Marty, Frist, Religion, and Judges

Martin Marty is, I think, right to complain about the unfairness and injustice, in the context of the judicial-nominations controversy, of equating "Democrats" with "enemies of people of faith."  (Relatedly, for a detailed discussion, written by a prominent conservative commentator, of a related controversy -- i.e., the over-heated charge that the Democrats' attacks on the William Pryor nomination were "anti-Catholic" -- see this article by National Review's Byron York).

Update:  National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru agrees that Frist and FRC missed the mark. 

And, Marty is right to remind us all that religious believers will, in good faith, often come to different beliefs on a variety of political issues.  (He would also recoil, I am sure, from the suggestion that no "real" Christian could come to, say, Michael Novak's views on the merits of democratic capitalism).  The MOJ community, I would think, is Exhibit A for this proposition.

That said, the excesses of Sen. Frist, Rep. DeLay, or the Family Research Council do not change the fact that there is a powerful political constituency that strongly supports (with energy and dollars) the exclusion-by-law of religiously informed argument and expression from our public life, political discourse, and civil society.  This constituency is, at present, focused particularly and aggressively on blocking President Bush's nominees to the Courts of Appeals, and has, at times, acted unworthily -- smearing intelligent, capable, honorable people and disingenuously characterizing the practice and purpose of the filibuster -- to achieve this goal.

To be clear:  The "Democrats" are not "anti-religion."  But there are powerful interest groups whose activities are animated by a belief that judges should not be confirmed -- period -- who believe that abortion is a grave wrong which may be reasonably regulated, or that the First Amendment permits government to accommodate religion and to include religious institutions in public-welfare programs.  The political reality today is that these ideologically driven interest groups -- Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, etc. -- are underwriting and driving the Democrats' obstruction of qualified judicial nominees (as is their right, of course) in the Senate, not because these groups are passionately devoted, Seamless Garment style, to social justice and solidarity, but because, in the end, they want to maximize the scope of the constitutionally protected abortion license.

It is fair to say that these groups' "litmus test" can be expected to have a disparate impact on nominees who are "conservative" Catholics or evangelical Protestants.  It is also fair to say, I think, that some Democratic senators seem to presume, almost conclusively, that a nominee with "deeply held" religious beliefs cannot be trusted to put aside those beliefs -- it is not clear, by the way, what it is meant by "puting aside" one's beliefs -- when deciding legal questions. 

Again, I agree with Marty that the reponse to the Senate Democrats' unfair, undemocratic, and uncharitable tactics is not to call them "anti-religion," but to call them, well, "unfair, undemocratic, and uncharitable."  (The appropriate response, by the way, to the latest argument that the filibuster is at the core of our constitutional structure, and is essential to a system of "checks and balances," is derisive chuckling).  It is indeed, as Marty writes, "outrageous" and "egregious" to equate Democrats' votes on cloture with anti-religious bigotry; it is also, in my judgment, "outrageous" and "egregious" for Democrats to persist in slandering as "extremist," unqualified, and hostile to freedom the eminently worthy nominees like (to name just two) William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown.

I should clarify, in conclusion, that I am not saying that there are no worthy or respectable arguments in favor of blocking these or other judicial nominees.  I am saying, though, that these arguments are not doing the real political work in the current dispute.   

Rick