BY KAREN WEBB

An Open Letter to Oklahoma Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe:

I received another letter from the Family Research Council asking me to tell you that you should only approve of and vote for Supreme Court judges who espouse and use their own personal beliefs as long as those beliefs are the same as those of the Family Research Council. I can tell you it doesn’t make me feel comfortable that Sonia Sotomayor is another Catholic and I hope she isn’t as prone to using the Vatican as much as the rest of the Catholics on the court. With Six You Get Eggroll because I am pretty sure that with six you won’t get civil rights.

I would have voted for John Kennedy and I voted for John Kerry and I don’t actually care what religion the president or my congressional representatives are as long as they put the rights of all believers and nonbelievers on the same level. I would feel differently if whoever I vote for got the position for life.

I am really picky about Christians of any kind who put the rights and interests of corporations above the rights of the people and especially their employees. The bunch of Catholics we already have tend to side with polluters above those being polluted. Most of the time they side with corporations even if their negligence causes the deaths of individuals.

Let’s just say I am livid at the idea that those harmed, whether employees or are customers, are not given the right to band together and must stand alone against very well-paid corporate attorneys. I must hire someone who is willing to do the job for me pro-bono because if he asks for money he is called names, while corporate attorneys have their own golden parachutes.

I have a real problem that the Vatican Five vote in unison most of the time and the only time they ignore their own interpretation of the Bible is when they always side with the wealthy and they always side against the rest of us. I think it a little sick that the only time they go against the Bible teachings of their youth is with regards to the rights of the poor to have health care and most other things.

I was a religious education major at a Southern Baptist university and I don’t recall ever reading anything in the Bible that said forcing your religious views on anyone through intimidation or legislation is alright.

The Baptist way, or used to be the way, was that you tell the people what you believe the Bible says and wait for God to convict them of their sins and then they confess and repent of their sins. It was never the idea to pick and choose various sins, especially those that affect only the sinner, and insert them into the Constitution.

I find it exceptionally objectionable that it seems alright to tax some sinners to the hilt without giving them the exact same rights as the rest of us. I personally believe that what Wall Street did to all of us last fall with the permission of the GOP is a sin, but not only did Congress, the executive and the Supreme Court think it was alright, but they made sure there were no regulations to get in the way of unprecedented wealth and usury.

They only thing I want to know about this woman is whether she believes in personal freedom as long as it doesn’t harm others. I want to know that her religious beliefs and those of the rest of the Vatican Council of the Supreme Court stay out of my life and the lives of others. I don’t ever want the welfare of my family left to the whims of guys who believe the little guy, alone, must face attorneys or arbitrators who are paid more than I make in a month to intimidate me for an hour with legalese mumbo jumbo.

I love it when you guys, especially Inhofe, talk like nothing that has ever happened to any of the Vatican Five affects any of their decisions. I love it that empathy, sympathy and compassion are dirty words unless you have empathy for corporate interests and their attorneys.

I am pretty sure I won’t agree with everything Sotomayor has done or will do, but I think you need to go back and read everything any of the other Catholic justices have said, especially Justice Samuel Alito and then ask yourself, why was I not concerned when he said his past would always play a part in his decisions, but you are concerned about Sotomayor.

Is it because she is Hispanic and not Italian or because she is female and he is male or is it because his personal views are your personal views and some of hers aren’t? Judgment without empathy can lead to water-boarding and torture.

It is all about the Constitution and if it were intended that the Catholic or any other interpretation of the Bible be a part of it we would have never had slavery, child labor, sweatshops, witch hunts and a whole string of other things. Try not to think about the interpretation they must have been using to come up with those justifications.

You should never spend a lot of time thinking about all of the things that people and governments have done in God’s name and used the Bible as their guide. It will make you question your beliefs that the guys writing the original Constitution and the Bible were sadists.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer