I received a phone call this morning from a woman who identified herself as Janice Kahn. She said she was calling on behalf of Supreme Court Justice, Jay Sekulow, who is serving evangelism, and she wanted a few minutes of my time to play for me a message from Justice Sekulow.
I stopped her before she plugged me into the recording and asked her to repeat her name and his. I knew what she had said but wanted to see if she would stick to it when I slowed her down and asked for verification. She stuck.
I asked again. "And you say Jay Sekulow is a Supreme Court Justice?" She verified that I heard her correctly.
So, I asked why a supreme court justice would call my house to represent evangelism and she said he is exercising his constitutional rights. I told her I believed he was violating mine by inserting his religion into my government and that I didn't appreciate his invading my home to let me know.
Then, she got to the real point of the message. Don't I care that babies are being murdered every day? I said yes, I care that we are killing babies in Afghanistan and Iraq and want it to stop. Of course, she told me those weren't the babies she was talking about and made it clear she was not interested in talking about them. She said she wanted to talk about the babies that are killed every day in this country. I told her babies are not being killed every day in this country. She argued, apparently hoping I would consider her religious beliefs over my medical knowledge and my sanity. I would surely remember reports of babies being killed every day in my country.
Jay Sekulow is not a supreme court justice. He is a talk show host, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (a conservative religious organization founded by Pat Robertson to oppose the ACLU), and a dishonest man for impersonating a supreme court justice, or for hiring Janice to do it for him.
He is also the recipient of the following Criticism (copied from Wikipedia):
In November 2005 Legal Times published an article in which it was alleged that Sekulow "through the ACLJ and a string of interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle -- complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet that he once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia." The article quotes a number of former donors and supporters (none of whom were identified by name) who claim that Sekulow has engaged in a pattern of self-dealing to finance his "high-flying lifestyle." The article reviewed hundreds of pages of financial, real estate and tax filings, outlining the corporate structure of the ACLJ and other closely held for-profit companies founded by Sekulow including CASE, PGMS, Regency and the similarly-named Center for Law and Justice, a for-profit law firm owned by Sekulow and two other ACLJ executives.[17]
According to a ranking by the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group, Sekulow is the 13th-highest-paid executive of a charitable organization in the United States if the given figure for his salary is accurate.
I have a couple of questions.
1. Is it legal for this man to misrepresent himself as a Supreme Court Justice? I’m not sure so I sent a note to my Attorney General to see what he thinks.
2. Do evangelists condone all lies, or just the ones they tell?
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Comments: 151 ( 1 removed by Sandy Knauer )
Sekulow's name would be on the list.
If you ever heard Sekulow speak, the stream of defaming, duplicitous, conversation in which he makes illogical jumps form one false assumption to annother, would guaranteee that you would never seek to repeat the experience.
Do you think Janice Kahn was using her real name?
I understand why I get political calls. I write letters, make calls, join groups - put myself out there. I don't mind honest calls, from legitimate political groups. But I do object, strongly, to dishonest calls from religious groups.
I take it you did alert your Attorney General of the phone call. If something is amiss it should be taken care of immediately.
You should have asked for a return call number and the address of the headquarters. I would have pretended to be in agreement with Janice just to get as much info as possible from her, then report her sorry ass.
Sadly, this seems to be entirely true.
What you did in calling this woman for her statement and asking for its legitimacy is exactly what should be done.
What she did is wrong. Your speaking up against the wrong is RIGHT.
What is scary here is that it's worth telling lies like that because the majority will not question them.
I was nervous about posting this and sending my note to the Attorney General, Aniko. I thought for sure I would be wrong. I can't list the members of the Supreme Court without struggling (have trouble remembering Stevens), but was pretty sure I would recognize their names if I heard or read them. And I didn't recognize Sekulow. I looked them up when I got off the phone - federal and state - to be sure. Still, I couldn't imagine someone trying to pull that off and was sure I was going to feel foolish when someone pointed out that I was wrong.
I GET these calls from time to time. It's absurd...I usually act all distracted...Sample:
"Excuse me...[turns away from phone...] YOU"RE NOT so F-ING HOT now, are you?? I'm sorry...what were you saying...?"
"Do you approve of baby killing?"
"[ background ] NAG ME NOW...BIOTCH! LOOK how well it served you. LOOK! NICE, HUH? I'm sorry...You're selling some kind of cleaner? Does it get blood off of walls?"
