In perhaps the most heated statements so far in today’s hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, attacked Democrats for what he perceived to be veiled attacks?on Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism — something he called a “pattern and practice of religious bigotry.”?
But in reality, today it has been Republicans, not Democrats who have referred to her religion. As for Barrett, she plans to nod to it in her opening statement where she will say that she believes in the power of prayer.?
Hawley specifically pointed to Barrett’s confirmation hearing from 2017 when?top-ranked Democratic member Sen. Dianne Feinstein pressed her on her writing about faith and the law. In a tense exchange, the Democratic senator questioned whether the judicial nominee could separate her Catholic views from her legal opinions.
“The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein pointedly said. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this county.”
The exchange invigorated and emboldened conservatives who said she had been a victim of anti-Catholic bias.
Today Hawley said, “When you tell somebody that they’re too Catholic to be on the bench, when you tell them they’re going to be a Catholic judge, not an American judge, that’s bigotry,” he said.?
“The pattern and practice of bigotry from members of this committee must stop,” he said, adding,?“And I would expect that it be renounced.”
Other Republicans, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ben Sasse, have talked about religion.??
But Democrats?like Sen. Chris Coons have said that they will concentrate not on religious liberty but on what she has written.?
The majority of the Supreme Court now is Catholic.
Watch:
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- Source:
cnn