Democrats are attacking the religious beliefs of some possible replacements for Ginsburg. Their first target is Judge Amy Coney Barrett who is Roman Catholic. In 2017, she was attacked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other Senators for her religious beliefs when she was nominated for a seat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Here’s what Feinstein said::
Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different.
And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.
In the end, the dogma that trumped Amy Coney Barrett’s dogma is the issue of abortion. ““You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems,” Feinstein said. “And Roe entered into that, obviously.”
You see, only liberal religionists, atheists, abortion advocates, secularists, statists, and, of course, Senators like Feinstein can have dogma. The hysterical response to the death of Ginsburg is a full demonstration that “dogma lives loudly” with the religious and secular Left. It’s impossible to avoid dogma, religious or secular. David Mills wrote the following in “Did Justice Ginsberg Endorse Eugenics? Was She a Racist?”:.
Ginsburg wanted to drive legal abortion into the Constitution. She wanted to make it a right equal to the First Amendment rights, even though the text never mentions it.
Indeed, she even wanted to make it a superior right, in that the government should fund it, because the government has to make sure everyone can enjoy it. The government can’t fund newspapers just because the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press. But it should fund abortions because without them women can’t be completely equal to men.
Now, that’s some dogma!
A short trip back in time will show that our founders were not opposed to religious dogma so long as the dogma is practiced in the appropriate sphere.
John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated June 28, 1813, stated the following regarding Christianity:
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young men could unite, and these principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer. And what were these general principles? I answer, the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.
Adams also included the “general principles of English and American liberty” that also were based on the general principles of Christianity which can be seen in early colonial documents (e.g., The Mayflower Compact) and colonial charters and constitutions.
Then there is the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, the world’s oldest functioning written constitution, which served as the model for the United States Constitution in 1787. Samuel W. Calhoun writes ((Samuel W. Calhoun, “Getting the Framers Wrong: A Response to Professor Geoffrey Stone,” UCLA Law Review (October 24, 2009): https://bit.ly/2YPV70K)):
Adams was the principal draftsman [of the Massachusetts Constitution]. . . , a document that David McCullough calls “one of the most admirable, long-lasting achievements of . . . Adams’s life.” ((David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon and Schuster 2001), 220.)) The Preamble referred “to the constitution as ‘a covenant’ or ‘compact’ between the people and God.” ((John Witte, Jr., _“_A Most Mild and Equitable Establishment of Religion”: John Adams and the Massachusetts Experiment” in James H. Hutson, ed., Religion and the New Republic: Faith in the Founding of America (Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000), 137–138 supra note 19, at 1, 19.)) The language bespoke a “covenant ceremonial liturgy, rooted in the Hebrew Bible and in a New England tradition going back to the Mayflower Compact of 1620.” ((Witte, “A Most Mild and Equitable Establishment of Religion,” 137–138.)) The Declaration of Rights, which followed the Preamble, “affirmed the ‘duty’ of all people to worship ‘The Supreme Being, the great creator and preserver of the universe.’” ((McCullough, John Adams, 221–22, note 56. The constitutional convention altered this language to make worshiping God “a right of all men, as well as a duty” (224).)) The Constitution also required that both the Governor and Lieutenant Governor “be of the Christian religion.” ((Witte, “A Most Mild and Equitable Establishment of Religion, note 57, 10. “Article I. Any person chosen governor, lieutenant-governor, councillor, senator, or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: “I, A.B., do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth; and that I am seized and possessed, in my own right, of the property required by the constitution, as one qualification for the office or place to which I am elected.”)) Even more significantly, the Constitution, in language not drafted by Adams but supported by him, ((Witte, “A Most Mild and Equitable Establishment of Religion, 10–11, 24.)) also stipulated “the payment of religious taxes in support of congregational ministers.” ((Witte, “A Most Mild and Equitable Establishment of Religion, 10.))
These and many more indicators demonstrate that the Enlightenment Era did not erase America’s Christian heritage.
Calhoun notes the following in the conclusion to his article:
Professor Stone concedes that virtually all the Founders, traditional religionists and otherwise, believed that religion was valuable in fostering “civic virtue,” keeping alive “the best sense of moral obligation,” and confining persons “within the bounds of social duty.” It is completely unrealistic to think that a religious person’s sense of right and wrong could ever be completely cabined within the private sphere….
Professor Stone ignores a key source of insight—the United States Supreme Court. The Court has repeatedly said that no constitutional violation occurs from the fact that a governmental action implements a policy that coincides with a religious belief. ((Calhoun, “Getting the Framers Wrong”: https://bit.ly/2YPV70K)))
Every law reflects someone’s dogma. A decision by the Supreme Court is dogma. The question is, What is the source of that dogma? By what standard? What is Feinstein’s standard? Reason? Whose version of reason? Is reason always reasonable? Who’s to say? The majority of five justices? Why, and what is their ultimate standard? Legal precedent? What is the standard that was used to lay the first layer?