The final session of the conference featured Ann Coulter, the best-selling author and popular conservative columnist. Her presentation was clearly different than the other speakers we had heard throughout the day, as her tone was more light-hearted and humorous. Her speech was filled with one-liners at the expense of liberals and moderate conservatives and she delighted the crowd when she indicated she would stay for a question and answer session when she finished her message. Unfortunately, because of the format of her speech, it was extremely difficult to take comprehensive notes. As a result, I’m not sure how accurately I’m going to be able to encapsulate her presentation, but I’ll give it my best shot. 

 

Ann Coulter began by stating that it was no longer controversial to call liberals godless, a theme taken from her latest book.   She said that instead of worshiping the one true God, liberals had created their own religion. She followed that up with her first zinger of the day, saying that made two great benefits for belief in the Christian God: eternal salvation and it annoyed liberals. 

 

She got more serious as she started talking about the Supreme Court and the judicial tyranny that was taking place in America, meaning that the majority no longer ruled or made the decisions. That power had shifted to a few “elitist” judges. She explained that the majority for liberals meant five votes on the Supreme Court. How else could you rationalize how the Supreme Court had “discovered” the Constitutional right for partial birth abortion, sodomy, and to not hear prayers at high school football games? Coulter, who graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review, stated that she was pretty sure the U.S. Constitution never mentioned those things.  These are just some of the issues the Supreme Court decided on going against the American public's wishes.

 

Coulter then moved on to the topic of abortion. She remarked how silly it was that the mainstream media and liberals constantly reminded the public how pro-lifers had sometimes turned to acts of violence against the abortion industry. She recounted how for twenty years conservatives and pro-life organizations had worked tirelessly  after Roe v. Wade to legally outlaw the murder of infants again. During this time not one criminal act against abortion clinics was committed. In 1993 the Supreme Court ruled to continue legalized abortion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. A few months later the first act of violence was performed against an abortion worker. Since 1993, seven abortion workers have been murdered. Ann said that type of action is never justified, but did point out that today the tally stands at more than 40 million to seven. For anyone to ever make that comparison is beyond ridiculous. Ms. Coulter also commented how odd it was that those who supported abortion never used the word “abortion” or “baby.” Instead they prefer terms like “fetus,” even though you never hear anyone say they’re going to throw a “fetus shower” for a pregnant friend. She said this would be as weird as the NRA refusing to use the word “gun.” 

 

After Ann Coulter’s message, she offered to answer some questions. I tried to ask a question during this time but was not given the opportunity to do so as I have already recounted. Unfortunately, since I was busy trying to ask a question I really did not get to take notes on the questions that were asked, but I’ll try to recollect as much as I can. The first few people asked her about the possible potential presidential candidates for the upcoming 2008 presidential elections.   She commented that Rudy Giuliani was her least favorite Republican running because of his liberal stance on cultural issues and that Duncan Hunter was her favorite candidate so far, though she was hoping for a better selection by the time the elections came around. (Quick aside: Immediately following her speech, Gary Cass said that the political opinions expressed by Ann Coulter were her own and did not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ.) Another asked her about what she thought of the young earth theory versus intelligent design theory on the origin of the earth since she had addressed evolution in her latest book, Godless.  Ann replied that she had mostly been influenced by the works of William Dembski in this area and described herself as mostly an intelligent design theory proponent. She also said that she definitely did not consider herself an expert in the area though and recommended a few books on the subject for more information.