Ignore that Vatican in the corner
I never can figure out how this is supposed to work, this claim that a senator’s or justice’s religion makes no difference to what the senator or justice will do.
Much has been made of Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith following her nomination for the supreme court. Some have speculated it may affect her rulings on matters such as abortion and LGBT rights, while others have expressed disquiet about her membership of the secretive People of Praise group.
Why is it “speculation” to think that “Catholic faith” will influence how Barrett rules on abortion? The “Catholic faith” is fanatically opposed to abortion, and correspondingly indifferent to the rights and needs of women, so if you hold “Catholic faith” then that’s what you’re buying into.
Barrett herself has said she will follow the law rather than her own beliefs, and she appears to have a supporter from a prominent Democrat, House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Of course Barrett has said that; she wants the job! Wanting to make abortion illegal is probably part of why she wants it, though probably only a small part.
“It doesn’t matter what her faith is, or what religion she believes in,” said Pelosi who, like Joe Biden and Barrett, is Catholic. “What matters is does she believe in the Constitution of the United States.
But it does. It does matter. There are some believers who can bracket parts of their religions’ commands and claims, but it’s not safe or reasonable to assume that’s the case with all of them.
The Catholic Church and People of Praise exist for a variety of reasons, one of them being ‘unity is strength’; because organisation amplifies the power of every individual involved. Otherwise the world would consist of disconnected individuals. Animals have discovered that, and manifest it by herding, flocking and schooling behaviour.
Humans holding an ideology such as Catholicism in common are just another manifestation of this. The congregations all worship themselves. There is no need for prayer out loud, as God by all accounts knows every thought, even before it is formulated in the head of each individual on Earth. The vocal congregations reinforce group solidarity. Sects which pray silently achieve less than those who don’t.
If the individual prejudices of judges did not matter, all would ‘impartially’ come to the same conclusion in each case. But every judge in every court in the US is a politician, like it or not.
I believe some of them have to stand for election. And all law is ambiguous. Hence ‘dissenting opinions’.
If it became known that a prospective justice was an atheist, would the catholics take that into consideration, or ignore it? Hmmmmm, real tricky.
It is good to see that there are Catholic organizations standing against the Barrett nomination. Two are NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice (“Nuns on the Bus”) and Catholics for Choice.
Should get away from the Catholic thing, it isn’t a good look (valid though it is)…
They should be focusing on her record and her writings; all of those point towards fucking over Roe, the ACA, etc… and those are the connections that should be made. “Allow this judge a seat and all these popular things are gone”, that’s the message.
“Her Catholic beliefs mean she’ll rule the wrong way” is a bad message.
Yes but that’s a different question. That’s a “savvy” type question, a pragmatic question. In this one I’m asking about how it works to claim that people’s religious beliefs are sealed away from their legal or political actions.
It’s a kind of fiction that two types of people propagate. The first are the ones who desperately want the world to run the way it is ‘supposed to’. There should not be a religious test for people working for the Government AND those people are supposed to put personal religious beliefs aside and do their jobs according to the Constitution and the law. The second type hold, or purport to hold, religious beliefs and they use the no religious test argument to shield themselves and other believers from scrutiny – because they have every intention of bringing their religious beliefs to the job.
Problem is that because both factors are so widespread in the US, you kind of have to play the game or you’re suddenly the ‘bad person’. Silly really because any number of the Court’s right wing judges (and those on other court’s) have very clearly applied their personal beliefs to interpreting the law.
Rob:
If that were not the case, there would be no point to a ‘conservative’ like Trump appointing a judge with good ‘conservative’ credentials, as Trump has just done. They could pick a name out of a hat, as they do for say, jurors.
It depends on the credibility and integrity of the candidate. Some people can honestly compartmentalize religious belief from secular duty.
I once read an interview with Antonin Scalia, in which he said that he believed the devil was a real entity, operating actively and concretely in the real world. I don’t see, if you believe that’s true, how that will never enter into your assessment of right, wrong, facts, legalities, justice, credibility, or any of a number of other matters that supposed to be wholly secular.
On the other hand, I know of lots of judges who are religious, of many different Faith’s, but who judge cases independently of their beliefs. Even atheists, like me (full disclosure, I have not been a judge, but I worked as a research attorney in appellate courts for nearly 40 years, and in my role I was bound by the same oaths and duties as the actual judicial officers), must put aside personal beliefs and values as far as possible when faced with a difference between those beliefs or values, and the letter and intent of the law. Answering hypotheticals is part of the evaluation of the candidate, as well as examination of the candidate’s personal conduct in their practice of law, the record of their rulings and scholarly writings, if any, their position on legal principles such as stare decisis, and their character for impartiality, temperament, integrity, and so on.
With some people, it’s possible to believe their representations that they can rule on the basis of the secular law alone. With others, it may not be believable. I for one would have really liked to know that Scalia thought the devil was real BEFORE his nomination.
Yes, well that’s my point isn’t it. blatantly religious or partisan candidates have to pretend they have serious legal reasons for leaning the way they do and opponents are forced to pretend that is also the case to maintain the fig leaf of the constitution nd due process. In the meantime everyone knows that humans being what’s they are, many (most) minds on both sides are already made up.
Sonia Sotomayor is a good example of a Catholic justice who puts the Constitution and the rule of law ahead of her religious beliefs. I can’t think of any other current Catholics on the court (or evangelicals) who do this. The Jewish justices also tend to rule on the Constitution and the law rather than their personal religious beliefts.
The problem is, most of the Catholics I know (locally) would not be able to put their beliefs aside for anything. Many of them even use their beliefs to guide them through the grocery store! I do know some in Lincoln who are liberal thinkers and base much on their ideas of right and wrong, then read those ideas back into the church, which does not hold those ideas in many (perhaps most) cases. The problem is, even most of my most liberal Catholic friends still belief that anti-religious speech is not protected, or even permitted, by the Constitution, and that contraception should be illegal. Could they put that aside if they were a justice? I don’t know.
Somehow I don’t expect Barrett will be much like Sotomayor; she will be more like Scalia.
I find it astonishing that belief in any kind of supernatural isn’t grounds for automatic disqualification. It seems unlikely to make anyone better at judging and virtually guaranteed to make them worse at it. And that’s before even considering the agenda that come with the religious varieties of supernatural.
The issue is complicated somewhat by the fact that a hefty percentage of people who have a religious affiliation don’t really believe in the supernatural parts but adhere to the religion for the familiar other reasons – community, ritual, tradition, all that. That’s one reason I’m not saying no candidate for the court who has a religious affiliation should be considered. But this candidate is an outright fanatic.
This is about it not being politically wise for the Democrats to come out and attack someone’s religion in an election year, given that at-least-nominally religious people are still something like 70% of the US population. And since it’s probably not even possible for this candidate to be stopped from getting a seat on the court, what good (for Biden’s electoral chances) is lobbing types of criticism that won’t resonate with most voters?