By Fred Jackson

(AgapePress) - There are many reasons why conservatives are celebrating George W. Bush's choice of Senator John Ashcroft for Attorney General. One of them is his views on activist judges.

As an evangelical Christian, Ashcroft's conservative opinions about abortion and a number of other social issues were bound to generate lots of criticism from the left -- and they have. Over the weekend, The New York Times listed a variety of quotes of what Ashcroft has had to say about the proper role of judges. Liberals will be upset, while conservatives will certainly applaud.

In a speech in March 1997, he said, "People's lives and fortunes have been relinquished to renegade judges, a robed contemptuous elite." In 1998, during comments about the nomination of a federal district judge, Ashcroft said, "Frankly, if it is a question of a few in the judiciary defining what the values of the many are in the culture, I think that is anti-democratic."

Also in 1998, he had harsh words for a judge who gave a 90-day sentence to a man found guilty of raping a five-year-old girl. The judge said she was worried about the psychiatric care the man would get in prison. Of that, Ashcroft said he found "this type of social engineering from the bench troubling" -- and he went on to say the needs of the convicted rapist should not be the basis of a sentencing decision.

© 2000 AgapePress all rights reserved.

E-mail this page to a friend

Printer-Friendly Version

Read all of our current headlines