The fight over Barrett’s confirmation would almost certainly build trust between President Trump and social conservatives. It would energize Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.
The facts of Barrett’s life — that she is a mother of seven children, and that when she speaks about her Catholic faith, she speaks about God as if she really believes in His existence — will provoke nasty and bigoted statements from Democratic senators and liberal media personalities. Again.
.. Professor Barrett’s qualifications become stronger by virtue of her willingness to write candidly and intelligently about difficult and sensitive ethical questions: Our universities, our judiciary, and our country will be the poorer if the Senate prefers nominees who remain silent on such topics.”.. the fight to confirm her will contain edifying political lessons. We don’t have religious tests for public office in this country, and having a republic that does not have an established religion does not require excluding sincere believers from positions of authority... they should be able to compel religious people to conform to liberal moral norms — which just so happen to track exactly to doctrinal developments in the once dominant Mainline Protestant churches... The ACLU would compel Catholic hospitals to perform abortions... Evangelicals at a crisis pregnancy center will be made to advertise for abortion... contain an even deeper lesson, one that is salutary for both liberal secularists, who once indulged in triumphalism, and conservative believers, who have been tempted to despair: Believing Catholics and Evangelicals will continue to make their contributions to the common good of this country. You will live with us. If we’re going to have peace, we’re going to make it together.
Roy Moore is unfit to serve
electing Mr. Moore would be a sure way to worsen Washington’s problems. His unapologetic extremism would pour gasoline on the already raging fire of partisanship and dysfunction.
.. If you think the Senate has failed to attend to the country’s real problems, just wait until he gets there. Mr. Moore spins up “facts” to serve his worldview, as when he claimed that
- sharia was in force in Illinois or that
- the law required football players to stand for the national anthem.
- He called for a de facto religious test when he argued that Muslims elected to represent their communities should not be seated in Congress.
.. once a federal court had made a decision on the matter, he should have complied. Instead he refused, leading to his removal from the bench. After eventually making his way back into black robes, he was sidelined a second time after again refusing to obey federal court rulings.
.. Mr. Moore’s mockery of his judicial oath is only one indication of questionable moral fitness. Another is how he profited from his charity.