The Constitution prohibits the use of “a religious test” for those seeking government office. While recent questions asked of a judicial nominee by Democratic senators may not violate the letter of this clause, writes David Harsanyi, they certainly contradict its spirit:
“Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Senator Dick Durbin asked yesterday of the Notre Dame Law School professor Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee to a federal appeals court. . . .
At least Durbin’s query about “orthodox” Catholicism was based on some concocted apprehension about Barrett’s ability to overcome faith to fulfill her obligations as a judge. The professor, who apparently takes both the law and her faith seriously enough to have pondered this question in writing, told Durbin that it’s “never appropriate for a judge to apply [his] personal convictions, whether [these] derive from [religious] faith or from personal conviction.” . . .
Barrett’s Catholicism, though, would come up a number of times during the hearing, and in far more troubling ways. “When [one] reads your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Senator Dianne Feinstein claimed.
It is irksome, no doubt, that Barrett’s faith informs her views. Our backgrounds and beliefs always color our opinions. This is not yet illegal. But these lines of questioning, increasingly prevalent in political discourse, are an attempt to create the impression that faithful Christians whose beliefs are at odds with newly sanctified cultural mores are incapable of doing their jobs. They are guilty of another kind of apostasy.
Read more on Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/2017/09/07/democrats-increasingly-comfortable-religious-tests/