October
7, 2005
Now Religion Is an Issue?
By E.
J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON
-- Now we know: President Bush's supporters are prepared to be
thoroughly hypocritical when it comes to religion. They'll play
religion up or down, whichever helps them most in a political
fight.
Shortly
after Bush named John Roberts to the Supreme Court, a few Democrats,
including Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., suggested that the nominee
might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his religious
faith on his decisions as a justice.
Durbin had
his head taken off. ``We have no religious tests for public office
in this country,'' thundered Sen. John Cornyn, R Texas, insisting
that any inquiry about a potential judge's religious views was
``offensive.'' Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared
that ``Roberts' religious faith and how he lives that faith as
an individual has no bearing and no place in the confirmation
process.''
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But now that Harriet
Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, is in trouble with
conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that faith
are becoming central to the case being made for her by the administration
and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record. Don't worry,
the administration's allies are telling their friends on the right,
she's an evangelical Christian.
Marvin Olasky, a conservative
Christian writer who has been a strong Bush supporter, explained
his sympathy for Miers. ``Maybe it's the judicial implications
of her evangelical faith, unseen on the court in recent decades,''
Olasky wrote on his blog. ``Friends who know Miers well testify
to her internal compass that includes a needle pointed toward
Christ.''
James Dobson, the
founder and chairman of the evangelical organization Focus on
the Family, told Fox News' Brit Hume: ``We know people who have
known her for twenty, twenty-five years, and they would vouch
for her. ... I know the church that she goes to and I know the
people who go to church with her.'' On the Wednesday edition of
his radio show, Dobson was more specific: ``I know the individual
who led her to the Lord.''
Rather mysteriously,
Dobson, who was briefed on the nomination by Bush's chief lieutenant
Karl Rove, told Hume: ``I do know things that I am not prepared
to talk about here.'' He was equally cagey with The New York
Times: ``Some of what I know I am not at liberty to talk
about.'' The intrigue whetted the curiosity of Sen. Ken Salazar,
D-Colo., who said that ``if the White House gives information
to James Dobson, that information should be shared equally with
the U.S. Senate.''
Jay Sekulow, counsel
for the American Center for Law and Justice, said on Pat Robertson's
television show that the Miers nomination was ``a big opportunity
for those of us who have a conviction, that share an evangelical
faith in Christianity, to see someone with our positions put on
the court.''
The use of
Miers' religion as a magnet for conservative support is not just
the work of a few religious voices. It's part of the administration's
strategy. The New York Times reported that the White
House put Judge Nathan L. Hecht, Miers' close friend and fellow
member of the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, ``on at
least one conference call with influential social conservative
organizers'' to testify to her conservative faith.
Let's be clear: It
is pro-administration conservatives, not those terrible liberals,
who are making an issue of Miers' evangelical faith. Liberals
are not opposing Miers because she is an evangelical. Conservatives
are telling their friends to support Miers because she is an evangelical.
There is, however,
some good news. A significant number of conservatives are outraged
over the administration's look-at-her faith campaign. I was first
tipped off to the White House's pious strategy earlier this week
by a prominent conservative who is very sympathetic to people
of faith but angry at what he sees as the misuse of religion in
the Miers battle.
And Ed Morrissey,
whose ``Captain's Quarters'' is one of the most popular conservative
blogs, said publicly what other concerned conservatives have said
privately. ``The push by more enthusiastic Miers supporters to
consider her religious outlook smacks of a bit of hypocrisy,''
Morrissey wrote. ``After all, we argued the exact opposite when
it came to John Roberts and William Pryor when they appeared before
the Senate Judiciary Committee. ... Conservatives claimed that
using religion as a reason for rejection violated the Constitution
and any notion of religious freedom. Does that really change if
we base our support on the same grounds?''
©
2005, Washington Post Writers Group
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