Noted Theologian Nancy Pelosi Was Unavailable for Comment

Dianne Feinstein

Dick Durbin

A clown who is neither Dianne Feinstein nor Dick Durbin

This afternoon, during a confirmation hearing for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein attacked the nominee for her Roman Catholic faith. Barrett is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who has written about the role of religion in public life and delivered academic lectures to Christian legal groups. Drawing on some of these materials, Feinstein launched a thinly veiled attack on Barrett’s Catholic faith, asserting that her religious views will prevent her from judging fairly. “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein said. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.” Feinstein is clearly hinting here at the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, a ruling that Feinstein supports so vociferously that she has even called it a “super-precedent.”

 

Amy Coney Barrett

Other Democratic senators took issue with Barrett over her faith as well. Senate minority whip Dick Durbin criticized Barrett’s use of the term “orthodox Catholic,” insisting that it unfairly maligns Catholics who do not hold certain positions about abortion or the death penalty. (Durbin himself is a Catholic who abandoned his previous pro-life position.) “Are you an orthodox Catholic?” he later asked Barrett point blank.
 

Luckily, the mighty, mighty Ben Sasse was there to point out the obvious:

The questions prompted GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska to ask Barrett about the Constitution’s religious test clause, which prohibits the imposition of religious scrutiny against public officials. The provision was adopted as a bulwark against legislation like the English Test Acts of the 17th and 18th centuries, which required officeholders to swear oaths conforming to the beliefs of the Church of England.
“I think some of the questioning that you have been subjected to today seems to miss some of these fundamental constitutional protections we all have,” Sasse said.