Sen. Diane Feinstein does not trust a Catholic, strictly because of her religion, to be a faithful public servant. Appalling.
Message from Sen. Diane Feinstein to American citizens: If you are a person of faith, you are excluded from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the US. That Amendment used to read:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ”
That Amendment, according to Sen. Feinstein, now reads: “ . . . nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof — unless you are a Catholic.”
Hatred in the form of the enslavement of blacks goes back a long way in this country. Hatred in the form of animus against and discrimination against Catholics goes back a long way in this country. Slavery is long dead, though residual racism remains. We thought that anti-Catholic animus was also dead, having finally met its demise with the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960.
We were wrong. Residual anti-Catholic animus is alive and well in, of all places, the halls of Congress — that body which the First Amendment charges not to prohibit the free exercise of religion.
In Congress, Sen. Diane Feinstein questioned a candidate for a federal judgeship about her . . . religion! Sen. Feinstein told Prof. Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic law professor at Notre Dame, a legal scholar and a former clerk on both the US Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the US, that “dogma lives loudly in [you], and that is a concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”
No doubt, in Sen. Feinstein’s view, no Catholic ever gave his life in the US Armed Forces for this country, nor fought for civil rights on the political battlefield. To Sen. Feinstein, people in whom “dogma lives loudly” must be subject to special, extra-judicial, unequal scrutiny when they are nominated to hold high office in this land, such as a federal judgeship. They are suspect.
In whom does “dogma lives loudly”? In American Jews, in American Muslims, in American non- Catholic Christians, in American adherents of other religions — not just in American Catholics. There is no person of faith who takes his or her faith seriously who is free of dogma — the dogma, for example, of Hear O Israel, the L-rd our G-d, the L-rd is One. There is no person of any faith who takes his or her faith seriously who is not offended by, stigmatized by, excluded by and demeaned by Sen. Feinstein’s statement to a female Catholic nominee for a federal judgeship that her “dogma” is a “concern.”
Funny, we did not discern that word “concern” — or any other limiting political stricture — in the “free exercise” of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Is it the slightest surprise that Prof. Barrett stated forthrightly that she would adhere to American law on the bench, unless her conscience required her to recuse herself? Is it the slightest deviation from judicial practice for judges to recuse themselves for all manner of reasons, without needing to be prompted to do so by a member of Congress lecturing them about a religion-based “concern”? Is it not a direct, acidic form of discrimination for a member of Congress to ask only a person in whom “dogma lives loudly” to declare her allegiance to the law? Did not Prof. Barrett write, long before Sen. Feinstein questioned her, “Judges cannot — nor should they try to — align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge”? Is it not obtuse of Sen. Feinstein to ask a scholar of American federal courts, constitutional law and statutory interpretation whether she can apply American law absent the intervention of her dogma?
Speaking of dogma, it is crystal clear from Sen. Feinstein’s line of questioning that she is perfectly oblivious to the fact that she has her own dogma, a political dogma, that would exclude a candidate for a federal judgeship because her role models include such judges as the late Antonin Scalia. Sen. Feinstein is entitled to her dogma no less than Prof. Barrett. The difference is this: Prof. Barrett, a proud Catholic, is forthright about her dogma. Sen. Feinstein disguises her dogma as a form of political objectivity, when it is anything but. In our experience, those who are conscious of and candid about their own dogma are far more likely to discern it, should it intrude in their professional obligations. It is politicians who fly on the imaginary screen of perfect objectivity — people such as Sen. Feinstein — who are least to be trusted to discern their own biases when these biases inappropriately color their decisions.
Not to mention, the frightening implications of Sen. Feinstein’s anti-Catholic, anti-faith action. Yes, the words of a US senator in a formal Congressional judicial confirmation constitute action. Among these implications:
• Sen. Feinstein’s violation of Article VI of the USConstitution, which says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Sen. Feinstein has rewritten this constitutional clause also, requiring the renunciation of one’s Catholic faith as a required test to hold a public trust in America.
• As Sen. Feinstein endlessly accuses President Trump of giving aid and comfort to enemies of American democracy, she does the same by drawing an invidious line between Americans who are loyal and Americans who are not, based on their religion.
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission forbids precisely the type of question that Sen. Feinstein asked Prof. Barrett. We have here another example of congressional behavior seen in other areas: the enforcement or advocacy of laws that congresspeople themselves do not regard themselves bound by.
• White supremacists in America are vile not only intrisincially, but also for the images and associations they entail. They have no significant power, but are chilling because of the horrendous memories of mass violence they elicit. Sen. Feinstein elicits memories of the religious wars that bedeviled Europe in earlier, pre-Nazi centuries. We trust she has no interest in rekindling those wars, but her line of questioning elicits horrendous memories of their own.
Especially at a time of dramatic polarization in the US, our highest elected officials, including the congresspeople, have a special resonsibility to watch their words — and watch their dogmas.
Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News
