Continuing Appropriations Act, 20201 and Other Extensions Act--

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we are once again in a conversation about freedom of religion and the free exercise of religion and what that means. Very simply, I would argue that it means the ability to have any faith, to have no faith at all, to change your faith, and to be able to live it out.

The ability to have a faith is a part of who we are. It is our most precious possession within us. If it is not that, if it is something less than that, if the free exercise of religion has limitations on it, then it is simply the freedom to worship or to have a named faith around you but not to actually live your faith.

That is not what we have in this country, thankfully. We have a constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion. We have more than the freedom of worship at the place of our choosing; we have the ability to live our faith freely, 7 days a week, in all aspects of our lives.

The question has become, though, are there certain positions in public life where you cannot have the free exercise of religion; where, literally, if you are elected or appointed into certain offices, you lose your constitutional right.

The U.S. Constitution makes that very, very clear. Article VI of the Constitution says that ``no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification for any Office or public Trust under the United States.'' It should be pretty straightforward and clear.

In our last confirmation hearing, then-Professor Amy Coney Barrett said, when asked a question about her faith:

Senator, I see no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a judge. In fact, we have many judges, both State and Federal, across the country who have sincerely held religious views and still impartially and honestly discharge their obligations as a judge. And were I confirmed as a judge, I would decide cases according to rule of law, beginning to end, and in the rare circumstances that might ever arise--I can't imagine one sitting here now--where I felt I had some conscientious objection to the law, I would recuse.

Three years ago, like today, Judge Barrett's faith--not her judicial philosophy or her temperament--seemed to be front and center. Three years ago, my colleague from California, Senator Dianne Feinstein, said this during Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing:

Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that, you know, dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, Professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.

Senator Durbin from Illinois just asked her a very straightforward question: ``Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?''

A question like that about the defining of faith and how much of a Catholic are you or how much dogma lives in you is really a question of, how much faith do you really practice, do you have a name on you, or do you practice a little too much faith for my comfort level?

See, the free exercise of religion pertains to an individual's sincerely held religious beliefs. It is not about the acceptance of that belief by others. If it were, the free exercise of religion would be dictated by what others believe rather than what you believe. But in America--at least the America that I know--individuals are allowed to have a faith, live their faith, have no faith, or change their faith.

For whatever reason, Judge Amy Coney Barrett is being criticized because she is Catholic.

There is an AP article that came out just this week that did an in- depth view--it was sent all over the country--about, she is not just Catholic; she is one of those Catholics. It went into great detail about how she attends Bible studies and is on a board of a school and helps educate children and seems to believe that there is a personal relationship with Jesus, as they quoted in the article, as if that were some sort of criminal thing and needs to have some suspicion.

It is about her faith that she is being challenged, this undercurrent. However, Justice Ginsburg was not shy about the fact that she was Jewish--nor should she have been. We have heard a lot about the fact that she was the longest serving Jewish Justice and the first Jewish person to lie in state in the Capitol. Why is it OK for Justice Ginsburg to talk about her faith and not Judge Barrett? Why is Justice Ginsburg's faith celebrated and Judge Barrett's faith currently being demonized? It is because those on the left believe their faith is OK, but for people on the right, it is suspicious.

Even last night, Vice President Biden introduced himself as an Irish Catholic. That is celebrated on the left. But for Judge Barrett to identify herself as a Catholic, she is asked questioningly: Yeah, but are you one of those orthodox Catholics?

One of the most remembered things about Justice Ginsburg--of many-- was her storied friendship with Justice Scalia. On paper, they would be the unlikeliest of friends. She was a Jewish liberal. He was a Catholic conservative. Their differences didn't divide them or offend each other.

Of their friendship, Judge Barrett said:

Particularly poignant to me was her long--

The ``her'' being Justice Ginsburg-- and deep friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia, my own mentor. Justices Scalia and Ginsburg disagreed fiercely in print without rancor in person. Their ability to maintain a warm and rich friendship despite their differences even inspired an opera. These two great Americans demonstrated that arguments, even about matters of great consequence, need not destroy affection.

There is no question that Justice Ginsburg did a lot for the advancement of women in this country. Doesn't Judge Barrett also exemplify that? She is a circuit court judge. She graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, first in her class. She has been a professor for 15 years at Notre Dame, has clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, is the mother of seven children, and was three times voted as the top law professor at Notre Dame.

Thirty-four Supreme Court clerks who worked alongside Barrett--of all parties--wrote this:

We are Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and we have diverse points of view on politics, judicial philosophy, and much else. Yet we all write to support the nomination of Professor Barrett to be a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Professor Barrett is a woman of remarkable intellect and character. She is eminently qualified for the job.

