues that Hovind may be facing a situation analogus to a juror in a drug trial being “totally, 100 percent against any type of drugs.” That’s rather ironic, since if Hovind’s lawyers were to appeal his conviction based on the jury having evolutionists on it, they would likely be forced to undergo urinalysis in addition to being sanctioned. After all, any ninth-grader would know that “a jury of peers” is simply a jury of fellow citizens.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m highlighting this. Well, as I’ve said several times, it’s important to note what Daubenmire and other religious right leaders say when they think they’re in unguarded moments. When these people think they’re preaching to the choir, it’s amazing just how extreme they sound. The closest parallel I can think of is how alcohol can loosen your inhibitions. It only proves that the religious right’s claim to just be fighting for the interests of “Bible-believing Christians” is a transparent lie. In this case, Daubenmire is now on record as saying that Christians should only be tried by other Christians–more evidence that he and his cronies would like nothing better than to shred the First Amendment.