"Ummm...no...I was calling on behalf of..."
"YOU'RE NOT SO FRICKEN' BIG AND MIGHTY NOW. ARE YOU?? HUH? ARE YOU?"
"Err..."
"Can you call me back? I'm a little busy right now..."
"Sure!"
I dunno. Was it legal for Senator John Slowly to misrepresent himself as a Senator?
The woman started out with a question.
"Do I support family values?"
I asked her for something more definitive.
The jist of it was she wanted me to write to my senator, Chuckles Grassley, in support of him opposing any legislation that President Obama wants.
I told her never to call me again and hung up.
After that I understood to a point how the brainwashed get that way.
The liars can only run amok when no one knows the truth.
What Sarah A. says is the really sad part of this. The people whom the caller was trying to reach are the ignorant and devout (or is that redundant?) and they will TRULY BELIEVE that Jay Sekulow IS a SCJ, and will eagerly do whatever the caller asks...write letters, donate money, etc.
Even if this were not a call to evangelize, and I would be among the Christian targeted callers, I have NEVER received a call or an e-mail from this or any other Christian organization, either as a solicitation or otherwise. I guess they miss the shot all the time with me.
Oh, okay, glad we got that cleared up because this line, "the ignorant and devout (or is that redundant)" had this ignoramous quite confused, but maybe it's just my paranoia acting up again.
In fact, your post is a perfect example of that.
Of course, I only really think you even bothered to try to explain what you want to call the difference because you really were using them synonymously, as often people do, but you felt it necessary to suddenly make the distinction, as if it mattered to me what you think of Christians anyway.
You see, I do think that any Christian who would not know that Jay Sekulow is not a Supreme Court Justice would be stupid. The reason is that Christians are very familiar with the ACLJ and Jay Sekulow. He is a very central figure in sermons, bulletins, Christian literature, and Christian newspapers and periodicals. They are not at all ignorant of his existence or of his titles. If anyone with all that knowledge of him assumed him to also be a Suptreme Court Justice, that would be stupid.
So they must assume that their followers are stupid. Maybe you should take this up with them.
Some Christians are perfectly willing to lie if they can justify it on evangelical grounds. Dover, PA comes to mind...
It is offensive when the most vocal and the most ignorant of fundamentalists claim to speak for "Christians".
This is the number she called from if anyone wants to try and get through.
Now, knowing you, and the way you twist everything, the script may very well have included the words, justice, Supreme Court, and Jay Sekulow in one sentence, and you decided to take advantage of that. Unless I had a trasnscript of the call to see how you might have manipulated her words when you pulled her off script, the whole idea is more than suspect.
An example of your twisting (besides just about everywhere else you look) is how you responded to Scott's comment right in this thread. His point was not lost. They are making thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of calls, and if the script itself actually said that Jay Sekulow is a Supreme Court Justice, that would be standard script for all campaigns. ( I had started here to continue with, "do you honestly think," but then I realized you don't, and had to start again) Do you think that you are the only person who knows that Jay Sekulow is not a Supreme Court Justice? As Scott pointed out, that would have been a subject of other blogs too.
Now I'm going to tell you what I think happened, and although this is speculative, it's a whole lot more probable than that the ACLJ incuded in any script that Jay Sekulow is a Supreme Court Justice.
There is a case currently pending against Planned Parenthood. ACLJ's targeted calls for this campaign might have been those who are affiliated with, have contributed to, or are otherwise supporters of Planned Parenthood. These kinds of lists are commonly and easily bought from any number of list companies for any telephone, mail, or e-mail campaigns. I'm sure Sandy's name and number is on one or all of such lists asociated with PP.
Here's how possibly the call really went:
Caller: "Hi, I'm calling on behalf of the ACLJ and Jay Sekulow. Supreme Court justice will be served if the case of ... gets that far..."(tries to go on to explain the linked article, maybe by plugging in a recording, as Sandy contends, but Sandy interrupts, livid that anyone has the nerve to call her and talk about litigation against Planned Parenthood.)
Sandy: Excuse me... excuse me, but did I hear you just say that Jay Sekulow is a Supreme Court Justice?"
Caller: "I said..."
Sandy: "Don't tell me what you just said. I heard what you said, and I plan to let everyone know."
Click.
Thank you for the number, Sandy. Whether or not I can get through on that number, I think I will look up a number to get through to them, and I think I'll reference your article too. May not be until next week but I'll get around to it.
