WSJ: Two Catholics
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/amy-coney-barrett-and-joe-biden-two-catholics-one-double-standard-11601333535
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Amy Coney Barrett and Joe Biden: Two Catholics, One Double Standard
Will Joe Biden be asked to repudiate the ugly attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s faith?
For this election, Democrats have pulled out all the stops to let Americans know what a swell Catholic Joe Biden is. The party’s larger message, both timely and welcome, is that it’s OK to be a person of faith.
The test is whether the same courtesy applies to Mr. Biden’s fellow Catholic, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Even before President Trump formally nominated her for the Supreme Court on Saturday, the calumnies started circulating: the faith community her family belongs to is a “Christofascist cult,” she and her husband are “white colonizers” for adopting two children from Haiti, her Catholicism makes her, in the words of Bill Maher, “a f— nut,” and so on.
Which suggests that the first question Mr. Biden should have to answer in Tuesday night’s debate with Mr. Trump is whether the former vice president will unequivocally repudiate the attacks on Judge Barrett’s faith—and make clear they have no home in his Democratic Party.
Let’s start by acknowledging that the Biden campaign has thus far been striking for its embrace of traditional religious imagery and language. In his televised convention appearance, Sen. Chris Coons praised the influence of Mr. Biden’s Catholicism on his public life and career. “People, Joe believes, were made in the image of God,” said the senator. “Joe learned that from his parents and the nuns right here in Delaware, who taught him and inspired in him a passion for justice.”
Likewise House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said “Joe Biden’s faith in God gives him the strength to lead.” Michelle Obama called him “a profoundly decent man guided by faith.” Just so no one missed the point, the convention opened with an invocation by a Latino evangelical pastor and closed with benedictions from a Catholic nun, a Jesuit priest, a rabbi and an imam.
The press corps has responded with pious affirmation. Scarcely a profile of Mr. Biden appears that fails to mention the rosary beads he carries in his pocket or that he is a regular churchgoer. Mr. Biden himself speaks of his campaign as “a battle for the soul of America.”
In short, eight years after delegates to the Democratic convention famously booed God, God is back. And faith itself is now presented as something that inspires people to be better.
Enter Amy Coney Barrett.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, she was rightly extolled as having inspired many women. She once spoke about the command from Deuteronomy 16—“Justice, justice, shall you pursue”—that was hanging on the wall in her chambers, and how being a mom was held against her when she was first looking for work after law school. Notwithstanding sharp differences in their jurisprudence, aren’t the professional achievements of Judge Barrett, a working mom of seven, also an inspiring story of a strong and gifted woman who has overcome?
Alas, this is not how Judge Barrett has been treated. Though the Constitution precludes a religious test, and Judge Barrett has explicitly declared her faith does not dictate how she decides cases, the good will about Catholicism featured at this year’s Democratic convention was conspicuous by its absence among Democrats three years ago when she was up for confirmation to the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In an are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been tone once reserved for people suspected of being communists, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin asked her, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein declared Judge Barrett’s faith troubled her. “The dogma lives loudly within you,” she infamously said.
This time the religion-based attacks have largely zeroed in on People of Praise, a charismatic Christian community to which Judge Barrett and her husband belong. Because it holds traditional views of marriage and family, the idea is that anyone who belongs, especially a woman, must be willfully backward and perhaps a little creepy. Newsweek even ran a story claiming—falsely—that People of Praise was the inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
You might think that Judge Barrett’s extraordinary life—as a distinguished law professor, as a highly regarded appellate judge, and as a woman who will become the first Supreme Court mom with school-age children—might occasion a rethink of prejudices against religious moms with large families. Or about Jesse Barrett, the very model of a husband who supports his wife in her chosen career.
Instead, this accomplished professional is painted as a helpless female living in her own little Gilead. If the Democrats and their allies keep it up, these attacks will undo all the work Mr. Biden has undertaken to persuade the American voter his campaign is friendly to religion and committed to restoring decency to our civic life.
In staging this year’s convention, and especially in their celebration of their nominee’s Catholicism, Democrats presented themselves as a party that honors Americans of faith. On Tuesday night, Joe Biden should be pressed on whether he’ll insist that the same standard be applied to Judge Barrett.
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
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Double standards in politics?
Say it ain't so!
Obviously, the GOP would never engage in such a thing, as their proud support of selecting a principled candidate in the run-up to a general election clearly demonstrates.
I know, that's completely different.
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I was read somewhere that the “word” is out to the democrat not to bring up the religion item for judge Barrett
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@taiwan_girl said in WSJ: Two Catholics:
I was read somewhere that the “word” is out to the democrat not to bring up the religion item for judge Barrett
Pelosi.
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@Copper said in WSJ: Two Catholics:
Who is a better Catholic, Mr. Biden or Ms. Barrett?
Barrett is doing a better job walking the walk.
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I must admit, I quite like Pope Francis. He doesn't sound like any politicians I can think of.
I dare say he's a better Catholic than either of them.
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@Axtremus said in WSJ: Two Catholics:
@Copper said in WSJ: Two Catholics:
Who is a better Catholic, Mr. Biden or Ms. Barrett?
Pelosi.
Yep, you would.
