Religious Judges and Double Standards

The Auth cartoon made it to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune today.  Of course, when pro-choice senators opposed pro-life Catholic Bill Pryor's nomination for the court of appeals a few years ago and were accused (wrongly) of anti-Catholicism for doing so, pro-choicers were aghast.  The issue, they correctly argued, was not Pryor's Catholicism, it was his position on whether the Constitution protects abortion rights.  (They were quick to point out, of course, that some Catholic senators opposed him.)  The five justices in the Gonzales v. Carhart majority, on the other hand, are obviously simply acting out their Catholicism, not their judicial philosophy about when the Constitution overrides democratic majorities.  As Rick observes, it's only deemed an unacceptable "religious position" if you vote against the abortion-rights side.

Tom