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Anti-Religious Left is on a Roll
It’s not news to describe the Left as anti-religion. But they seem to be unabashedly attacking Christians and Jews more often with little criticism from their own members. Still, some people from the Right are not afraid to speak up. Although Ben Sasse is often criticized for his comments on Donald Trump, his call for the support of religious freedom was admirable.
Senator Ben Sasse called out his fellow Senators on blatantly using a religious test to interview Brian Buescher, nominee for U.S. District Judge for the District of Nebraska. Mr. Buescher was a member of the Knights of Columbus, and he was disparaged for his membership by Senators Kamala Harris and Maizie Hirono. Senator Sasse wasn’t going to stand for it, and called for a Senate resolution:
. . . to unanimously reaffirm our oath of office to a Constitution that rejects religious bigotry. It is useful to regularly remind ourselves that Americans are a First Amendment people. Each of the five freedoms in the First Amendment: speech, press, religion, assembly, protest, they define who we are.
He also said:
This isn’t a Republican belief; this isn’t a Democratic belief; this is an American belief. This is a super-basic point: no religious tests. If someone has a problem with this resolution, what other parts of the Constitution are you against? Freedom of the press? Women’s right to vote? Freedom of speech? This isn’t hard. No religious tests for serving on the federal bench. We should in this body rebuke these anti-Catholic attacks.
Maize Hirono felt called to respond:
If my colleague, the junior Senator from Nebraska, wants to embrace the alt-right’s position by offering this resolution, that is his business.
The March for Life was just one more excuse for attacking Christians.
Congress has also witnessed attacks on Jews from its own members, particularly from Ilhan Omar, who was challenged recently for her comments on the conspiracy of the Jews to hypnotize society.
Religious people are being condemned from all sides. When our own Congressional leaders fearlessly insist on religious tests and double down on their actions, we should be worried.
How do you see this situation?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Susan, I understand the distinction but that’s not the direction I choose to go. I am not a believer in the John Roberts position that there is no such thing as an Obama judge or a Trump judge or a Bush judge. I feel quite confident in saying that the political positions held by judges do influence their rulings, and are relevant to whether they deserve support.
I will never get to vote on whether to confirm a judicial nominee, but I have done something similar. Kinda. Sorta. As you probably know, I practiced law in California for 30+ years, representing employers. (Technically I still do, although not very much.) Anyway, there is a rule in California that in litigation matters each side gets one “free” disqualification of the judge assigned to the case. So when I got a new case, the first thing I would do is look up the resume of the judge, in order to decide whether to exercise my right to disqualify that judge. (You don’t know who you are going to get as a replacement, so you would only disqualify if the judge you had was pretty far to the bad end of the bell curve.) And I can assure you that I paid a lot of attention to that judge’s past associations. If the judge spent 10 years working on the legal staff of the ACLU or the SEIU, then I would be neglecting my duty to my client if I didn’t advise that this judge may well have a predisposition to rule against employers. In fact, I think it would be malpractice to ignore that information. In any event, I always looked and I always paid attention.
But the 3rd and final Jewish commonwealth has been established. The faith of the people grows from day to day. The building of the 3rd and final Holy Temple is not far off.
As the Lubavitcher Rebbe said, “All the negative prophecies in the Torah have come to pass; we are only waiting now for the positive prophecies to be fulfilled.”
I believe Scalia went further and stated that if presented with the argument an unborn child was guaranteed protection as a person under the 14th Amendment, he would reject it as a matter of law despite it being consistent with his religious belief.
Neil, I think we are clearly in alignment here. Even if we disagree with Larry. ;-)
You make this point well, Larry. Yet I don’t think they are comparable. Deciding on a judge for a particular case as someone’s attorney is not analogous to a senator choosing a Justice for the Supreme Court. I also want to thank you and everyone for the classy ways we’ve been conducting this discussion. It’s terrific.
Yeah, they all say that. On both sides of the aisle. And of course I accept the possibility. I just happened to have noticed that on some issues it rarely works out that way.
Abortion is a particularly bad example to use in thinking about this whole issue. Rule based on the law? How the hell do you do that when there is no law. Roe v. Wade was made up out of whole cloth. More like rule based on penumbras and emanations. And yet nominees of both parties endlessly promise to “follow the law.” And members of the Judiciary Committee, of both parties, endlessly try to get the nominee to admit that they have a personal belief on the subject, one way or the other.
Neil, let me ask you about a particular example. Consider two hypothetical Supreme Court nominees. Both of them promise to “follow the law” and put it ahead of their personal beliefs. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And both of them say that they are pro choice in their personal beliefs, but don’t worry about that, because “I’ll follow the law. Really. I promise.” Now forgive me if I misjudge you, Neil, but I don’t think you would want either of those nominees confirmed. Put that aside. Let’s say that one nominee testified that he was pro choice because his church supported the pro choice position (there are some of those, you know) and choice is in keeping with his religious faith, while the other nominee testified that he was pro choice because his daughter had been raped, became pregnant, and chose to terminate the pregnancy – a decision which he supported. Would you treat the personal beliefs of those two candidates differently just because one of them had religious origins and the other did not?
Absent some reason to believe otherwise, I would take them at their word regardless of the source of belief.
I appreciate this view, there is much to be said in support of it. I used Scalia earlier as an example of religious conviction being held separate from duty to the Constitution and law, but he is almost standing alone. I don’t think I could support any person who follows Islam for the Court because of Sharia and because those followers are encouraged to testify falsely if that furthers the goals of Islam.
Now that’s a tough one. I think you’ve got me. Unless the person (like M. Zuhdi Jasser) had a longstanding reputation for supporting the Constitution and U.S. law, I’d have a potential problem. Darn.
Well, I do try my best to go only where facts take me.
