Evangelist Calls for New Court

Associated Press in NY Times/July 16, 2003

VIRGINIA BEACH, July 15 — The religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has urged his nationwide audience to pray for the retirement of three Supreme Court justices so they can be replaced by conservatives.

"We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court," Mr. Robertson said on Monday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Mr. Robertson has begun a 21-day "prayer offensive" directed at the Supreme Court in the wake of its 6-to-3 ruling that decriminalized sodomy last month. Mr. Robertson said in a letter on the CBN Web site that the ruling "has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest."

The same letter singles out three members of the court: "One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?"

Mr. Robertson was apparently referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, who was born in 1920, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon cancer surgery in 1999. The identity of the justice described as having a heart condition was unclear.