This looks like a bad combination:
The Rev. Jerry Falwell will open a law school this month in hopes of training a generation of attorneys who will fight for conservative causes.
“We want to infiltrate the culture with men and women of God who are skilled in the legal profession,” Falwell said in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. “We’ll be as far to the right as Harvard is to the left.”
Graduates of the law school — part of Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, which is affiliated with his Baptist ministry — could tackle such issues as abortion rights and gay marriage, Falwell said. Classes begin Aug. 23 for the first-year class of 61 law students.
. . .
Classroom lectures and discussions will fuse the teachings of the Bible with the U.S. Constitution, stressing the connections between faith, law and morality, said law school Dean Bruce Green, who has experience in civil liberties litigation.
. . .
Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the law school is part of a crusade by Falwell to get the government to carry out his religious agenda.
I don’t have a problem with religious universities; I was an undergraduate at one. And it’s not a bad idea for law students to have the option of taking a class which examines “moral” issues. But you don’t need to set up an entire law school to teach someone how to fight abortion. My guess is that Mr. Conn is right when he suggests this is more an effort to train future government leaders who will pursue a religious agenda.
This is implicitly confirmed on the school’s website:
We believe the rule of law is rooted in transcendent principles and objective moral order and, as a result, law places an extrinsic restraint on people�s actions, especially morally deficient people.
We believe that law should not be wielded as an instrument of political, social, or personal change, but that it should serve the common good of mankind.
Interesting phrase there, morally deficient people. Anyway, who is it that wields the law as an instrument of change? Those liberal judicial activists, of course. We must reverse their handiwork and get our country back to the religious mooring the founders intended.