Uhhhh . . . isn’t the act of worship exercising one’s religion?
A small part of it.
Then that is where you and I differ. Like you, I would not pay attention to the source of their belief. Pro choice is pro choice, and I don’t care where that position came from. But I would not take the nominee at his word. I don’t take anyone at their word when it comes to things like this. There’s a reason why so many decisions of the Supreme Court split along left-right lines, even though every single Justice promised (during confirmation hearings) to follow the law.
In every single litigation matter there are two sides and each of them is urging an interpretation of the law – the very same law – that leads to different results. All this “follow the law” stuff assumes that there is one clear answer which is unambiguously set forth in “the law.” Anyone who has gone to law school knows that this is never true. If it was true, that case would never have gone to court in the first place, much less going all the way up to the Supreme Court. In rare cases (most notably, Justice Thomas) I have seen judges rule in a way they feel compelled to rule by the law, even though they disagree with the outcome. But that really is rare.
In any event, I think you have conceded my main point. Political positions based on religion are entitled to no more deference than positions based on anything else. Maybe a Senator should not take the stance that he will not support a pro choice candidate, but a lot of them do and I daresay that you would vote for some of those Senators. But if they do take that stance, then they have no business relating it to religion. They absolutely should not say, “I will not support a pro choice candidate, unless that candidate is pro choice for religious reasons.”
True. I do think that there is a quality component in this, Not being a lawyer, I’ll just say it depends on how loosely and how much one can read into a legal provision beyond the plain language of the words. Isn’t this kinda what separates strict constitutionalists and originalists from those who refer to the Constitution as a living document and thus avoid the amendment process?
OK, but does it say in the Bible that every negative thing mentioned is it and there aren’t additional not mentioned?
Not sure where or how I made that concession. Senators are bound by the Constitution and it explicitly prohibits religious tests. There is no rationalizing around that.
This could work if one’s religion were kept a secret. Then the legislator could just probe for what specific actions and legal positions are supported or not.
Legal behavior and moral behavior are two different things. For the state to attempt to compel Catholic hospitals to provide abortion services, or euthanizing patients is immoral. Catholic hospitals are a ministry. The Little Sisters of the Poor provide assisted living facilities for the indigent elderly. To force them to provide birth control, abortion inducing medication, or at some point abortions is immoral. To force Catholic adoption services to place children in gay households is immoral. The right of private organizations, and citizens to exercise their religious beliefs is not confined to one day and one hour a week church services.
Oh? Could you please quote the relevant section(s) of the Constitution on this?
Article VI:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
In the days when that was written, it was usually about allegiance to this or that religious body in preference to other allegiances, although I think it also meant affirming some religious creeds to the exclusion of others, too. I’m still trying to think how you got your generalization out of that.
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean what you say it means. Hey, I’m just “following the law.” That section doesn’t say anything about bright lines, religious beliefs, or political beliefs. You are reading all that into a provision that says no such thing.
It clearly and explicitly prohibits one type of test. If that is not clear and bright enough for you…
I tend to think they missed the big one, which I think speaks more to why
Most people who practice Islam are non-white.
Prophecy came to an end at the beginning of the Second Temple period (around 2600 years ago). Malachi was the last prophet. One of the reasons advanced for the end of prophecy was the disappearance of idol worship. The cry to banish idol worship had been a major part of the prophetic message since, apart from worshiping false gods, it was thought that many of the nation’s sins were associated with it.
Neil, You have made two arguments here, and I don’t really think they lead to a coherent position. First, you have argued that personal beliefs are irrelevant to judicial nominees, so long as the nominee promises to set those beliefs aside and “follow the law.” If that is true, if personal beliefs are irrelevant, then the issue of religion never even comes up. Religious beliefs, non-religious beliefs, all of that is irrelevant. All that matters is the promise to “follow the law.” As I said, we disagree on that. It is rare, and often even impossible, for a judge to “follow the law” without regard to the personal belief system and world view of that judge. To believe otherwise flies in the face of experience. A vast amount of experience.
But, if we set that aside and concede that personal beliefs about political issues can be relevant to the job of judging, then you are drawing a distinction between two types of beliefs. I don’t know why you are doing that, since you have already said that all beliefs are irrelevant. Nevertheless, you insist that beliefs based on religion are entitled to total deference, while beliefs based on non-religious grounds can be considered. Nothing in the Constitution says that. Nothing in the Constitution even implies that. You would be better off sticking with your faith in the promise to “follow the law.”
And what of candidates for elected office, who do not “follow the law” but rather make the law? They are also exempt from any religious test. Does that mean that I must vote for a candidate who believes that Sharia law supersedes civil law, lest I be imposing a religious test for office. Sorry, but bad news – I won’t. I refuse. Sue me.
My point is the issue should not come up, ever. The senators were not only wrong to raise it, they were violating an explicit constitutional prohibition in doing so.
The Constitution limits government action, not the basis on which you may decide to vote.
So we can see the Constitution prohibits a law or government policy using any religious test for government office. Maybe unclear exactly what type of questions a legislator may ask, but for me it certainly adheres more closely to the oath of office when the questions or commentary are not connected to religious belief. It leaves me in a dilemma regarding Islam because of Shiria.
I thought the second temple was the one the Romans destroyed in 70 AD. So it predicted that destruction and the 1900 years or so of exile?
The Constitution does not protect a right to meaningless “religious beliefs” you suggest. It protects full, vigorous exercise and full participation in the public square. It prohibits CONGRESS from passing laws, and SENATORS from applying religious tests to confirm or reject candidates for office because current office holders don’t like a candidate or nominee’s exercise of religious beliefs in the public square. The OP has nothing to do with voters, everything to do with the actions of individuals exercising authority under Article I, II or III of the U.S. Constitution.