Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, Amy Coney Barrett's first Judiciary Committee hearing back in 2017 has become infamous for the grilling she underwent for her religion.

Then, as now, she was an outstanding choice who received a rating of ``well qualified'' from the American Bar Association and praise from peers on both sides of the political spectrum.

But despite her superb qualifications, it soon became clear that more than one Democrat thought she couldn't be objective and thus shouldn't be confirmed to the court simply because she was a practicing Catholic who took her faith seriously.

``The dogma lives loudly within you,'' the Democratic ranking member on the Judiciary Committee said, ``and that is of concern.''

``Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?'' the Democratic whip asked, while the junior Senator from Hawaii suggested that Judge Barrett would use her Catholic faith rather than the law to decide questions.

And while Democrats toned down the anti-religious questioning in Judge Barrett's Supreme Court hearing last week, apparently realizing that openly displaying their suspicion of her religion might offend the tens of millions of American voters who take their faith seriously, their suspicion of her faith has still been on display.

Meanwhile, Democrats' media allies haven't hesitated to trot out articles on Judge Barrett's beliefs, usually with the faint--or in some cases not so faint--suggestion that her adherence to the teachings of the Catholic Church cast doubt on her fitness for the Supreme Court.

Yesterday's AP article on the fact that Judge Barrett served as a trustee at her children's Christian school--not exactly breaking news, as it was something that Judge Barrett had already disclosed--was just one more example of the media's implicit suggestion that the nominee's religion makes her unfit for public office.

As a side note, I am still waiting for bipartisan condemnation of media coverage of Judge Barrett's adopted children. Somehow the New York Times felt that Judge Barrett's brief mentions of her adopted children at her introduction and hearing warranted an article full of unsavory insinuations. I am wondering if Democrats would have found this appropriate coverage of a Democratic nominee's children.

From the attitude displayed by Democrats and the media, you would think that Judge Barrett was a member of some remote and bizarre religious cult instead of one of the largest faith groups in the world.

And Judge Barrett has not been the only judicial nominee subjected to scrutiny for her faith. The Democrats' Vice Presidential candidate grilled one judicial nominee on his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization known for dangerous activities like selling Christmas trees and providing coats for kids in need and partnering with other dangerous charities like Habitat for Humanity and Special Olympics.

Nor is this kind of suspicion of practicing Catholics and other Christians limited to the judicial realm. Democrats' suspicion of religious court nominees is just one feature of the left's growing hostility to religion generally.

More and more, Democrats and liberals are telling religious Americans that they should close their mouths and restrict their religion to the privacy of their homes.

In September, the former Democratic Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, suggested that Christianity has become ``judgmental'' and ``alienating.''

One of the current Democratic Presidential candidate's staffers recently said that she doesn't think orthodox Catholics, Muslims, or Jews should sit on the Supreme Court.

The current Vice Presidential candidate introduced legislation in this Congress to weaken the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a key law intended to protect Americans' right to live out their religion.

And forget religious liberty under a Democratic administration. The Democratic Presidential candidate has publicly announced that if he becomes President, he intends to go after the Little Sisters of the Poor--an order of nuns who spend their lives caring for the elderly poor--to force them--to force them--to offer a health insurance provision that violates their religious faith.

That is right. The Democrats' Presidential candidate has proudly announced that his administration will do the heroic work of pursuing a group of nuns who serve the poor to ensure that they are not allowed to fully live out their religious beliefs.

Where to start? Perhaps I should start by noting what should be obvious--that hostility to religion is fundamentally un-American. America was founded on religious liberty. Long before the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution was signed, people came to these shores seeking the right to practice their religion in freedom, and that concern for religious liberty continued through the founding.

Religious freedom was regarded as so fundamental that it is the very first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights. ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,'' the Bill of Rights begins, ``or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''

Now, some have interpreted references to religion in the Constitution to somehow mean that the Founders were looking to preference secularism over religion and exclude religion from the public square. Nothing could be further from the truth. Far from wanting to diminish the place of religion or exclude it from public life, the Founders saw religion as something to be fostered. In fact, religion was widely regarded as an essential ingredient in producing good citizens--the kinds of citizens who could maintain the republican government the Constitution had created.

To quote George Washington:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.

Democrats would like to reduce freedom of religion to a grudging toleration and religious people to second-class citizens. That is not what religious freedom has meant in America. In America, religious freedom has always been a robust freedom--permission to live out your faith not just in the confines of your home but in the public square.

I find it the height of irony that critiques of religious people like Amy Coney Barrett focus on the supposed dogmatism or intolerance of religious individuals because there are few people as dogmatic and intolerant as members of the left wing in America.

Remember when the Women's March was founded at the start of the current administration? More than one pro-life group wanted to join the march and stand for women's rights, but they were quickly kicked off the march's list of partners because the grand pooh-bahs of the pro- abortion left have decided that you can't stand for the dignity of both mother and child and still be a feminist.

It is pretty much the same in the Democratic Party. While a few pro- life Democrats are tolerated in spots where Democrats might not otherwise win, the pro-life Democrat is on the way to extinction at the party level. Last year, for example, the Democratic Attorneys General Association announced that it would not endorse or finance candidates who do not support abortion. So I find it the height of irony when Democrats complain about the supposed dogmatism of religious individuals.

Do Democrats evince the same concerns about dogmatism when avidly pro-abortion or avidly secular individuals are nominated to the Federal bench, or do they assume that these individuals can set aside their beliefs and rule fairly in cases involving abortion or religion? I am pretty sure they assume these individuals will be able to rule fairly according to the law. Yet they deny this respect to religious individuals. Instead, Democrats offer the demeaning and insulting suggestion that religious people alone are incapable of setting aside their personal beliefs.

I would like to see the attacks on Judge Amy Coney Barrett's faith stop, but more than that, I would like to see the Democratic Party return to a deeper respect for religion and the central place of a robust religious freedom in American life. I would like to be confident that future nominees will not face the suggestion that their faith should prohibit them from participation in the public sphere.

President Obama once spoke of working-class Americans as bitter individuals who cling to their religion. Needless to say, he didn't mean it in a positive way, but he should have. Many great Americans have clung to their religion and been inspired by it to do great things, from serving the needy to fighting for the oppressed. America has been made better by individuals who cling to their faith.

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