The filibuster rule that Focus on the Family and the Republicans and the Religious Right seem to hate these days was the FRIEND of Focus on the Family when the Republicans were in the minority.

See the DailyKOS link below. MSNBC’s Keith Olberman dug up an old National Public Radio interview with a representative of Focus on the Family prasing the filibuster rule as a way to keep the US Senate a “deliberative body” where the minority maintains a say in things.

Hypocrisy abounds. Honesty falls by the wayside with the religious right just as readily as with anyone else, when an important political goal would be advanced.

The filibuster rule is probably our best single tool to stop the majority (whoever that is) from tyrannizing the minority.

Daily Kos :: Dobson’s Focus on Family Recently Supported Filibuster
As a last measure of the defense of the minority, it has had many supporters over the years, like the very people of faith who sponsored yesterday`s Justice Sunday, the group Family Research Council.

Yesterday it was opposed to filibusters. Seven years ago, it was in favor of them. That`s when Clinton and a then-Democratic plurality in the Senate wanted a man named James Hormel to become the ambassador to Luxembourg. Hormel, of the Spam and other meats Hormels, was gay, as the Senate minority bottled up Hormel`s nomination with filibusters and threats of filibusters, minority relative to cloture, to breaking up a filibuster.

They did that for a year and a half. The Family Research Council`s senior writer, Steven Schwartz, appeared on National Public Radio at the time and explained the value, even the necessity, of the filibuster.

“The Senate,” he said, “is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it`s got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases. That`s why there are things like filibusters, and other things that give minorities in the Senate some power to slow things up, to hold things up, and let things be aired properly.”