All 49 full-time faculty members of Notre Dame Law School--all 49 of them--signed a letter stating:

[Barrett] possesses in abundance all of the other qualities that shape extraordinary jurists: discipline, intellect, wisdom, impeccable temperament, and above all, fundamental decency and humanity.

Seventy-three law professors across the country, including former Obama administration Solicitor General Neal Katyal, stated this:

Although we have differing perspectives on the methods and conclusions in her work, we all agree that Professor Barrett's contributions to legal scholarship are rigorous, fair-minded, respectful, and constructive.

So she is criticized tenaciously because of her faith. She is criticized because she is not woman enough, whatever that may mean. She has even been criticized this past week and called a ``White colonizer.'' Two of her seven children were adopted from Haiti. She has been accused of using her children as props. How low can this go?

This is what Judge Barrett had to say about her family:

The president has asked me to become the ninth justice, and as it happens I am used to being in a group of nine--my family. Our family includes me; my husband, Jesse; Emma; Vivian; Tess; John Peter; Liam; Juliet; and Benjamin. Vivian and John Peter, as the president said, were born in Haiti, and they came to us five years apart when they were very young. And the most revealing fact about Benjamin, our youngest, is that his brothers and sisters unreservedly identify him as their favorite sibling.

Our children obviously make our life very full. While I am a judge, I'm better known back home as a [room] parent, carpool driver, and birthday party planner. When schools went remote last spring, I tried on another hat. Jesse--

That is, her husband-- and I became co-principals of the Barrett e-learning academy. And yes, the list of enrolled students was a very long one. Our children are my greatest joy, even though they deprive me of any reasonable amount of sleep.

Judge Barrett has even been criticized in her faith and been criticized in her relationship in her family.

Judge Barrett said this about her husband and her family:

I could not manage this very full life without the unwavering support of my husband, Jesse. At the start of our marriage, I imagined that we would run our household as partners. As it has turned out, Jesse does far more than his share of the work. To my chagrin, I learned at dinner recently that my children consider him to be the better cook.

For 21 years, Jesse has asked me every single morning what he can do for me that day. And though I almost always say ``Nothing,'' he still finds ways to take things off my plate. And that's not because he has a lot of free time. He has a busy law practice. It is because he is a superb and generous husband, and I am very fortunate.

Faith, her family--why are we doing personal attacks on a qualified candidate for the Supreme Court of the United States? First in her class, recognized by the faculty as superior, recognized by judges and leaders across the country as qualified--why are we into this conversation?

On September 29, an article from NPR was entitled ``Amy Coney Barrett's Catholicism Is Controversial But May Not Be Confirmation Issue.'' The article said:

Never before has the Court been so dominated by one religious denomination. . . .

That is, Catholics.

``It's legitimate for senators to be concerned about whether the court is reflecting the diversity of faith in the United States.''

Wow. Now it is maybe we have too many Catholics. Maybe this is one too many, and Senators should consider the greater diversity. As odd as it sounds, the article didn't identify the fact that Amy Coney Barrett would be the only Justice not to have graduated from Harvard or Yale. There doesn't seem to be a desire to have a diversity of opinion or background in that. It is just about this one area--her faith.

Imposing a religious test on a Supreme Court Justice is not only antithetical to the Constitution; it is a very slippery slope, and it is one we have been down before and I thought we had cleared.

In 1960--1960--then-Candidate John F. Kennedy stood in front of a group of ministers in Houston, TX, who were concerned about having a Catholic President because we, as a country, had never had a Catholic President, and there were all these rumors and innuendoes out there that the President would work for the Pope. So in 1960 JFK stood in Houston, TX, and spoke to a group of ministers and made this statement. He said:

I believe in an America . . . where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom.

Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you-- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

JFK said this:

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

[This] is the kind of America . . . I believe [in]. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe--a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition of holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a president--

Or in this case, I would say a judge-- working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test--even by indirection--for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.

We are a nation that celebrates faith and recognizes faith as a unifying factor, even in diversity of faith. I have had the privilege-- many of us have--to be able to pray with each other. We are Senators of different faiths, different backgrounds, different places. We work to treat each other with respect.

Faith is not something that Americans should demand--nor the Senate should demand--that people have to take off to be able to serve the American people. We don't take our faith off. It is not a jersey that we wear on the outside; it is the core of who we are on the inside. That is not something that I just take off to put on public service. You put on public service, but your core faith should not be challenged to be removed from your soul to be a viable person to be able to serve the Court.

Let's work on our concept of religious liberty. Whether you are a Christian, whether you are a Muslim, whether you are a Buddhist or a Hindu, you can be a great American and you can serve this great country in any location that you choose because we are a nation that honors and protects the right of free exercise of religion.

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