TOO CLEVER FOR US DIMS

Alabama, Faith, and the Senate (Charles Krauthammer, August 29, 2003, Townhall.com)

Senate Democrats are opposing [Alabama Attorney General Bill] Pryor for the content of his beliefs about abortion, a political sin made doubly abominable in the view of Schumer because they are so sincerely and deeply held.

Is Schumer therefore anti-Christian or anti-Catholic? No. But the net effect of Schumer's "deeply held views'' litmus test, now slavishly followed by his fellow Senate Democrats, is to disqualify from the bench anyone whose personal views of abortion coincide with those of traditional Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

This test is not a religious test. It's an ideological test -- that has the obvious effect of excluding from the bench tens of millions of believers who
suffer from "very, very deeply held views.''

The Schumer test is thus not a violation of the Article Six prohibition against religious tests for office. It is simply a clever way to get to the sameresult.

As always with Mr. Krauthammer, this is a very well thought out column which brings great precision to the issue. But its explanation is a bit too clever for us. If your test excludes every person of relatively orthodox religious views then it's an anti-religious test in our book. However, what's good for the goose is good for the gander; were we Senators we'd not vote to confirm anyone who did not have religious compunctions about abortion, homosexuality, etc. Of course, the difference is Democrats can't admit to having an anti-religious test or they'd get slain at the polls, while we'd feel quite confident going before the electorate with our anti-anti-religious test.

Here's a useful illustration of just how far out of touch congressional Democrats, the media, and other intellectual elites are on the centrality of
Judeo-Christianity to American life, USATODAY/CNN/Gallup poll results (USA Today, 8/27/03):

Do you approve or disapprove of a federal court decision ordering an Alabama court to remove a monument to the Ten Commandmentsfrom public display in its building?

Approve
19

Disapprove
77

No opinion
4

2003 Aug 25-26

When eight out of ten Americans agree on an issue, they're right. There's no reason they should yield to the judiciary's bizarre reading of the
Establishment Clause. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 29, 2003 9:30 AM