As for whether you believe Sandy's story or not...you are possibly doing the reverse of what I talked about earlier...you are REFUSING to believe something because it doesn't fit your views...and calling Sandy a liar in the process. You need a lot more evidence to justify that, and it appears you have none...only idle speculation.
Also known as the active pursuit of ignorance.
Others have gained no such deference of trust. In fact, the opposite.
As they say, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Integrity matters.
I am a fiction writer and would have come up with something much better than this if I wanted make up a story. I've tried a couple of times to figure what kind of motive Sue could possibly imagine for me to write this. It isn't like anyone cares about Jay Sekulow so I thought it would draw attention.
I also wonder why she didn't make those calls instead of spending her time here.
However, I don't think that one loony phone call represents all of the folks who believe in Christianity, just like one violent act represents the occupy movement, or one anti-Semite represents the democrats or the republicans, etc.
I said in one article recently, and I believe it with my whole heart, "For Americans, faith should not matter, as it is up to the individual. People should not be judged on their religious beliefs, their wealth, race, gender, nationality, age or skin color, but on one thing only: His or her character."
2. Do evangelists condone all lies, or just the ones they tell?
Which do you do, Sandy?
I made that statement because it is my opinion that you cannot begin to "Disprove" anything unless you acknowledge it as having been there, either at the present time, or in the past. If there were never an object there to "Disprove.".. then all "Disproving" efforts would be a waste of time and energy because there is nothing to "Disprove." We have to begin with something to disprove. That was my point.
Sue: "I"m calling to let you know that Sandy Knauer posted an article on Gather about your misleading phone calls."
Seculow's dumbass employee: "God bless you for thinking how embarrassing that might be. I hope you rushed in like a good little flunky to cloud the issue."
Sue: "Rest assured I talked them in circles. At least my head was spinning by the time I finished, I hope theirs were, too."
Seculow dumbass: "Good job, Sue. It's nice to know we can depend on people who will put our cause ahead of honesty."
Sue: "I brought in a few voices from my head to make it look like you have support."
Seculow dumbass: "Pat yourself on the back and keep up the nasty work."
It's time to re-assess the whole religious organizational structure in this country and start calling most of them exactly what they are - businesses that are practicing illegal and unethical business tactics. And sue the bastards for all their worth as well as sieze their property and shut them the hell down.
And it's way past time to hold businesses masked as religious institutions responsible for their actions and taxes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It's mind-boggling how some people can say that dishonesty is okay if it serves their ideological purpose.
Lea and I are friends by connection. Our comments appear on one another's feeds. It makes perfect sense for her to come in and respond fourteen minutes after I post a comment.
I am not your friend, Sue, by connection or otherwise. I would be surprised to learn that anyone I am connected to is also connected to you. Even so, the likelihood of that person commenting on my posts and you seeing those comments is rather slim. Yet, you managed to show up on my threads with your childish inanity. And when no one agrees with you, some "unknown" identity comes in to back you up. Often, those unknown identities have not commented anywhere in months, or just joined Gather the day before, and/or are people whose only comments follow yours and agree with you when no one else does.
You figure it out. Or don't. You'll perfectly welcome to keep looking foolish if that's what floats your boat.
I'll check back in a few more months.
Rumor is Justice Stephens might retire this year. He only hired one clerk. If this is true, we need to replace him with someone far more liberal than Sotomayor to keep the court balanced.
And as I said before, think now of how many Hispanic kids, especially girls, can finally look up to someone and tell their parents "I want to be like her." Role model, that's the term I was looking for.
I've told more people this story since you posted it, and we've had so much fun with it. Whenever someone says something about the entire BS there is on the Web, I use it to segue into this story. The problem I've run into most often is people believing me that someone actually wrote this. I explain before telling it that you are so quick to point out when people have no evidence to prove what they say, and you're so quick to say they've posted lies.
After I tell the story and they're finished laughing, I get the same kind of remarks that I had made in comments here at the time you wrote this. They've said things like, "Oh, but this type of call is so scripted and they're so adamant that their reps stick word for word to the script. How could anyone believe they would say that he's a Supreme Court Justice in the script?"
Others will ask, "Does she have proof?"
I answer, "No, we just have to take her on her word." We laugh some more.
I didn't know you honestly did anything. Is that more truthful news to publish too? ahahahahahah-hahahaaaaaa...
This is good, no better than good~it's incomparable!